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Omni-channel marketing, or cross-channel marketing, consists of using multiple marketing channels to convey a campaign message. By doing this, marketers can be sure to reach a larger, more diverse audience.
This includes the use of both online and offline channels, such as the combination of a direct-mail campaign and QR codes that direct customers to the company's website to further engage with the brand. In contrast to multi-channel marketing, which often operates in silos, each touchpoint in an omnichannel strategy acts as one thread in an interwoven, overall brand experience.
Did you know, buyers will interact with your brand an average of 7 times before making a purchase?
These interactions occur at various touchpoints on numerous different platforms, such as social media, print advertising, a brand’s website, etc.
In today’s ever-evolving digital landscape, customers now decide how and when they want to interact with a brand, and analytics tools allow businesses to track and measure these behavioural preferences and adapt their marketing strategy accordingly to meet customers where they want to be met. This is where omni-channel marketing comes in.
A study by Harvard Business Review has shown that customers that have an omni-channel marketing experience with brands spend 10% more than customers who only interact with the brand through one channel.
When omni-channel marketing is done right, you can offer customers an enhanced brand experience with consistent messaging that encourages them to take action. Omni-channel marketing involves putting your customers first, and ensuring that every experience they have with your brand is seamless and unified.
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One of the biggest challenges that small businesses face is creating a unified and seamless experience for customers across all their platforms.
This is where a company like Remata can assist. Remata can help businesses create unified marketing campaigns that tie in with their overall brand messaging. Remata can also improve the quality of brand marketing collateral and create an enjoyable brand experience for customers across all platforms, whether online or offline.
What are the Benefits of Omni-channel Marketing?
- Better Customer Retention
When all brand collateral is aligned with the same messaging and the use of the corporate identity, which includes the use of brand colours and fonts, is consistent, you can foster trust among current and potential customers.
When companies have brand consistency and ensure that their brand is easily recognisable across all marketing channels and touchpoints, it creates a feeling of reliability with customers.
95% of purchasing decisions are subconscious, which shows that purchasing something is often more emotional than practical. This means that brands often sell us a feeling rather than a product. When your brand illustrates that it is trustworthy and reliable, consumers know exactly what to expect and are more likely to purchase from you over and over again.
- Improved Customer Journey
As well as instilling trust in your brand, having an effective omni-channel marketing strategy can also improve the customer journey. If your brand messaging and corporate identity is consistent throughout all your platforms and touchpoints, customers are less likely to become confused and more likely to complete the journey through the sales funnel. Omni-channel marketing is centred on the customer’s preferred method of communication, rather than that of the brand’s.
Additionally, using analytics to track how customers are interacting with the brand at different touchpoints can help businesses to refine the customer journey and prevent drop-offs. In short, omnichannel marketing breaks down the barriers of various marketing channels to put customers at the heart of the journey.
67% of customers use multiple channels to complete a single transaction. This means that companies that aren’t offering multi-channel engagement are giving customers a substandard brand experience.
- Better Customer Insight
With an omni-channel marketing strategy, companies can collect and unify data from disparate marketing channels and easily measure how each one contributed to the goal of conversion.
This way, businesses can analyse what is working and what’s not, and adjust their strategy accordingly. Omni-channel marketing provides businesses with the opportunity to improve the customer experience by utilising insights garnered along the way. Companies are able to better tailor brand experiences to the customer when they have customer behaviour and preference information on hand.
How to Create the Perfect Omni-channel Marketing Strategy
- Ensure Consistency
The most important aspect of an omni-channel marketing strategy is that it’s consistent. This means the first task is to ensure that your brand has a congruous brand identity across all platforms, this includes in-store marketing.
- Ensure your Strategy is Data-driven
Since omni-channel marketing is customer-centric, it’s also important to ask for feedback from customers about what’s working and what isn’t so that you can adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.
In addition to customer feedback, using analytics from your current customer touchpoints can also aid in creating an effective omni-channel strategy. To implement a data-driven strategy, ask questions such as:
- Where are customers dropping off along the sales journey and how can I improve this part of the journey?
- How and when do my customers prefer to be contacted?
- What data do I need to personalise each customer’s experience?
- Appropriately Target your Customers
Another way to ensure you are offering your customers a tailored experience is by segmenting your audience. This makes it easier to create personalised messages for groups of customers based on similar traits, such as profile data, engagement and purchasing behaviour.
Personalised messaging can increase revenue by 5 to 15% across your customer base, according to a McKinsey report.
Key Takeaway
Omni-channel marketing requires more work than just a multi-channel marketing approach because it requires that each channel and customer touchpoint work together seamlessly to create a trustworthy and engaging customer experience.
Getting this right can be tougher than you think, especially for small businesses that lack the expertise and knowledge of a full-fledged marketing agency.
