Omni Channel Approach – The Future of Marketing

INTRODUCTION TO OMNICHANNEL MARKETING

With the evolution of marketing, brands and businesses should shift their focus from traditional marketing strategies to marketing on omnichannel. So what is omnichannel marketing? It is a marketing strategy that helps a brand to build its presence on multiple online and offline channels. The online channels include websites, apps, social media, SMS, email, WhatsApp, and offline channels include the retail store, events, call center. The amalgamation of all these channels helps to create a positive and seamless experience for the customer. Since the customer is everything for a business, the omnichannel marketing approach should be implemented to provide a smooth experience for your customers. A negative experience will always leave a sour taste in the customer’s mouth, significantly reducing the chances of the customer coming back to you.

USES OF OMNICHANNEL MARKETING

Omnichannel marketing strategies can be implemented in various industries and sectors. To provide you with a better picture, some of the examples have been discussed below:

1. Healthcare
Various healthcare providers have started to implement the omnichannel approach by providing their patients with access to their reports on multiple devices, sending reminders for their doctor’s appointments, and providing daily health tips to keep the interaction alive.

2. Retail
In the retail world, customers have been provided with the option of purchasing online and collecting their products in-store. Customers can even interact with businesses on social media and even via email.

3.Banking
Instead of customers waiting in long queues to get their bank statements, they can easily do that through the bank’s official app or request a soft copy via email. Banks can even inform their users about new products via SMS or email, making it a more personal experience for their customers.

4.Travel
Airlines can send SMS and email reminders to their passengers before the departure of their flights. Any changes in flight schedules can also be conveyed to them easily.

THE IMPORTANCE OF OMNICHANNEL MARKETING

For the success of any brand, the customer has to be given the utmost priority and respect. Therefore, you must make their experience with your brand as seamless as possible. If the customer is happy, they will surely come back to you for a similar experience and even recommend you to their friends and family.

Omnichannel marketing can provide a seamless interaction to your customers. This experience is important for the following reasons:

1. Provide a better experience to your customers
Providing your customers with a seamless experience would allow you to retain those customers, which eventually means a higher ROI (Return On Investment). You would be able to build a better and stronger relationship with your customers.

2. Create a better brand identity
Utilizing various channels for marketing your brand will provide you with better brand visibility and a better brand image.

3. Increased sales
With better brand visibility and awareness, you can attract more customers. This eventually means higher sales and profits for your business.

4. Get better insights into your customers
Using multiple channels to market your brand will provide you with more data to monitor your customer’s engagement with your brand. This data is sufficient to help formulate marketing strategies accordingly, making them more effective than before.

CREATING THE PERFECT OMNICHANNEL MARKETING STRATEGY

Creating a successful and effective omnichannel marketing strategy requires proper planning. If done the right way, it would help to increase the ROI for your business.

Typically, an omnichannel marketing strategy involves the following:

1. Collect data
Data collection is the most important step in designing an effective omnichannel marketing strategy. It is on this data that the omnichannel marketing strategy is based. If this data is not up to date or accurate, your marketing strategy will not be able to deliver the results you desire. This data will give you an insight into how your customers interact with your brand; what devices they use, what features or products they are looking for, or what time are they most active. This data can be collecting online and offline with the help of various marketing tools.

2. Analyze the data
Once the accurate data has been collected, you are now ready to analyze it. This would give you a better insight into how your customers interact with your brand, and how you can make it a better experience for them. Customers can be categorized according to their behaviors to provide the users with a unique experience.

3. Customer journey mapping
Once the customers have been categorized, you must study the customer journey maps for each category. This will give you a better insight into how a customer reacts from the minute they discover the brand till the point they carry out a purchase. With this data, you can create better-targeted marketing campaigns that will prove to be more effective.

4. The right context
Sending the wrong message to the wrong audience will not be an effective way of marketing. You must ensure that the message is conveyed at the right time to the right audience on the right platform, for your marketing strategy to be as effective as possible. Your brand must have certain guidelines set regarding this.

5. Customer service
Since an omnichannel marketing strategy is being implemented to provide your customers a seamless and positive experience, you must not overlook the customer service you provide to your customers. Your staff must be trained well to serve your customers in the best way possible. Your customer care team is a group of people that will represent your brand to your customers. Therefore, they must be trained well.

GETTING A HIGHER ROI WITH YOUR OMNICHANNEL MARKETING

A smooth experience for a customer will help you to retain them; but to be able to generate a higher ROI, you must consider the following:

1. Be consistent with your messages
A brand that does not message its customers regularly is forgotten faster by the customers. An average customer receives numerous messages from other brands. To keep up with this competition, you must message your customers regularly, but still not overdo it; the customer must not feel pestered at any point.

2. Always provide a consistent experience to your customers
To be able to retain your customers for a lifetime, you must be able to provide them with a similar experience on all channels. The customer should always feel the same regardless of the platform they choose to interact with your brand.

3. Data-driven marketing
As discussed before, data collected is extremely essential for an effective omnichannel marketing strategy. Getting an insight into the customer journey mapping will allow you to target your customers accordingly.

All of these strategies ensure that your brand can generate a higher ROI. This makes your omnichannel marketing approach very fruitful.

FINAL WORDS

The omnichannel approach has been implemented by most brands and businesses from all sectors. As more and more brands are taking up this approach, the competition has become very tough. All brands are trying to target the customers to get a higher ROI. It is becoming increasingly difficult for brands to survive in this marketing world, especially those who do not have any new and unique marketing strategies. If you too are struggling with the omnichannel marketing of your brand, you must not shy away from contacting marketing experts.