How to Develop a Winning Omnichannel Marketing Strategy

When the path to a customer purchase can begin

and end at any time, in any location and on any device, it’s becoming apparent

that businesses need to create a seamless experience across the entire process.

With so many devices available to complete a

task, customers can switch between them to purchase a product or service. If

they encounter problems across any of them, that could mean the difference

between making the sale and the customer moving on to something different.

As a result, more and more businesses are

nurturing leads through an omnichannel marketing strategy, which optimizes the

experience across all customer touchpoints.

What is Omnichannel Marketing?

Omnichannel marketing is the concept of

providing a seamless experience across all available channels relevant to the

buyer’s journey. This applies to the shifts and transitions in the way

customers progress through the sales funnel.

Customers are more connected and have more

control over the buying process than ever before, often using three or four

devices to access the internet or purchase products. As a result, what used to

be completed on one site, in one location, at one time is now completed over

days, locations, times and channels. This may even include trade magazines or

newspapers as well, making it even more challenging.

The Importance of a Unified Profile

The omnichannel roadmap is achieved by building

a unified customer profile that segments the content and offers provided to

them. This can only be achieved through strong omnichannel marketing.

One of the challenges of omnichannel marketing

is the isolation of channels, which all provide data in different times with

the marketing automation platform. This may include different vendors for

email, SMS, push notifications and social media. As a result, customers may not

recognize these disparate channels as part of the same marketing effort, which

can be confusing.

A rich and deep personalization is only achieved

if the data from all the individual interactions is unified to deliver:

●Messaging content that resonates

with the customer.

●A frequency of messaging that the

customer will respond to.

●The products the customer enjoys

buying.

●The types of incentive

recommendations the customer will respond to.

A responsive marketing platform captures all

this customer data, such as email addresses, phone numbers, promotion

responses, call center inquiries, products viewed and other touchpoints.

Once this unified customer profile is achieved,

campaigns can be automated to trigger marketing activities from all channels

and lead the customer through the buyer’s journey.

Getting Started With Omnichannel Marketing

Though many businesses are aware of the value of

omnichannel marketing, many struggle with some of the obstacles to creating

this strategy. These include:

●Lack of resources necessary to

succeed.

●Lack of analytical and technical

resources to understand data.

●Difficulty integrating necessary

data.

●Lack of communication between

marketing agencies.

●Lack of C-suite support and

understanding of the value of omnichannel marketing.

●Organizational silos.

Creating an omnichannel marketing strategy isn’t

as difficult as it seems, however. Here’s how to get started:

Emphasize Content

Without valuable content, your omnichannel

marketing strategy is nothing. With customers connecting over various devices

in many different situations, a marketer needs to offer information and value

to keep their attention.

For this, you need to understand what kind of

content your customers consume and when. Is your content giving them what they

need? Is it optimized for the device they’re using? Are you offering

suggestions based on buying or browsing history? Are you optimizing for their

location?

On top of that, are you upselling and

cross-selling to your customers? Are you sending abandoned cart emails? Are

those emails optimized for different devices?

These are just a few of the questions that need

to be answered about your ideal buyer, which is why you need in-depth

information about them.

Get In-Depth Understanding of the Buyer

If you want to provide a truly omnichannel

experience, you must have intimate knowledge of your customer. You need to

understand who they are and what’s important to them, what challenges or

problems they face and how you can solve them.

To get this information, welcome customer

feedback, employ social listening tools and leverage lead capture landing pages

to find out more about their needs. Even more than that, find out which

channels they use most to access your content.

Here are the channels most important for

omnichannel success, in order of value:

●Digital marketing.

●Brand websites.

●Mobile.

●Social media platforms.

●Email.

●Local engagement in store.

●Live events.

●Local retail partners.

●Television advertising.

●Digital video.

●Traditional advertising.

●Direct mail.

●Radio advertising.

●Partner websites.

●Outdoor advertising.

●Sponsorships.

●Coupons.

This list is general, and keep in mind that the

channels may vary based on your specific audience.

Develop Agile Departments

One of the biggest challenges to omnichannel

marketing implementation is siloed organizational structure. Sales, marketing,

PR, product development and customer service tend to operate independently of

one another, which is an obstacle to creating a seamless experience.

Fortunately, a little restructuring of

traditional roles can create shared responsibility across departments, letting

each team know where they fit into the bigger picture and how they relate to

the work of the other departments. This not only sets clear expectations for

each team, but also streamlines the communication between them.

When communication is clear and transparent, the

departments operate fluidly and create agile marketing strategies that focus on

the customer experience.

Create an Integrated Marketing Stack

The marketing technology landscape is more

complex than ever, leading business owners and marketers to identify the tools

most valuable to them to focus their efforts. Together, these are known as the

“ marketing stack

.”

For many businesses, the most valuable tools in

the marketing stack are:

●Customer relationship management

software.

●Video and web conferencing tools.

●Email service provider.

●Marketing automation platform.

●Print advertising solutions.

●Analytics and data visualization

tools.

●Content management platform.

Of these, the most valuable is the customer

relationship management tool, which allows you to record each buyer’s journey

and identify trends within them.

Beyond that, the analytics tool is necessary to

make informed decisions about the overall strategy and user behavior.

Once you have these, build the rest of the

marketing stack around those and fill it with tools that help you provide

relevance and value to your customers.