We live in an age where customers have more ways to interact with your brand than ever before.
This fragmentation creates lots of problems, but also plenty of opportunities. Customers can now be reached online, on mobile, through social, with email or in an actual store location. The biggest challenge, however, is when messaging and the experience on all these channels feel inconsistent from one another. That’s where omnichannel marketing strategy comes into play. A true omnichannel strategy makes sure all of your messaging and different touchpoints are working together and living in harmony so you are able to drive customer engagement like never before.
Omnichannel also allows you to quickly and accurately track how those interactions are doing, then adjust them on the fly, which is incredibly powerful and useful. Check out the top reasons omnichannel can improve your engagement, and get some inspiration for building your own strategy.
1: Making it all seamless
Omnichannel strategy is all about creating messaging and functionality that’s truly seamless across all channels. That means the way you talk to customers and the way they interact with your brand will feel the same everywhere.
Why is this important? Well think about how many times a day people bounce back and forth between their phone, laptop, tablet or other connected devices. Wouldn’t it be great if any time they encounter your brand, no matter where they are, or what device they may be using, they will be served messages that at are all walking in step together?
Basically, good omnichannel messaging doesn’t put the burden on the user, but rather, tries to leverage data to make the customer’s journey as easy and seamless as possible.
2: Knowing what makes your customers tick
In today’s world, it’s all about understanding your customer’s wants and being able to react quickly to their changing habits. Omnichannel allows you do that like never before.
Here’s a good illustration. Let’s say your omnichannel analytics are telling you that Facebook users are looking at most of your content on mobile. Using this data you realize you should probably create more mobile-friendly content for your Facebook campaigns. Or, if you can see that certain pieces of older content are still being shared on Twitter, you can start building new content around the same topic or repurpose the existing collateral.
These analytics create a clear picture of every channel, allowing you to see how content is being consumed and shared. The benefit? By knowing what content your customers like most, and knowing where they want to encounter it, you can truly tailor your messaging and build a personalized experience.
3: Customer support across channels
Imagine for a moment that you’re a customer who needs support, so you contact a company through their mobile app. Now you’re at home on your laptop, on the company’s website and have to re-enter all your info again for customer support. Ugh. Wouldn’t it be better if customers were able to get support through the channel of their choice even when they switch channels? Of course it would. Having a handle on your omnichannel strategy means that you have control over every interaction your customers have with your brand, so you can drive brand loyalty and positive engagement at every step.
Linking it all together
How do you build your very own omnichannel engine? With something simple: the link. We’ve talked before about how the power of the link can take omnichannel guesstimating to fully realized omnichannel analytics.
The importance of omnichannel analytics isn’t just that the data lets you know where to invest – the data can also empower your marketing by helping you decide what to say and how to say it.
Once you can view the results of every campaign across every channel – from SMS and mobile to social and email – you can offer customers the best possible experience, no matter what channel. Now that’s powerful.