What if I told you that the old school direct response mentality of ‘Buy, die or leave is DEAD? Instead, omnichannel marketing is your weapon for a future-proof business.
Customers are savvier than ever and their expectations are higher than ever before. That means you must build meaningful relationships with your potential customers before you can seal the deal.
If you’re in the business world, you’ve probably heard the term “omnichannel” being thrown around. But what exactly is it, and why is it important for businesses to understand and embrace this concept? Also, if you’re heard the term for the first time, I’ve got you covered.
Because in this blog post, we’ll be diving into the definition of omnichannel marketing, exploring its benefits, and providing strategies for businesses to get started with this powerful approach.
What is Omnichannel Marketing?
So, what exactly is omnichannel marketing? In simple terms, the definition of omnichannel marketing is the creation of a seamless and integrated marketing strategy that allows customers to engage with a brand through multiple channels, including websites, social media, email, mobile, and more.
The ultimate goal is to provide customers with a consistent and cohesive experience throughout their journey, from discovery to purchase to post-purchase customer service.
Why is Omnichannel marketing Important? (statistics)
Omnichannel marketing is a powerful approach that can have a significant impact on lead generation, nurturing, sales, and retention. By creating a consistent brand experience across all channels, platforms, and devices, it can improve the customer experience and build loyalty. But why is it so effective? Let’s look at the data.
Consumers today are using multiple channels to shop, both in the digital and physical worlds. Brands that are present in all channels their audience frequents can benefit from increased sales and customer loyalty. By adopting an omnichannel marketing strategy, you can streamline your marketing efforts and improve your ROI.
The data clearly shows that the benefits of omnichannel marketing are too significant to ignore:
- Consumers aren’t just shopping in a single channel anymore. That’s why, consider the fact that 57% of consumers have used a retailer’s mobile app while shopping in-store as a brand. You must as a brand be present in every channel your audience frequents, and that applies to both the digital and physical world.
- The purchase rate of campaigns using 3 or more channels is 287% higher than single-channel campaigns.
- Campaigns that incorporate SMS are 47.7% more likely to convert, and those that incorporate segmented email communications earn 62.2% higher order rates.
What are the benefits of Omnichannel Marketing?
Omnichannel marketing refers to a cohesive integrated approach to marketing that uses multiple channels to reach customers. For example email, social media, mobile apps, in-store, and more. This is what Omnichannel Marketing can do for your business:
Improved customer experience:
At first, omnichannel marketing offers customers a consistent experience across all channels, providing easy access to brand information and enhancing customer interactions. Moreover, it offers convenience by providing customers with various channels to interact with the brand, allowing them to choose the channel that best suits their preferences and lifestyle.
By doing so, it increases brand reach and market share while enhancing convenience for customers.
Increased engagement:
By using multiple channels, businesses can connect with customers in diverse ways, thus increasing the chances of engagement and building strong customer relationships. Omnichannel marketing offers the advantage of using customer data to understand their preferences and behaviors, which can be used to personalize marketing efforts. This personalization provides a better customer experience and strengthens brand loyalty, leading to increased customer engagement.
Higher conversion rates:
The creation of a seamless and integrated experience enhances the likelihood that customers will complete purchases or take the desired action, leading to increased conversion rates. By leveraging omnichannel marketing, businesses have the potential to drive increased sales and revenue.
Furthermore, an integrated customer experience can motivate customers to return to the brand in the future, contributing to long-term revenue growth. By utilizing multiple channels, businesses can also increase their market share and revenue streams.
4 Omnichannel Marketing Examples to get started
Here are 4 simple examples of omnichannel marketing:
Omnichannel Marketing example 1: Fitness studio
A fitness studio uses social media to promote its classes and offers a mobile app that customers can use to book classes and track their progress. The studio also has a referral program where customers can refer their friends and receive discounts on future classes.
Omnichannel Marketing example 2: Home decor store
A home decor store sends customers an email with a list of their best-selling items. The email also includes a link to the store’s blog post on decorating tips. Which directs customers to visit the store’s physical location for a free consultation with a professional interior designer.
Omnichannel Marketing example 3: Pet store
A pet store sends customers an email with a coupon for 20% off their next purchase and free shipping. The email also includes links to the store’s online shop and social media pages, where customers can find more information on pet care tips and upcoming events at the store.
Omnichannel Marketing example 4: Technology store
A technology store uses a mobile app to provide customers with a virtual tour of their products and offers in-store pickup for online purchases. The store also sends personalized email recommendations based on the customer’s past purchases and browsing history. Additionally, the store offers a loyalty program where customers can earn rewards for their purchases.
How to Succeed with Omnichannel Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide
An effective omnichannel marketing strategy involves presenting consistent messaging, visuals, and positioning statements across all channels, platforms, and devices. This approach creates a seamless brand experience for customers, ensuring that your brand is presented the same way from one platform to another.
It is important to note that an omnichannel marketing campaign can positively impact your sales and service departments by showing customers that you are present on all channels and platforms they use, thus creating an expectation of a similar shopping and customer service experience.
To implement omnichannel marketing in your company, follow these steps:
Disclaimer: Even though I’ve rewritten the following steps, it is originally from this helpful article on MailChimp.
Map your audience’s potential journey:
Start from when they first learn about your brand, follow their research and consideration process, and identify paths to purchase, buy, and beyond. Analyze your onboarding process to see how you can nurture the relationship and encourage repeat buying and retention, and determine where you need to meet them on their journey.
Identify all sources of communication:
Identify any other audience communication that’s happening from all groups in your company, including sales, customer service, and others. Ensure that all interactions with your audience work together to create a cohesive brand experience.
Be consistent in messaging:
Gain internal consensus about the consistent message you plan to send for each connection point within your overall company message. Ensure everyone, from top-level decision-makers and marketing executives to account representatives and call center staff, is on the same page regarding your brand proposition and marketing strategy.
Utilize data analytics:
Analyze audience data to ensure you’re developing omnichannel experiences for all buyers. Create detailed profiles of buyer personas based on buying behavior, demographics, survey data, and other unifying characteristics, and use this information to create a picture of the core audience segments you want to target.
Aggregate data in one platform:
Centralize and connect all audience data in a single CRM platform. This allows for more relevant conversations, whether you’re building your brand or segmenting an already significant audience. Marketing automation tools can help significantly to implement an omnichannel customer journey.
Personalize outreach:
Personalize your planned outreach based on your data. Consumers expect personalized offers, with 52% of customers expecting offers to be personalized. Create follow-up campaigns that build on their past behaviors, both in what they buy and how they interact with your company.
Step into your audience’s shoes:
“Mystery shop” your omnichannel marketing experience. Step into your audience’s shoes and pretend that you’re each of the audience segments you’ve established. Verify that the experience is good in every channel and at every touchpoint.
Test and refine:
Test and refine your approach. A/B testing allows you to send out two versions of a campaign to see what types of creative, copy, and offers your audience best responds to, giving you valuable insight into ways you can refine and improve communications.
By following these steps, you can develop and implement a successful omnichannel marketing strategy for your brand, creating a consistent brand experience across all channels and platforms.
Top 3 Omnichannel marketing examples & strategies
1. Starbucks Rewards
Starbucks Card Rewards, launched in 2008, was an early omnichannel experience that utilized a mobile app to run a point-based loyalty program. By centralizing customer transactions in the app, Starbucks was able to collect information on customer behavior and preferences, which led to personalized experiences and increased customer lifetime value.
The success of the program is evidenced by the significant increase in U.S. members, which rose 13% to 27.4 million in the third quarter of 2022. In addition, interim CEO Howard Schultz shared: “Our loyal Starbucks Rewards members drove a record 53% of U.S. company-operated revenue.”
A customer’s mobile experience is now more important than ever, so having a great app goes a long way. With the Starbucks rewards app, customers can check and reload their rewards card via phone, website, in-store, or the app, and any updates are reflected across all channels in real time, offering a seamless experience.
2. Disney Magic Band Program
Disney excels in providing an omnichannel experience that extends to even the smallest details. Their website is not only visually stunning but also mobile-responsive, which is a rarity in the industry. The My Disney Experience tool allows customers to plan their entire trip, including dining reservations and Fast Passes. Inside the park, the mobile app helps locate attractions and provides wait time estimates.
But Disney takes it a step further with its Magic Band program, which acts as a hotel key, photo storage device, food ordering tool, and integrates with Fast Passes. The multitude of features and tools provided by Disney creates a truly omni-channel experience for its customers.
3. Net-a-Porter
To create a seamless and efficient customer experience, an online fashion retailer implemented an omnichannel marketing strategy focused on three channels:
- Mobile app: Customers can interact and share images of products with each other. The app technology recognizes shared product images and recommends the closest match from the retailer’s inventory.
- Email marketing: Subscribers receive follow-up emails based on their store-related activity.
- Ad retargeting: Visitors who abandoned the site before making a purchase are retargeted with ads to bring them back.
This strategy led to a 16.9% year over year growth with 50% of sales coming from mobile. Order values also increased to €328 (Almost $400), making it one of the highest for any online store, beating even Amazon.
See below how Net-A-Porter uses email, apps, socials and more as their omnichannel strategy.
BONUS: The one key to a successful omnichannel content strategy in 2023
If you think creating content for multiple platforms is a hell of a job, then you’re wrong. Because there is a proven and tested strategy that helps you create highly-valuable content for multiple platforms (in less time).
The strategy is all about: Repurposing your content!
Even if you post the same content across all your social channels. Chances are your audience on YouTube doesn’t follow you on Instagram or TikTok, which means you are always reaching new audiences.
Here’s a 6-step process on how to repurpose your content for multiple platforms:
- Create a long-form video for YouTube.
- Cut that video up to turn it into several YouTube Shorts.
- Use those shorts and post them to your other social channels as short-form videos such as Reels.
- Transcribe the video and turn that into a blog post.
- Grab golden content (bullet points, interesting statements and statistics) and use this content in regular and carousel posts.
- Use the audio and create a podcast your audience can listen to.
That is the essence of repurposing content – taking one product and turning it into several products that can be posted across all your social channels!
Omnichannel Marketing is here to stay…
In conclusion, omnichannel marketing is the future of marketing, and businesses that want to stay ahead of the game need to embrace this concept. By providing customers with a seamless and personalised experience, businesses can increase customer engagement, build brand loyalty, and drive sales. So, take the first step towards a brighter future with omnichannel marketing and start creating a seamless customer journey today!
For more relevant articles about how you can use writing to improve your marketing efforts, check out my blog.
