In May 2009, Omniture and The CMO Club asked 102 CMOs to rate the relative effectiveness of digital-marketing media. The vast majority (78 percent) gave top marks to email marketing, but a sizable minority (33 percent) reported success in emerging social-media channels, too.

That's because, these days, consumers "engage with a variety of online communications and activities and have different preferences and tastes," explains Dan Forootan in an article at MarketingProfs. "Studies like this underscore the importance of including a full range of interactive and mobile-marketing vehicles in your digital-marketing campaigns."

With this in mind, Forootan offers 10 ways to enhance the results of your cross-functional email and online strategies. Among his suggestions for mixing things up: 

• Add social-networking options to the registration page where subscribers sign up for email newsletters and offers.
• Use the sidebar on your email-marketing newsletter to list all company social-networking profiles, and use social-networking profiles to gather newsletter sign-ups.
• Announce new LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter feeds in your email newsletters, and invite subscribers to join in.
• Launch a regular Q&A section in your company’s email newsletter that specifically addresses reader questions across all social-networking platforms.
• Link to your help forum or YouTube video tutorials when you send purchase-confirmation emails.
• Develop content for offers, newsletters and blogs that reflects the topics discussed by customers on social networks.

The Po!nt: Mix up that menu! Your customers don't view email, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as mutually exclusive channels; neither should you. Find ways to whip up some fresh cross-channel treats!

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