Connecting with your audience through multiple channels is already a step up from single-channel marketing, but omnichannel strategies add a new layer of integration to your customer interactions. Omnichannel campaigns maintain a seamless experience across channels and attempt to engage leads naturally regardless of the channel they’re using.
In this article, we’ll cover three of the most effective ways to implement an omnichannel approach in your business. While the transition can be confusing and even overwhelming, research shows that omnichannel campaigns consistently outperform both single-channel and multi-channel strategies.
Table of Contents
1. Focus on Communication
Businesses often treat marketing, support, and product development as three distinct groups, but omnichannel campaigns require open communication between departments. Sharing customer data throughout your organization allows everyone on your team to respond to each lead’s unique history with your brand.
For example, audience data helps marketers identify the right kind of messaging for a given lead based on their customer history. That same data will help your customer service team provide personalized support that’s tailored to the customer’s needs.
With that in mind, it’s important to get everyone in your organization onboard when you switch to omnichannel campaigns from a single-channel or multi-channel approach. You simply won’t be able to facilitate complex customer interactions without getting your entire team on the same page.
2. Understand the Customer Experience
Omnichannel marketing is all about responding to customer needs. Even if you don’t have much customer data, you can start by gathering some basic information and learning about the customer experience.
One simple way to identify common pain points is to go see that experience for yourself. Use your site from the customer’s perspective to find any issues that could be impacting your sales. Don’t forget to simulate as many different interactions as possible—for example, you should test your site on as many devices as possible including computers, tablets, and phones.
Collecting feedback from your customers is another crucial step for any business interested in transitioning to omnichannel marketing. Audience feedback is one of the most efficient methods of spotting weak points in your approach. You can also offer discounts, free shipping, and other perks to get even more responses.
3. Develop Personalized Messaging
You can start making informed changes to your marketing content once you’ve taken steps to prepare your team and learn about typical audience experiences. Personalization is one of the key benefits of omnichannel campaigns compared to more traditional approaches, and developing more engaging and relevant messaging will lead to a sustainable bump in sales.
Segmenting your audience into a variety of smaller groups allows you to target those groups instead of trying to sell to your entire audience at once. This process will keep subscribers more engaged with your brand, leading to an increased open rate and fewer unsubscribes.
Audiences can be segmented in virtually infinite ways. It’s best to start small with basic criteria like gender, age, and location. You can also integrate other factors such as prior engagement with your brand. Customers who have already made several purchases, for example, may require different messaging compared to new leads.
4. Start A/B Testing
Customer data can help you optimize your strategies, but A/B tests, also known as split tests, give you actionable information about each campaign. Continually running split tests streamlines the process of finding strengths and weaknesses in your strategies, enabling you to make adjustments based on the audience response.
A/B testing involves comparing results from two variants of the same ad. For example, you might send the same email with two different subject lines in order to determine which one is more effective.
While it can be tempting to test multiple elements at the same time, only changing a single element of each message makes it easy to identify which version was more effective. Without split tests, you won’t have enough data to determine which aspects of your strategies are negatively impacting sales.
5. Invest in Marketing Software
Some of these tasks can be performed manually, but automation tools streamline virtually every area of digital marketing. A/B tests are just one example of a task that’s simply too time-intensive to perform without the aid of a dedicated application.
SMS marketing software, for example, supports bulk messages, automated workflows, discount codes, split tests, and a number of other critical functions. While some tools focus on a single marketing channel, others are designed for omnichannel campaigns from the ground up.
Omnichannel marketing involves a dramatic shift from traditional strategies, but the results are well worth the transition. These tips will help you seamlessly implement omnichannel tactics and develop a more engaging experience for your customers.
