Shopping practices have evolved. More people have started to involve technology in their shopping habits. Be it checking the reviews of the product they're about to buy, searching for the best store for the product they need, or purchasing online, the internet has become a vital part of shopping. You must keep up with those trends as a product seller for your business to thrive.
Omnichannel marketing is the ideal way to keep up with evolving shopping trends. It creates the perfect harmony between traditional and digital marketing techniques, promoting your business through every channel.
What is omnichannel marketing? It refers to your business being present on all digital marketing channels to build a large consumer base. Omnichannel marketing strategy takes a consumer-first approach.
Omnichannel Vs. Multichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing strategy is sometimes confused with multichannel marketing. The omnichannel definition covers every available digital platform and centers around the customer, whereas multichannel marketing covers more than one platform and centers around the company's product.
Why is Omnichannel Marketing Important?
Your potential customers bounce from one platform to another to learn about the products or services they need. Let's say you're present only on Facebook and Instagram. In contrast, your competitor promotes his business on numerous platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google, TikTok, etc. You may be able to get people's attention on those two platforms, but what about other channels? Your competitor is taking over your potential clients on the other networks. And this might suppress your business on the platforms you're present on.
If you want to take your business to a bigger scale, omnichannel marketing is essential. You are missing out on a massive chunk of your customers by not being present on other digital channels.
Benefits of Omnichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing aims to consistently provide an excellent customer experience. Here are some benefits of omnichannel marketing strategy which your business can gain if implemented correctly.
1. Increased Consumer Retention
People tend to buy more from brands that contribute to their convenience. If you are present on every marketing channel, your potential clients can purchase from you through whatever platform is convenient for them. The more suitable the buying process, the more client loyalty and retention.
Image taken from Strikingly’s user’s website
As per mGage, if your company implements an omnichannel marketing strategy coherently, it can get a 13% rise in consumer retention rates annually.
2. Increased Customer Satisfaction
Customers want a great product, but they also wish to get excellent customer service. They want an instant response from the business regardless of the platform they are contacted through. When implementing the omnichannel marketing strategy, you would ensure every channel you're present on is managed well. This will enable you to respond to your customers quickly.
Customers are more likely to return and be loyal to a business offering excellent customer service because they love being valued.
3. More People Will Refer Your Business
"Why do references matter when I'm promoting my business using omnichannel marketing?"
People believe in word of mouth more than any advertising. Because in ads, you're the one talking about the qualities of your products. But they want to hear it from people who have used your products or services before for authenticity purposes.
The more marketing channels you're present on, the more people will know about you and refer your products to their friends or family.
4. Understand Consumer Journey
Today, buyers go through multiple brands on multiple platforms before buying a product. Omnichannel marketing lets you contact them on various networks and understand their journey.
It helps you comprehend why the customer dropped out mid-journey if they did. Or why did they return to your product after dropping out for some time? Figuring these "whys" out gives you a clear idea about what your target audience wants. It helps better the consumer experience, which is directly proportional to sales.
5. Interconnect Online and Offline Consumer Experience
Your omnichannel marketing strategy aims to complete a sale smoothly at whatever network your customer chooses.
Omnichannel marketing strategy sometimes involves a combination of online and offline marketing strategies to convert a one-time buyer into a loyal consumer. For instance, you can give your mobile app or website users a coupon, which they can use at your physical store.
Tips for Making Omnichannel Marketing Effective
No matter how famous or impactful a marketing idea is, it requires effort. You can succeed this marketing idea using the omnichannel marketing tips listed below.
1. Manage All Your Social Media Profiles and Your Website
Image taken from Strikingly’s user’s website
One of the primary goals of omnichannel marketing is to provide the best customer experience. Therefore, more than being present is needed. These are some things you should be mindful of.
- Manage and optimize your profiles on all social media platforms.
- Introduce the most convenient way for shoppers to discover and purchase your products. For instance, making a shoppable post on Instagram and not pasting the product link in the bio.
- Being responsive across all platforms.
- Creating an excellent user experience on your website.
Creating a good website user experience is essential because most of your audience will be landing in your online store to make purchases. Therefore, review your existing website thoroughly and get the issues fixed by your developer (if you hired one to build it) as soon as possible. If you haven't yet created a website, and don't want to call the developer every time you need modification or additions, then Strikingly is one of the best tools.
Strikingly is a website builder that allows you to create a beautiful responsive website and make changes to it anytime you want, without any hassle.
It offers numerous features such as an intuitive site builder, an online store, a blog, and other sections to make website building easy.
Image taken from Strikingly
You can use Strikingly to build a blog to contribute to your omnichannel marketing strategy and add features to enhance customer experience. With Strikingly blog, you can enable RSS feed, activate Accelerated Mobile Pages, categorize, pin, and schedule blog posts, and enable comments to engage with your readers.
Remember to add a Simple Store section to your Strikingly website, where your customers can shop conveniently.
Strikingly offers the following features for its Simple Store.
- Categorize products.
- Add product filter.
- Accept payments through different methods.
- Add multiple shipping options.
- Sell digital products.
- Introduce store coupons.
- Customize checkout forms.
Moreover, Strikingly automatically makes your site design responsive, which is essential for omnichannel marketing.
2. Market Through Your Invoice
On every channel, someone's trying to get your potential consumer's attention. You must go all in and grab their attention through whatever medium possible. Invoices are one of the things you can turn into a marketing tool.
People look at the invoice, it can even be for a split second, but they do. On the invoice, you can print pictures of your star products or display discount codes or any other offers to encourage them to return to your store for future purchases.
3. Create Optimized Content
Ensure the content you're creating flows smoothly as the consumer moves through the sales funnel. A sales funnel is a marketing term that refers to a customer's journey from discovering your brand to making a purchase.
You can create fun and engaging infographics, which is excellent for product discovery. Publish interviews or your success stories to inspire and attract visitors. How-to articles and videos to educate and engage with your potential buyer. And show your product reviews, and give concise calls to action to convince and convert them.
Whatever channel you're using, optimize your content according to it by adding hashtags, keywords, etc.
4. Use the Right Tools
Omnichannel marketing can be tricky because you will get customer responses, inquiry messages, sales, etc, from many platforms. You need to access the right tools to keep up with all the engagement.
You can use software like Square to manage all your channels from one Point of Sale system. It even lets you manage your inventory across multiple platforms.
Consider getting paid research tools to know your audience. An analytics tool is essential to learn about your consumer's behavior throughout different touchpoints. It will also help you create content and showcase products that customers love and avoid what they dislike. To analyze your Strikingly website, you can use its built-in analytics tool, which doesn't cost a dime.
Email marketing tools can be confusing and expensive. Therefore, Strikingly has introduced an email marketing tool that doesn't require much of your time and effort. All you need to do is type in your well-crafted newsletter in the editor, select your recipients, and send.
Image taken from Strikingly
5. Keep the Number of Channels Limited in the Beginning
If you're just starting your omnichannel marketing strategy, don't launch your business on every available platform suddenly. This can make managing numerous channels challenging and might even affect your customer service, losing your current consumers.
Remember, an omnichannel marketing strategy focuses on creating an excellent customer experience that allows them to flow through the sales funnel smoothly. Understand the listed-above omnichannel tips and launch your marketing campaign today.
