Implementing an omnichannel strategy will help you supercharge customer engagement, satisfaction and loyalty.
In 2024, consumers expect the ability to window shop, research and make purchases online using different mobile devices. More than this, they want their experience to be the same regardless of the device they’re using or the digital channel they’re visiting. Google reports that 90 per cent of consumers switch between devices when making a purchase. To succeed in this new reality, every brand has to become an omnichannel brand. That means delivering an excellent, seamless and, most importantly, consistent customer experience across all touchpoints – digital and physical.
The power of a positive customer experience cannot be overstated. Consider these statistics from job search platform Zippia:
- 64 per cent of consumers consider customer experience to be more important than price and 73 per cent believe customer experience is the deciding factor in their purchasing decisions.
- 72 per cent of customers will share a positive customer experience with six or more people.
- Revenues can jump by 10 to 15 per cent when customer experience improves.
- 89 per cent of companies compete primarily based on customer experience.
If you haven’t already, it’s time to prioritize and implement a holistic omnichannel marketing strategy. Omnichannel marketing is not new, but as we step into the new year, it is no longer a nice-to-have. It is an essential part of a successful customer experience strategy. It is what will help you meet and exceed customer demands, attract and successfully engage with new potential customers, retain existing customers, build loyalty, and gain competitive advantage.
What is omnichannel marketing?
Perhaps more than any other time in history, brands live in a customer-centric world. The digital landscape gives consumers more information and power than ever and provides brands with an ever growing toolbox to deliver the personalized attention customers want. More specifically, today’s digital consumers want and expect customization, convenience and consistency. At its core, omnichannel marketing is about putting the customer first, and meeting and exceeding these expectations.
It’s a holistic marketing strategy designed to ensure your target and existing customers receive personalized, cohesive, connected and relevant outreach across all the channels and devices they use. Each touchpoint and interaction is used to inform messaging. This helps to ensure the overall strategy is always adapting to provide the right content at the right time. Brand tone and visuals are clearly identifiable and consistent, making it easy for customers to recognize and connect with your brand.
While it’s easy to assume omnichannel and multichannel marketing are the same, in fact, they are not. Omnichannel marketing is focused on helping the customer. Multichannel marketing is focused on the brand and selling its products and services. Multichannel marketing campaigns have their own individual goals and targets. They are not integrated; visuals are not consistent and messaging is not cohesive. This can leave target audiences confused and frustrated.
Four key benefits of a 2024 omnichannel marketing strategy
1. Better customer insights
An effective omnichannel strategy is based on a clear understanding of target customers and tracks customers across their buying journey with your brand. By recording and measuring each interaction, an omnichannel strategy can provide a holistic view of customer behaviour. Brands can then use this information to tailor marketing campaigns, promotions and product offerings to specific target audiences.
2. Improved alignment of marketing campaigns – and greater reach
Omnichannel marketing integrates all your marketing efforts – online and offline – in a way that creates a unified, consistent brand story and seamless customer experience. This increased exposure means your brand is always easily accessible to your target audience via your site, email, direct message or phone.
3. Improved customer retention and loyalty
Omnichannel marketing provides the convenience today’s shoppers want. They can engage when and how they want in a way that is seamless and prioritizes their time. Creating a positive customer experience strengthens your relationship, increases trust, builds loyalty and enhances your brand reputation. Perhaps even more importantly, happy customers are more likely to champion your brand.
Fast fact: On average, 90 per cent of omnichannel brands retain their customers.
4. Increased sales
Nearly three quarters of customers prefer shopping across multiple channels and when they shop with omnichannel brands they shop more frequently and buy more. Research shows using three or more channels in a digital marketing campaign can earn a 494 per cent higher order rate than a single-channel campaign. Plus, the number of purchases is 250 per cent higher and the size of each purchase is 13 per cent greater.
How to build your 2024 omnichannel strategy
Invest in existing and emerging technologies
This will allow you to capture quality data across the buying journey. Leverage data analytics and key performance indicators to create and deliver the experience your customer wants.
- A customer experience platform will capture interaction data about each of your customers and provide analytics tools to measure, manage and improve your customers’ experience with your brand.
- Loyalty programs collect data about how customers are interacting with the brand.
- Chat support helps pave the way for a sale by answering customer questions in real time.
- Customer relationship management software provides a holistic view of customer interactions across all your platforms.
- Inventory management software gives you a real-time view of your inventory and shares this information across all your platforms.
- Social media management software makes it possible to schedule and post content and track performance across platforms from one centralized spot.
- AI can help you create customized customer experiences across channels.
Ensure your customer support team maximizes the full potential of these technologies by providing the appropriate training. This will help them consistently deliver excellent customer service.
Implement omnichannel attribution
Omnichannel attribution tracks and analyzes every customer touchpoint across all online, offline, paid and owned marketing channels. Leveraging these insights provides a comprehensive view of customer behaviours and provides a detailed understanding of what’s driving the sales process and how to improve. Omnichannel is much more valuable than multichannel attribution, which only focuses on the touchpoints that lead to a conversion.
Omnichannel marketing is essential to success in 2024. It’s what will help you stand out and reach your target audience in a seamless, consistent and unified manner. Most importantly, it helps enhance customer satisfaction.
