Omnichannel

1. What is Omnichannel?

Let's start with the big question and understand what exactly does omnichannel mean?

Omnichannel marketing refers to creating your brand's presence across all channels. The goal is to ensure a positive and seamless experience throughout the entire customer journey.

Online channels include the website, apps, affiliate marketing, digital marketing, social media, email, SMS, WhatsApp, etc. Whereas offline channel includes retail stores, events, call-centers, etc.

It is very important for companies to maintain a positive and smooth customer experience. 67% of customers have blamed bad customer experience as the reason for churn. So, if you're someone who believes in retaining customers, an omnichannel marketing strategy is for you. A good relationship with customers would always give long term profits to your business.

Omnichannel customer experience involves unified buying and customer support across all channels.

The goals of omnichannel are:

• Be where your audience is. Don't miss out on any channel.
• Collect as much customer data as possible and merge it into a centralized data center.

This will allow businesses to provide:

• A smooth and personalized buying experience that would make your interactions consistent & fun.

• Align your efforts to deliver the best possible customer experience.
• Provide a unified customer experience on different channels throughout the journey.

Many brands have already established their presence across different channels. But to be an omnichannel they must be aligned together.  
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2. Why is omnichannel marketing important?

Omnichannel Marketing is very important as it helps you create a positive experience throughout the customer journey. The brand needs to build and maintain a positive reputation throughout its lifecycle.

To explain it better let us take this simple example. After a long working day, you're tired and want to have your quick cup of coffee before you leave. You know your favorite cafe would be very crowded at this point. You are too exhausted to stand in that long queue waiting for your chance. Wouldn't you love it if that cafe had an app to pre-order? If it did, you could have simply placed your order on the app and collected your coffee while heading home. No need to wait in those long queues anymore! I'm pretty sure you can relate to this situation, and that's what a lot of brands realized as well. This is what pushed them to come up with in-app purchases which made ordering easy and hassle-free.

This not only makes your customers feel attached and happy but also makes them loyal to your brand and that's how omnichannel retailing boosts your business revenue.

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3. How to create a perfect Omnichannel Marketing Strategy?

To create a perfect omnichannel customer experience your omnichannel strategy must be: ‍

A. Planning customer experience:

Understand who your customers are and plan on how to provide that seamless experience throughout all your channels.

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B. Use data while strategizing your plan:

CRM data would help you in knowing how your customer would behave. Always try to be one step ahead in planning everything. Create an action-packed solution to address their challenges on time and also try to reduce their churn by correctly utilizing the data.

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C. Segmenting the users based on their journey:

Once you study your data try to make sure that you segregate your users in the right manner. Segment them based on categories and behavioral patterns. This will help you in creating a personalized journey for all your customers.

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D. Get the right context:

Context is an integral part of a good marketing strategy. There's nothing worse than sending the wrong message to the right audience at the wrong time. This would only make your consumers switch to some other brand. Always ensure that the context of your message is aligning with the goals of the company.

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E. Selecting the right marketing tools:

With thousands of marketing tools to choose from, selecting the perfect tool can be hard at times. Make sure you stick to one good tool and try to execute what was previously planned. Do complete research before selecting the right plan for your business.

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F. Make sure your organization is customer-centric:

This is one of the most important yet underrated steps. Unless your employees have gone through the training, it's hard for them to offer a consistent experience. No quality of strategy and marketing tool will work if your employees are not inclined towards the business.

4. Difference between Omnichannel and Multichannel.

Most businesses are merely perfect at a multichannel approach.

With multichannel, each platform operates on its strategy. It's targeting and messaging goals, response team, user experience, and protocols are different.

Statistics show that although companies like this approach, consumers might not be quite fond of it:

• Around 90% of the consumers expect a consistent brand experience across all channels.
• Customers don't like to repeat themselves. Most of the customers are furious about repeating their same issue across all the channels.

• A lot of them even admit to the pain of switching from one brand's channel to another. Making the buying process even harder.
• Around 88% of shoppers believe that brands need to put more effort into providing a smooth experience.

Switch to an omnichannel approach to solve the above problems. Instead of using different channels, use them as one channel to develop a relationship with your customer. Create a funnel to make a successful business model.

5. How to boost your ROI using Omnichannel strategies?

To create a best in class experience for your customers, you have to show your management how to boost your company's ROI using omnichannel marketing. The 4 effective ways of doing that are:

A. Consistent messaging:

‍Right from the initial stage to the end stage, messaging should be consistent. Always try to reach them when they have a problem, instead of them approaching you.

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B. Consistent experience:

‍To improve the customer lifetime value (CLTV), you must emphasize on delivering a consistent experience, because different customers will interact in different ways and your employees need to be ready for it.

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C. Continuity in communication:

‍Ensure continuous communication across all channels throughout the buyer’s journey.

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D. Data-driven marketing:

‍Personalization is the first step towards successful marketing. Use data-driven marketing to understand your customers. Engage using the right channels at the right time.

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6. How to get started with Omnichannel?

• Think about all aspects of your customer’s buying journey.

• Develop a clear brand image and user experience for them.
• Unite all departments on a singular goal.
• Research & strategize the right omnichannel interface for your business.

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7. Conclusion.

I would like to conclude by sharing some statistics on how omnichannel can drive more sales into your business:

• Marketers who use an omnichannel channel strategy witness a 250% higher engagement rate compared to single-channel marketing.
• The average order value was 12% more when marketers used an omnichannel strategy.
• Customer retention was 91% more with an omnichannel strategy.

Follow these steps and you'll see the difference in your business. Your skyrocket success would be worth the efforts you put in on switching to an omnichannel strategy.