Lisa Gavales, CMO at Express, is thinking about multi-channel in a way that many retailers haven’t since the advent of the Internet.

The Internet and its rapid expansion and increase in importance, forced retailers to put people in specific roles and report on specific numbers and attribute sales to specific channels. But, Gavales asks, when a customer is shopping your brick and mortar store and she has a mobile device in her hand and is shopping on your app, for instance, what channel is she really on? And not to mention, what channel gets credit for the sale?

What’s important to consider, says, Gavales, is not so much which channel is seeing the most ROI, but the ROI of the entire marketing department and how EVERY channel is delivering on the brand promise. If that’s your ultimate goal, and you stick to that by sticking to your brand promise and delivering on it to customers without fail, your individual channels’ success will surely reflect that.

In the below video, Gavales outlines 4 key points in making sure your brand promise is being delivered through all channels. She highlights:

– Social: Make sure you’re talking more about engagement than any other metric. Your customers are here – you need to be there too. And what could be more powerful than a channel where you can market to your customers DAILY, without them getting mad at you?
– Mobile: It breaks the boundaries of what channels are. A customer is walking into your store with a mobile device. What are we going to do that’s going to change the way we do business?
– Consistency: It’s become harder for the customer – don’t make them search the web, the web really can be just that: a web that our customers get tangled in. Give customers the answers in less clicks.
– Organize Around the Brand: Ten years or so ago, we organized around channels, now we should start thinking about organization around brands, encompassing ALL channels.

Enjoy the video and as always, tell us your thoughts in the comments section!