Let me explain my holiday shopping experience to you.

First, I received a print catalog through the mail from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art in mid-November.

Now, I’m not sure how they got my work address or even knew that I might be inclined to shop in their store–I haven’t been to New York in years and I am not a current member of their museum.

I suspect that my subscription to our Houston Museums and being a member of a firm that supports our local museum may have meant that my name and work address might have been sold to them.

After perusing the catalog’s glossy pages for several days and admiring the beautiful colors of a particular piece that I thought that my mother might like, I finally logged into their web site to check out their site, any current deals and examined the one item more closely.

I finally took the catalog home on the first week-end of December.

That Sunday, I went online with the intent to buy. I ended up doing all of my Christmas shopping for my entire list with the store and, in the interest of future discounts, became a museum member, to boot. In the last few minutes of my shopping, I made a quick call to the museum’s customer service department to confirm discount codes.

My shopping was done in about 15 minutes. But in reality, the purchases had been percolating for weeks.

The lesson? My very large spend–well, for me, anyways–was a result of both print and digital efforts. Marketing is not limited to just one touch–it is multiple touches by multiple channels.

If you review my interaction with the Museum, you will see that I met with them in nearly every way possible but physically: print, PC, Android tablet and iPhone.

Don’t put all of your eggs in any one basket be they print, digital, email, mailers, catalogs or whatever. They should all work in tandem.

As a marketer recently told me, we have all these different paint colors on our palette and we have to mix them just right. Otherwise, all you’ll get is a really ugly brown.