(8 minute read)

In the previous blog post I discussed Multi-Channel Marketing in customer acquisition and also its role in nudging customers along in their online journey down the funnel towards conversion. While having multiple channels to target the customer can be a marketing luxury, there are numerous challenges in ensuring that a single, consistent, unified message is conveyed about the brand across all of these channels.

Enter Omni-Channel Marketing.

As if everything we’ve done so far isn’t confusing enough, now businesses have to get to grips with omni-channel marketing in order to satisfy the online customer.

So what exactly is Omnichannel?

Omnichannel is the idea of using all of your channels to create one, unified experience for your customers. This includes both traditional and digital channels, point-of-sale, in-store, and online experiences.

Omnichannel marketing is using digital and/or traditional marketing channels to send a relevant message to a brand’s customers regardless of the customer engaging with the brand, nor the channels used to engage.

Omnichannel marketing is an approach that provides customers with a completely seamless and integrated shopping experience from the first touchpoint to the last. That means that each channel works together to create a unified message, voice, and a brand for your company.

The customer of today is omnichannel. They bounce between channels when interacting with an ecommerce brand, and today, marketers are just beginning to respond to that behaviour. Omnichannel marketing creates a seamless message that adjusts to your customer based on their behaviour through your sales funnel, providing the ultimate personalized customer experience.

EXAMPLES

  • A customer getting an email or SMS message about a promotion while in-store shopping
  • A customer getting an SMS about a promotion with a mailer in their mailbox with the physical coupons
  • A customer getting a cart abandonment message on Facebook Messenger, and following up with retargeting ads for the abandoned product
  • A customer signs up for your mailing list, and opts to receive SMS messages
  • You send a welcome message with their first-time discount via SMS and follow up with email
  • The customer comes back and browses, signing up for push notifications but ultimately not purchasing
  • The customer clicks on a retargeting ad and comes back, adding products to their cart but does not complete transaction
  • The customer receives a cart abandonment message via email and revisits their cart
  • The customer finishes their purchase and signs up for Facebook Messenger updates
  • Order and shipping confirmation updates are sent via Facebook Messenger, email
  • From there, any of those used channels could be used again to bring the customer back in for a repeat purchase.

MULTICHANNEL VS. OMNICHANNEL MARKETING: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

Unlike multichannel marketing, omnichannel marketing keeps the message relevant by having each channel update as the customer engages with your brand. Multichannel marketing has largely static messages across several channels, but those channels don’t update and personalize with your customers’ needs.

The biggest difference between multichannel and omnichannel marketing is that multichannel puts the BRAND at the centre of the strategy and sends the same message out to customers on all channels. This makes multichannel marketing completely different from the omnichannel meaning.

Omnichannel marketing puts the CUSTOMER at the centre of the strategy. In an omnichannel marketing strategy, the message changes and adapts to how the customer has interacted with other channels. Omnichannel communication can also include strategies for each communication tool such as email strategy, text message strategy etc.

This means that as your customer moves through their customer journey, your channels will automatically update so the next one offers a message that’s relevant to your customer.

CUSTOMER FOCUSED DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Omni-channel marketing is seen as a more customer-centric effort at digital transformation which keeps the digital experience front and centre of customer service. It is driven by five key concerns:

  • Having a digitally enabled transformative vision
  • Promoting digital customer engagement through nimble use of technology
  • Having secure digital platforms, sometimes cloud-enabled
  • Data driven visualisation that pulls in real-time data from multiple sources and enables creative methods of customer segmentation
  • Digital agility to move quickly across platforms, devices

Back-end processes and CRM-driven marketing is still critical in enabling digital transformation.

Omni-channel marketing is more front-ended which keeps the customer experience front and centre and is driven largely by real-time data and technology.

While CRM Systems and Marketing Automation are largely back-end and take the drudgery out of marketing, similar technological data-enabled systems work on the front-end processes of marketing to provide a more customer focused marketing experience. The online customer journey continues with customer care and online brand experience. Learn more here.