Multi-Channel Marketing Director, Manager, and Hands-On
Multi-Channel Marketing Highlights
Project Client:
Dozens of clients (via marketing firm), several companies (as a hire)
Project Components:
eCommerce / eRetail, Cross Promotions, Website Design, Website Programming, Internet / Online Marketing, Interactive CD-ROM Development, Video Production, Animation Production, Content Creation and Copywriting, Print Media Design
Chase's Involvement:
eCommerce / eRetail Direction and Management, Project Management, Account Management, Lead Creative Agent, Web Programmer (html, css, javascript, asp), Web Designer, Multimedia Programmer (Macromedia Director & Lingo), Storyboard creation, Script writing, Copywriting, Marketing Film Production and Direction, Animation Production and Direction
Project Staff:
Chase in multiple roles, graphic artists, web designers, videographers, video editors, animators, programmers, marketing professionals, etc.
Project Timeframes:
From 30 days to 365 days (and more for on-going)
Project Budgets:
From $5,000 to $100,000 and more
Leaving the Agency Life to Work Full-time on just eCommerce
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After spending 7 years working in his own Marketing Firm, in May 2008 Colin Chase started working for R&P Pools, Inc. in Buffalo NY (their primary brand and website being PoolSupplies.com). As the 4th largest online retailer for purchasing pool supplies and related products, the primary task for Chase was to maintain the current level of sales and grow the Internet Division if possible (as this was during the first full-fledged knowledge that the "great" Recession had begun). Being in the Leisure industry and specifically relating to swimming pools it was later learned that all of their competitors were negative or flat at best in regard to growth in 2008 and 2009.
Chase brought with him extensive knowledge of Marketing in general and in creating a big image on a small budget, something he had become very adept at doing while working for niche manufacturers nationally and small companies regionally during his time in the Marketing Firm. However, the owner of R&P Pools had cultivated a culture of "do it as inexpensively as possible" and the employees had created their own culture of "just get by." This worked despite the obvious deficits it would engender as the pool industry was experiencing tremendous growth online from 2001 through 2006. However, starting in 2007 this stopped working (as rightly it should) and a sort of panic seeped in as the Recession started to work against the pool industry. This is when Chase was found and brought on board as the eCommerce Manager.
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Within the first 6 months Chase introduced a new paradigm, a mindset of multiple sales channels
working together in a comprehensive and cohesive manner to bring about an increase in sales. The Recession had brought with it a more savvy Internet Shopper, one that looked into multiple online channels to compare products and prices before making a purchase. Even though R&P Pools had been selling in multiple online channels, yet they were keeping their efforts disparate and not working to bring about a single vision or experience to the user. This disparity in the sales channels caused sales to be lost and so Chase enacted a few simple actions that resulted in incremental yet significant change over two pool seasons (2008 and 2009).
First, by holding weekly meetings during the busy season with the Internet Department Staff, Chase brought about a comradery that also included accountability. Second, Chase presented his cohesive vision of what the customers should see and experience. Chase helped the staff to understand that a similar and specifically targeted visual image, vernacular, and offer would create a more profitable multi-channel approach. Third, Chase also initiated weekly meetings with the owner and the Director of Sales (who was primarily responsible for Custom Sales using highly experienced pool industry staff) to bring about "buy in" for the new paradigm from the very top.
The end result was an increase in online sales revenue of nearly 25% in both 2008 and 2009. That equaled nearly 50% growth in 2 years at the height of the Recession by employing a more cohesive and better integrated multi-channel approach.
Chase also sought to improve the visual imagery of the websites (10 sites in all) and the email marketing. He was able to realize a nearly 50% increase in revenue from the Email Marketing Channel in 2009 alone. The increase in email marketing revenue was also attributed to additional changes enacted by Chase beyond just the imagery and included both targeted Landing Pages (rather than sending customers to category pages) and a more singular purpose. The singular purpose meaning that they would seek to diminish "unregulated" thought which distracts customers, as well as seek to move the customers along very specifically as directed by the content and design.
Leaving the Leisure Industry to Work in the Snack Food Industry
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In 2010 Chase was lured into the Snack Food industry by the brand Brothers-All-Natural. This was an emerging brand of dried fruit specifically in the freeze-dried fruit category of Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG). Again Chase entered a company where the focus was disparate at best and broken at worst in regard to online activities, so he set out immediately to bring the online activities together in a cohesive manner with a multi-channel approach.
Rather than debating with clients while he worked in an agency setting, now Chase was debating with the top management (specifically the two owners) regarding why the company should invest in such activities. As in the past many of these debates were won by Chase and the budget provided to implement these projects, though there were a handful of projects that were not provided enough resources initially.
At the start Chase focused on creating a new PCI-compliant and modern-looking website, updating the antiquated website that had existed for more than 3 years at the start of Brothers-All-Natural's foray into online selling. The focus of the new website was on appearance, functionality, usability, and very importantly SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Second Chase planned and executed a consistent and more graphical email marketing campaign that included targeted Landing Pages. Thirdly, Chase experimented with SEM (Pay-per-Click ads on Google) and Social Media (the brand's Facebook page) to determine where his efforts would best be spent. It was soon discovered that for a "healthy" snack food item it was apparent that Social Media would work best due to catering to groups of health-conscious individuals who rallied around their cause. The freeze-dried fruit market had not yet been saturated enough to be commoditized, which leads to more price-comparison shopping. And so the first three primary online sales channels were SEO, Email Marketing, and Social Media.
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Chase soon received approval for publishing press releases through a Press Release Distribution service, as these were excellent for boosting SEO ranking as well as for generating much needed publicity. So a bi-monthly approach was enacted for creating and publishing Press Releases with the goal of reaching monthly press release distribution within one year. This new sales channel (really a subset of Content Marketing) led to Chase's creating the successful and highly significant Cross Promotions channel. The Press Releases also led to obtaining highly valuable and yet "unpaid" Expert Endorsements (i.e., no remuneration was provided as the Endorsements were freely given).
Starting in March of 2011 and repeating in December of 2011 and March of 2012, Colin Chase spearheaded cross promotions with Warner Brothers Home Video (for the movies Yogi Bear and Happy Feet 2) and with Big Idea Entertainment (owner of VeggieTales). These cross promotions included sweepstakes and packaging modifications as well as inserts and on-package stickers. Each promotion became more successful than the last to the point where the Happy Feet 2 sweepstakes took in over 60,000 entries and accounted for over 15,000 subscribers to the email marketing list. Another successful sales channel was developed and added yet more evidence that a comprehensive and cohesive multi-channel approach is the most profitable.
The end result was an increase in online sales revenue of 60% in 2011 by actively discovering what channels worked the best together and relentlessly pursuing these.
Back to the Beginning - The Start of a Marketing Firm
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During the summer of 2000, Colin Chase was provided an opportunity that he felt warranted taking a chance out on his own. A NY State Winery had requested that Chase create one of the first winery eCommerce websites in NY State. This family owned operation had learned of Chase due to his reputation in the region as a web design teacher, having taught web design classes at a regional SUNY Community College from 1997 through 1999. At that time, the only way Chase could implement such a website was to use the Mercantec platform via Verio web hosting, and the monthly cost from Verio for this service was a big investment for this small winery. By 2003 the costs of conducting eRetail had become significantly reduced, making it much more affordable for small businesses like this winery to sell online.
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After the winery project Chase continued to grow his small consulting firm, and by the end of 2001 he had acquired a handful of regional clients and started to move into the realm of multimedia marketing. From this point through 2012 Chase has expanded his repertoire of eCommerce platforms to include: BigCommerce (Interspire), PDG Cart, Paypal Shopping Carts, ASP-driven Tek9, osCommerce, CubeCart, and Miva Merchant. In 2009 Chase also investigated IBM's WebSphere in depth for R&P Pools and created an in depth cost-benefit analysis.
In the beginning Colin Chase completed all of the necessary programming for his clients' projects, but as his firm grew he moved into project management and business development, focusing his energies on multiple channel marketing before the term "multi-channel" had come into full use. However, Chase only continued with some of the programming (as lead Multimedia Programmer for Macromedia Director projects - the interactive CD-ROMs) as well as for a variety of HTML and CSS programming projects as was needed.
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In June of 2002 Colin Chase incorporated his firm as Chase Information Systems, Inc. and opened a suite of offices in a small western New York town. By the spring of 2003 the company had 3 full time employees (including Chase) and 2 part time employees. From 2003 through 2006 the firm engaged in a diverse variety of marketing projects, as well as continuing with a few small eCommerce clients. At its height the company employed 5 full time and 3 part time professional staff.
During the last half of 2006 and into 2007 the large multimedia projects that had become the company's real revenue driver, had begun to dry up as the beginning signs of the economic Recession hit mid-sized manufacturers first. Chase reasoned with the decision makers within these manufacturers by explaining that during a Recession is when more resources should be invested into marketing in order to eat up their competition's customer base. However most of the manufacturers simply did not see the advantage of what Chase was proposing, or they felt unable to comply with Chase's wisdom.
Effective Multi-Channel Marketing
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During the seven years of managing his small custom programming and interactive marketing firm, Colin Chase oversaw and worked on dozens of projects while also obtaining the lion's share of all internal company sales work (i.e., Business Development). Chase put in 60-hour weeks for many years as he grew his firm. He developed the internal marketing for his company, as well as leading his creative team in their efforts on behalf of the clients.
Chase's marketing firm did it all: print media, content creation / copy writing, photography, video production, 3D animations, web design, Flash design, Internet marketing, and interactive multimedia marketing. Chase would not commit his company to a specific type of project until he had a good understanding of what would be involved even down to the minutiae. Thus often Chase could be found having detailed conversations with his staff or other professional colleagues well into the evening and always on Saturdays.
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The phrase "Multi-Channel Marketing" was not initially used by Chase until 2003 when various colleagues started mentioning Chase's firm as having success in this realm. Chase would learn of a new marketing technique or learn of a new sales channel and then educate himself on the topic. He would then educate his clients in regard to areas where his knowledge seemed applicable. Chase was able to do this in a humble and non-assuming manner and was often viewed as a marketing educator. Chase worked tirelessly for his clients, working as if their success was inextricably linked to his own. This mindset paid off as the marketing projects his firm completed were stimulating new business for his clients while also winning international marketing awards. (See the multimedia projects section, specifically
http://www.colin-chase.com/project_examples_multimedia_1.html and
http://www.colin-chase.com/project_examples_multimedia_2.html.)
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To offer a simple definition Chase had said, "Multi-channel marketing is a marketing effort that utilizes at least two sales channels." This could be as simple as a brick and mortar store distributing a leaflet in a local newspaper while also conducting a local Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising campaign using Google AdWords. However, Chase points out that the complexity can grow exponentially from this point.
Multi-Channel Marketing for eRetail
While managing PoolSupplies.com, Chase directed and managed complicated million-dollar multi-channel marketing campaigns involving: SEM (Search Engine Marketing for PPC ads), SEO (Search Engine Optimization for natural results), SCS (Shopping Comparison Sites), Email Marketing, Auction Sites, and direct traffic originating from a catalog that was mailed to well over 300,000 households.
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By coordinating and implementing a comprehensive and cohesive multi-channel marketing plan, Chase and his team were able to increase revenue by nearly 25% in both 2008 and 2009 at the height of the worst economic recession since World War 2. This accomplishment is note-worthy as it came to a company which catered to middle-class America selling high-end leisure items. This company listened to Chase in this one regard, "Let's take the earnings while our competitors are away from the table." This notion was significant in that the backyard, home and patio market was struggling and their competitors were cutting back on their marketing efforts.
By engaging in an aggressive and yet closely monitored multi-channel marketing plan, this company grew while their largest competitors stayed flat or decreased - some decreased up to 25% and even more. Under Chase's leadership, the Internet division of Leisure Living garnered a portion of the backyard, home and patio market that they had not beforehand been able to penetrate.
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As mentioned above in more detail, Chase actively sought the best online sales channels to engage in for the Brothers-All-Natural brand. By purposefully exploring several channels and ascertaining their potential, Chase was able to grow Brothers-All-Natural's online sales by 60% in 2011. Several sales channels were developed and made successful even though the owners had not previously recognized that these areas could indeed be profitable channels.
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