Omnichannel marketing is a strategy that puts the customer experience first. Across the customer journey, all touchpoints, from awareness through to purchase, are seamless. An omnichannel approach integrates channels so they work together instead of in silos. It’s not just about knowing your customers’ preferences, it’s about anticipating their needs across all channels.
Why does this matter? It matters because the customer journey is never linear. And for brands to stay relevant in an increasingly competitive world, they must adapt to changing customer expectations. An omnichannel marketing strategy can offer a higher return on investment because it connects every digital and offline channel in the customer journey, from awareness through purchase.
Omnichannel Marketing Strategy
When Omnichannel drives a Company aims to create seamless, integrated customer experiences across all channels. This includes traditional online and offline channels as well as emerging technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence.
The most important concept here is “seamless experience”. In fact, in this economic reality consumers have access to brands and products through myriad avenues, not just direct channels on which you engage. At the same time, given the high rates of mobile penetration and its rapid rate of growth, Companies can’t ignore anymore the cross-touchpoint journey of their customers. Here’s where creating a “seamless experience” for your prospects or customers has the power to augment brand awareness and loyalty.
Do you want to better acquire customers and make them loyal to your Company? Implement an omnichannel strategy.
Omnichannel vs. Multichannel, and Cross-Channel Marketing
Multichannel marketing (a.k.a. multi-touchpoint) focuses on offering multiple channels through which customers can experience the brand. The company can increase its brand awareness but there’s no exchange of information about the client between channels. Hence, messages and experiences are not contextualized to the moment the customer is living in that specific moment.
Cross-channel marketing is a multichannel strategy but is augmented by a certain degree of channel integration. Cross-channel marketing increases customer engagement but lacks in providing a comprehensive customer experience. Re-marketing (in its basic definition and implementation) is an example of cross-channel marketing; “click and collect” practices are another example.
Omnichannel marketing is a way to market across all channels, adding a focus on the customer’s experience. When done right, Omnichannel marketing augments customer experience and marketing efficiency. It allows marketers to reach the right people, at the right time with targeted messages. Think of it as a strategy that takes into account who is the customer and where it stands within the journey to offer. The result should be a personalized experience that has the highest probability to help it make the next step in the journey.
While the spotlight is put on multichannel marketing strategies, there’s a growing trend of companies looking for omnichannel platforms – that sync with all others to offer a systematic approach that focuses on the end-to-end customer journey.
Why should you implement an Omnichannel Marketing Strategy?
As consumers spend more time online, the need for an omnichannel marketing strategy is essential. The benefits of having an omnichannel strategy include increased customer interaction and improved lead optimization. Think of it in competitive terms: sooner or later your competitor will play that game, was it just because the enabling technologies lower in cost year after year.
That said, being able to interact with your customers in multiple ways has many marketing benefits including facilitating customer retention and growing customer acquisition.
Omnichannel marketing is constantly expanding, but with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), it can increase exponentially in effectiveness. As a consequence, I believe the cost of not start adopting charting an omnichannel roadmap might exponentially limit the capabilities of a company to compete effectively.
What to look for before transforming your Marketing Machine into an Omnichannel Approach
Omnichannel marketing is a necessary strategy to take into account for today’s businesses. However, before you implement this approach, make sure to have an understanding of what it entails, the risks involved in implementing it, and what to expect from the change.
There are many risks involved with implementing an omnichannel approach without a system in place – so make sure that you craft a strategic approach to address these risks and accurately plan for a step change. Once again, it is a transformational project whose implementation requires a corporate mind-shift therefore here are a few tips you can’t ignore:
1. Get the CEO to buy into what is a relationship marketing strategy
Firstly, you need to understand how your business will benefit from this strategy and what it entails; moreover, you should be able to persuade the whole management as it is a transformational endeavor. The decision to adopt an Omnichannel Strategy will be paramount for your company. But getting that level of buy-in from the top can be challenging. The CEO will have to understand what they stand to gain, so to prepare to speak his/her language.
2. Focus on delivering a better customer experience through the customer journey
The “Omnichannel Marketing Machine” is all about listening and serving customers, not just technology. The end goal would be to provide customers with the best experience possible across all channels, at every step of the journey. Thus, the customer journey is a key concept to master. It identifies what happens before, during, and after when customers interact with an organization’s products or services.
As a consequence, a successful omnichannel marketing strategy will need to move beyond the simple pursuit of new technological tools and focus on delivering customer value.
3. Segment your Audiences
As the CMO of a company, look for the best way to segment your audience. Certainly, the advancement of technology will help craft the delivery of experiences, but their output still depends on your input.
Classic Research methods, Behavioral or demographic markers will help you craft your Personas. That’s your direction. Modern Campaign Management tools will then elaborate data to address segmented audiences, personalizing the experience.
Once again, do not delegate technology to understand in the first instance what you and your team are paid for!
4. Build it in Steps and keep the bar straight
Building an Omnichannel Strategy requires a serious company-wide effort so it’s easy to lose the Organization along the process. If you have been through point 1) successfully, chances are that you’ll have to prepare a complete business case.
In macro steps, here are some tips for common pitfalls:
- Set up a Steering Committee involving at minimum Finance, HR, and IT. You as CMO are responsible for comprehensively defining the desired customer experience you want to deliver but you can move the needle without commitment and the support of other functions.
- Make a Plan and possibly appoint a PMO accountable to push it forward cross-functionally. It’s not your plan, each function is responsible for its realization
- Always seek solutions that integrate seamlessly with each other (unless you are a startup with big-budget constraints and love to deal with 100 tools to deliver a customer experience)
- Dedicate a full chapter to changing the mindset of the commercial function toward a customer-centric culture. You might have to re-skill or up-skill your workforce, handle an organizational redesign (if not more than one), and potentially integrate newcomers
- Last but not least, identify quick wins along the way and celebrate them with the team.
Why Establish a Net Promoter Score (NPS) as the Key Metric to evaluate the Customer Experience.
I strongly believe in the Net Promoter Score as the key metric for success in Omnichannel. NPS measures the customer’s likelihood to recommend a brand or product on a scale from 0 to 10 (more in-depth). It is simple, unique, and easy to understand, share and communicate within the Organization.
Moreover, it is the only metric that measures customer loyalty and advocacy across both digital and offline channels. Using NPS will render you a clear picture of where to prioritize your efforts to elevate the customer experience. I will soon write more in-depth about this topic.
Final Thoughts
The majority of shoppers now hit multiple touchpoints before making a purchase.
Despite most CMOs nowadays realizing the importance of delivering a satisfactory experience to acquire and retain customers, a true Omnichannel marketing implementation require a step-change in the organization. As a consequence, a hybrid form of multichannel and cross-channel strategies are still the norm in most companies. It’s never too late to rethink your setup and move towards a higher degree of customer-centricity within your organization. The exponential rise of technologies (read marketing automation suites powered by A.I) urges CMOs and CEOs to redefine its priority within their agenda.
