Most of my weblog posts are pure stream of consciousness style writing. They are written from start to finish and posted. I tend to start with one topic out of the gate and just jump right into writing. It is something that more or less just happens. Within the midst of that effort any time an idea is associated with a citable reference, then I try to include a link or at least the author and the year. I’m sure that is something that can be improved. Striving toward improvements should always be a pursuit worth embracing. Referencing the foundation of how we build out our knowledge is something Stephen Hawking talked about in the weighting tome On the Shoulders of Giants (2003). It is a very heavy book for those of you who will be picking up a physical copy.
Some folks will say it is always about getting more from less. Alternatively, some folks may say it is about threading the needle and figuring out how to line everything up with perfect orchestration. Or more to the point it is about beginning with the end in mind (Covey, 1989). Managing multichannel contact strategies is all about optimizing resource allocation. That is something that has to occur from the start. It is something that should occur by design. The right amount of work needs to be performed by the right resources to deliver optimal results. Campaigns rarely have near infinite resources. Most of the time somebody is trying to talk to the crowd resource constraints will be real. Even well-funded campaigns need to be optimized. That includes balancing both the effort required in terms of resources and the cost required for those resources. Forecasting that includes longitudinal analysis of campaign strategy effectiveness. That type of analysis can provide a powerful resource baseline. That type of analysis tends to only occur when the right resources are in place. It tends to only happen after a certain resource threshold is broken.
Conducting routine resource inventories is part of conducting a successful multichannel campaign. It is also something that tends to occur within larger campaigns. Smaller campaigns tend to figure out what it takes to complete the objective and drive toward that goal. All of the pieces have to come together. Channel availability may change daily and channel functionality may change periodically. Resource availability will change hourly. Channel resource inventories help map out what channels are available at any given time. You have to know what work can be done to map the right campaign strategies to available resources. That effort helps map out the capacity. However, capacity is only one side of the coin. You have to know just how effective each channel will be. That involves understanding just how big the crowd is for the channel and just how effective the resources are at talking to the crowd.
Channels could describe a lot of different contact methods within a multichannel contact strategy. Throughout our discourse we will talk about a number of channels including email, television, internet, radio, social media, phone calls, video calls, text (SMS), and chat to name a few. Some of those channels require a lot of infrastructure. Some of them require a lot of planning and preparation to execute well. Figuring out how to do them all at one time is about understanding how to build rock solid multichannel contact strategies. That is a topic that we will be focusing on together for the next few months. It is a topic worthy of extensive inquiry. Together we will figure out the best ways to engage the crowd.
