There’s no single communication channel – people want to communicate in all ways and means. Omnichannel marketing came to the business world to help organizations connect with their customers meaningfully. Unlike some other trends, omnichannel is here to stay. Learn why.
In day-to-day life, people don’t use just one communication channel. The endless list can feel overwhelming: SMS, WhatsApp, Voice, Email, social media, Rich Communication Services (RCS), Viber, and more.
Some industries, like eCommerce and retail, have recently exploded the omnichannel marketing approach, which sees all these marketing channels unified into one.
What is omnichannel marketing?
Google states that 90% of multi-device owners switch between three devices to complete a standard task.
Omnichannel marketing is about understanding the channels used by your audience and forming a single strategy to interact with them on multiple platforms.
Omnichannel marketing sees communication channels working together rather than working in their own best interests. Instead of creating different strategies for every channel, it applies the same strategy across the board, with individual channels utilized when and where needed.
A precursor to omnichannel marketing is multi-channel marketing – where businesses engage users on multiple channels, but not all. The multi-channel approach regards different communication channels as independent silos.
Omnichannel takes a different approach: uniting communication channels to provide a consistent omnichannel customer experience and treating them as one channel with separate facets.
From there, companies can use omnichannel to target communication channels based on the recipient’s preference.
Benefits of omnichannel marketing
Omnichannel matters are due to shifting customer expectations. Ten years ago, price and availability were a priority. Brands could define what communication channels to use.
Now consumers want a personalized and seamless experience. They have the power to choose the mobile channels they use and expect to have a consistent, quality experience at every turn. The benefits of an omnichannel approach include the following:
Omnichannel marketing enables better customer segmentation
Omnichannel segments customers by sending them campaigns via their preferred channels. The insight businesses glean from an omnichannel experience helps them better target audiences, optimize content and generate more revenue.
Omnichannel marketing creates customer loyalty
Consumers want companies committed to excellent customer service. By personalizing communication and engaging at the right time, businesses can start building well-branded relationships that matter.
Omnichannel marketing improves customer experience
Omnichannel prioritizes a consistent customer experience across various channels, making it simple for customers to connect with businesses.
Greater ROI
By analyzing the data, you can identify the channels and strategies with the greatest return.
The why of omnichannel marketing is compelling. The next question: how?
Six steps to create an omnichannel marketing strategy
While switching to an omnichannel strategy may represent a rather seismic marketing shift within many organizations, there are ways and means to make the task less imposing. Here are six tips for omnichannel success.
- Map the journey: Begin by charting your customer journey. Ensure to trade any dead ends for green lights. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes as they navigate their journey: is every channel and touchpoint optimized to be customer-centric?
- Personalize, customize: The modern consumer wants to be treated like the individual they are. Use CRM data and automation to personalize the customer experience.
- Be consistent as a brand: While you should provide personalized experiences, they must create familiarity and recognition by being consistent across the board. RCS provides far more rich media options than SMS, but your core message should be the same across both channels.
- Integrate your CRM system: As customers move through different channels, going from SMS to a chatbot to a voice call, you should record every step within your CRM system.
- Keep a human handy: While automation technology can take care of many essential communications, you could always have a human on hand, ready to step in and answer more complex questions or solve more complex problems.
- Use a CPaaS solution: A communication platform as a service (CPaaS) solution forms your omnichannel strategy’s meeting point, making it super simple to manage. Your choice of CPaaS will arguably be more critical to the ongoing success of your omnichannel strategy than any other factor.
How an omnichannel marketing platform works
An omnichannel marketing strategy aims to bring all customer communication under one umbrella. And from a technology standpoint, that umbrella is an omnichannel CPaaS solution.
When customers switch between multiple channels, they shouldn’t feel like they are communicating with a different company every time. An omnichannel platform automates workflows and processes to provide a streamlined experience at every touchpoint.
Say you’ve identified WhatsApp, Facebook and SMS as vital communication channels for a particular demographic. A CPaaS solution allows you to create a single message and customize its appearance for each platform. You could deliver it as plain text on SMS, add a GIF on WhatsApp, and a link on Facebook.
When customers respond through any of these channels, their message is fed back into the CPaaS. Conversations flow seamlessly across channels, allowing you to deliver a far more consistent experience.
Soprano’s omnichannel messaging platform helps you get the right information, to the right person, in the right format, at the right time, for the right business outcome. It integrates as a core element of a digital transformation technology stack, allowing it to share information with other systems, and automate a wealth of processes that might currently be manual.
An example: in a recent omnichannel marketing campaign for one of our clients, we allowed their customers to submit satisfaction scores across almost any channel they chose, from typing a rating into a text message to clicking a button in an RCS message.
This omnichannel experience saw the brand generate a far higher level of survey response than ever before, and the insights they drew from the campaign were invaluable.
The potential of CPaaS, and the concept of omnichannel marketing as a whole, is so broad and deep that it is difficult to condense into a short blog post. How omnichannel marketing is deployed will also vary wildly from organization to organization.
One thing we can say with confidence is that omnichannel is not just the undoubted future of marketing. It’s increasingly the present. By now switching to an omnichannel approach, you’ll market yourself far more efficiently and effectively in the short-term and future-proof your business in the long term.
Offering a great customer experience is the backbone of a successful marketing strategy – and an omnichannel platform can help you get in right every time.