Omnichannel Marketing 101

What is Omnichannel Marketing and how does it work?

Omnichannel marketing refers to creating a seamless experience throughout the customer journey across multiple channels. In other words, Omnichannel marketing is a strategy where businesses market their products and services across all channels, devices, and platforms using the same message or communication, cohesive visuals, and brand offers. Omnichannel marketing aims to reach out to customers across the platforms with a relevant message while keeping the contextuality and on-brand offers. 

Omnichannel unites the strengths of each communication channel, both online (website, app, social media, email, SMS, WhatsApp) and offline (retail store, events, call-center). The strategy revolves around targeting the right audience/buyers at the right time and providing them with a seamless buying experience, where they can switch channels and communicate with the brand whenever they want. Hence, the focus of the strategy is to create a seamless shopping experience from the first touchpoint to the last in the user journey, regardless of the channel they use.  

The omnichannel marketing strategy leverages customers' perspectives, behavior, and interests to optimize the consistency of the company's marketing messages. For example, once you have a customer persona ready that includes buyers using only Instagram and Facebook, the ads and communication would be tailored according to their interests and behaviors. 

Moving on to creating consistency and contextuality, the omnichannel strategy allows customers to carry on with their conversations and interactions with your brand at different touchpoints without losing the context of the conversation. The conversation needs to feel like a continuation of the previous one, as if someone already knows and understands where you come from. 

For instance, 

A customer sees an ad on Instagram and clicks on the link to buy that. 

He/she/they explore the website and add the product and cart and leave the website.

The same customer finds a retargeting ad on Facebook.

Or a cart abandonment notification on WhatsApp or Email. 

Platforms like Engati are making omnichannel marketing a cakewalk. You can simply deploy a no-code chatbot on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and 10+ other channels to offer an omnichannel experience to your customers.

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What is the difference between Multichannel and Omnichannel Marketing?

The most significant distinction between multichannel and omnichannel marketing is where the customer is positioned in your marketing strategy. Having a unified message across all channels is what multichannel marketing implies. However, that message may or may not be appropriate for each customer. Although it may be relevant to the vast majority.

Omnichannel marketing has yet to be overtaken by any other marketing strategy when it comes to personalization. That's because it puts your customers at the center of everything you do in marketing. Your brand's messages adapt to your customer's exact needs and the channel they choose to communicate with at every touchpoint. When you put your customer first in your marketing strategy, every message is appropriate for the channel and relevant to where they are in the customer journey. To provide better customer experience, some companies also integrate IVR software which simplified everything and provides more speed.

And, logically, the better their interactions with your brand are, the more interactions they will want to have. As a result, you'll be able to access an increasing amount of data. When that data is integrated into a powerful omnichannel marketing tool, it will lead to better personalization, which will result in increased sales and brand appreciation.

What are the benefits of an omnichannel marketing strategy?

1. Higher engagement rate

Several factors can influence the outcomes of an omnichannel marketing strategy. Marketers who communicate with their audience through at least three channels have a 287% higher purchase rate than those who only use one channel.

2. High purchase rate

According to recent statistics, marketing campaigns that span at least three channels cause buyers to spend 13% more than single-channel campaigns. This means that omnichannel customers are not only spending more frequently but also spending more money overall.

3. Customer loyalty

According to recent statistics, adopting an omnichannel strategy allows them to achieve % higher retention rates than they would have gotten from a single channel. And, because it's easier (and less expensive) to keep loyal customers than it is to constantly seek out new ones, you'll not only make more money but also save more.

How to develop a successful omnichannel marketing strategy?

1. Understand your customers and walk in their shoes

One of the key aspects of omnichannel marketing is that it focuses on customer experience and their interests. As a result, efforts should be made to review the experience your customers have while researching, purchasing, and connecting with your products. Is the customer experience consistent across these touchpoints? Each department should have a customer-first mindset and strive to create enjoyable customer experiences.

2. Take advantage of Customer Data

In the competitive market landscape, data has the power to change the game. With customer data and insight, you'll be able to create content tailored to your customers' interests. Instead of sending batch-and-blast email campaigns in the hopes of getting a response, you could use your customer data to create campaigns that offer promotions on items that complement previous purchases — or that you know similar customers have already purchased.

3. Using the right tools

You must use the right tools to implement your omnichannel marketing strategy. Engati provides you with an AI chatbot solution for an omnichannel customer experience. With Engati omnichannel solution, you can engage your customers over multiple platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and so on, while keeping the contextuality and consistency. Every message, across the channels, is linked to the OneView inbox, while your customers enjoy the flexibility of choosing their preferred channel for communication. 

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4. Segmentation and personalization

The rich data available with you can be translated into customer use cases, and also used to build buyer personas. 1:1 personalization is at the heart of all successful omnichannel marketing strategies. Individualized messages are more effective at increasing engagement, making customers feel valued, and cultivating long-term loyalty. You must segment your customers based on the data points like buyers' persona, purchase history, average order value, etc,  that are most relevant to your goals before creating personalized marketing campaigns.

5. Content/messages and consistency

Consistency in messaging and content is needed while engaging with customers across multiple channels to increase brand exposure. You should plan and chart out a communication plan that ensures both internal and external parties are creating content that's both true to your brand and relevant to your audience. Because inconsistency in brand communication can lead to delivering a disconnected brand experience that could do more harm than good.

Engati omnichannel engagement for Shopify

Engati allows you to engage and retain your customers on 14+ channels, including Instagram, Web, Facebook Messenger, Email, WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, and many more. You can grow site traffic by 60% with automated social engagement with Engati. AI-driven bots can converse with customers keeping the contextuality from the last chat, which creates a sense of trust and engagement and ultimately enhances the customer experience. The platform comes with a one-view inbox window where owners can glance through and take the required actions from the various platforms.