Consumers are embracing omnichannel shopping habits more than ever before. 86% of shoppers, to be exact, regularly channel-hop across at least two channels while shopping. This shopping strategy spans both digital and brick-and-mortar channels, to add complexity to advertisers’ situations. Consumers may research and select a product online, maybe even add it to their cart, but they’ll pick up the product in-store while running errands over the weekend. Conversely, while browsing in-store, they may be using their phone as a virtual assistant or chose to make an online purchase instead.
These varying shopping journeys have all but solidified the necessity for advertisers to embrace omnichannel marketing campaigns. For brands to remain competitive, they need to create seamless shopping journeys for consumers across every channel consumers will use to research, browse and ultimately buy a product.
So, if you’re ready to join the 87% of marketers who recognize an omnichannel marketing solution is critical to success, keep reading. Below is a guide to help you get started building successful omnichannel marketing campaigns.
What is Omnichannel Marketing?
In the simplest of terms, omnichannel marketing is an approach to marketing that addresses each channel’s customer experience – desktop browser, mobile, retail, social media, podcast, and any others you might use – and how customers transition between channels they make purchases.
If you’re interested in learning more about what omnichannel is and the different aspects that make up an omnichannel marketing campaign, check out our blog post What is Omnichannel Marketing.
The Benefits of an Omnichannel Marketing Solution
We outlined a clear benefit of an omnichannel marketing solution above: more directly correlates to how consumers shop, which creates better brand perceptions amongst consumers. However, studies have shown that omnichannel marketing benefits an organization’s bottom line. Brands with omnichannel marketing solutions yield better sales and customer retention rates than those who do not.
The Aberdeen Group found that companies with strong omnichannel customer engagement see a 9.5% increase in revenue, year-over-year. On the other hand, Google found that omnichannel shoppers have a 30% higher lifetime value than those who shop using only one channel.
These stats outline the benefits brands can see when embracing omnichannel marketing campaigns. 90% of customers expect consistent interactions across channels, which quickly shifts omnichannel marketing from a beneficial tool for marketers to use to an essential. Let’s dive into how you can get started building a successful omnichannel marketing strategy.
Keep Your Consumer at the Center of Everything
The main reason you have decided to invest in an omnichannel solution is to better the experience for your consumers. So, as you move through different stages, continue to keep your mind focused on how your consumer thinks, interacts with your brand, and will benefit from various investments you make.
Take some time to step into the shoes of your consumers. Test what their customer journey would be like right now. What is the online shopping experience? Are there integrations when switching from their laptop to a mobile device? Are your online assistants helpful? Is it easy to choose in-store pick-up when shopping online?
The more you can understand how your customers are interacting with your brand, the better you will tailor your advertising dollars to meet their needs.
As you understand how your audience is interacting with your brand, it’s also essential to understand your audience. So, take a moment to outline all the various aspects of your customers. Consider the following:
- Demographics: where do they live, their age, gender, occupation
- Psychographics: what they enjoy doing, lifestyle attributes
- Behavioral: how they spend their time, device usage, channel preferences
As you continue to build your omnichannel marketing strategy, you will gain more information about your consumers. But, this will start as your baseline to help you with the next step.
With Great [Data] Comes Great Responsibility
A successful omnichannel marketing solution requires actionable data. And, as your omnichannel solution continues, you will acquire more data. You will begin to understand better how your consumer behaves, where they shop, which ads they click on most frequently, which discount and sale offerings garner their attention, etc. And all of this information will come to you in the form of data.
Just think: if you’re running different creatives across different channels, the data sources begin to add up quickly. Before you even get started with these campaigns, to find the most success, outline a data collection, organization, and integration plan. With so much robust data, it’s easy to get lost in spreadsheet land quickly. Finding a data analytics solution that works for your brand will solve this problem.
Channel Prioritization
Omnichannel marketing campaigns can include channels such as paid search, paid social, programmatic, audio, TV, print, mobile, email marketing, in-store, influencer marketing, and direct response marketing (and the list continues). This is why it was essential to take some time to understand your consumers and where they spend their time. This will allow you to better budget (both financially and time-wise) where your ad spend should be allocated.
As you begin to build out your content for different channels, keep these three things in mind:
- You can’t be everywhere, but your consumers also aren’t everywhere. This might sound like it contradicts everything that has been said prior. Yes, consumers are shifting between more channels and devices. However, not all these outlets are perfect for your brand. By spreading yourself too thin, you miss out on more substantial, more timely impressions. For example, rather than spreading advertising budget across all social media, try re-targeting people who have interacted with your Facebook ads on Instagram. The key to a successful omnichannel marketing campaign is to work smarter, not harder.
- Fill the gaps: As you move through your customer journey exercise, make sure you fill any gaps that you notice. Were you unable to purchase the product online and pick it up in a store? Any infrequencies consumers experience with the brands presents the risk of them shifting away from your brand.
- Avoid Silos: Consumers want an integrated customer journey. The sentiment a customer feels when entering your store should mirror your website, social media, etc. If someone asked a brand rep a question about a specific product, the next email they receive should resonate with that conversation. Consistency is key.
Be Responsive & Reactive
Conversations surrounding consumer data have been at the forefront of industry news (if you want to learn more about consumer data changes, check out our future of third-party cookies hub). However, many studies have found that if you use consumers’ data to create more personalized experiences, they are more willing to give it up. Digitaltrends found that 73% of consumers prefer to do business with retailers who use personal information to make their shopping experience more relevant.
As marketers, it’s our job to utilize this data to create a personalized customer journey. As you dive into your omnichannel marketing campaigns, think about how you will create personalized ad experiences for your consumers. Consider the following:
- Retargeting: Deliver ads to users who have previously visited your site and/or landing pages. You can qualify this based on which pages they visited, how recently they visited the pages, or how frequently they visited the page. This allows you to target the consumer who has been looking at one of your products three times a day for the last two days. The personalization comes as you serve them an ad that directly correlates to the products they have been looking at during their customer journey.
- Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO): This tactic uses a highly automated and rules-driven approach to generated ads dynamically based on data feeds. It also optimizes the time in which the ad is delivered. This allows your brand to create hundreds, or even thousands, of unique creatives, with minimal lift. This tool allows more relevant messages based on a consumer’s data – their location, interaction history, etc.
Continue to re-iterate your customer journey to ensure that you have the content and tactics to respond to key behaviors. The more responsive your marketing can be to where a customer is in their journey, the better it will resonate with them.
Get Started: Incorporate Omnichannel Marketing Campaigns Today
The digital and physical world will only continue to merge as technology improves. As advertisers, the best way to merge your offline and online advertising strategies is with omnichannel marketing.
An omnichannel marketing strategy is not easy. It requires organization, creative thinking, and quick fixes when necessary. However, with hard work comes great rewards. Your digital advertising strategy will improve along with your overall brand.
Digilant: An Expert Omnichannel Marketing Partner
At Digilant, we understand the lift required to execute a successful omnichannel marketing campaign. Our full-service agency solutions position brands to stand out in crowded categories. Our biddable media platform experts work with our data analysts, marketing specialists, and planners & strategists to create comprehensive omnichannel marketing plans spanning search, social, display, video, audio, email, and more.
Every omnichannel marketing strategy starts with customer research. We understand that the backbone of any successful campaign begins with unlocking data to define a target audience. This leads us to develop data-driven integrated marketing strategies, setting the stage for measurable performance.
Get started with your omnichannel marketing campaigns today with Digilant’s Full-Service Solutions. Let’s talk.