Why your business is doomed without Omnichannel Marketing

Throughout all marketing strategies, the channels utilized to reach customers should flow together seamlessly and provide an exceptional customer experience.

This article will provide insight into:

• Marketing strategies
• Why consider an omnichannel experience
• What is CX and how does traditional and digital communication affect it
• Three examples of successful omnichannel marketing strategies

Communication channels

Reaching your target audience is the main goal in any marketing strategy. Reaching them, communicating your message, and then converting them into customers. But how do you reach them?

It's important to remember that consumers are not created equal when it comes to marketing. As such, there are many ways to reach your intended audience through both traditional and digital channels.

Traditional channels include physical interactions with a brand such as brick-and-mortar stores, one-on-one interactions with employees, over the phone conversations, and traditional broadcast media such as billboards.

Digital channels include online interactions with a brand via the business website, application, online ads, promotions, email newsletter services, and social media.

Marketing strategies

Incorporating both traditional and digital channels for marketing is necessary in today's ever-evolving tech era to extend reach to as much of your target audience as possible. Modern marketing involves multichannel, integrated, and omnichannel approaches to seamlessly engage customers.

Multichannel marketing is a strategy that implements different channels to acquire as many customers as possible. Channels can include blogs, social media, brick-and-mortar stores, phone calls, billboards, marketing emails, and any other method of capturing the attention of potential customers. Multichannel marketing provides the business with the best chance to reach their target audience through a diverse variety of touchpoints.

Integrated marketing is a form of multichannel marketing by which it incorporates many channels to communicate with a target audience. It refers to the strategy of integrating ads, sales promotions, public relations, social media, and direct marketing together to communicate with leads, opportunities, and previous customers. This is to ensure communication is consistent across all channels and is customer-focused.

Omnichannel marketing is another form of multichannel marketing, however, there are some significant differences. Omnichannel marketing is more intuitive as it uses all channels to fit the customer's needs best. It blends channels simultaneously, whether digital or traditional, to create a seamless Customer Experience (CX).

What is CX?

Customer Experience is the leading method marketers use to acquire and retain quality customer relationships and grow revenue. CX refers to any and all touchpoints a customer, or potential customer, has with your brand throughout the customer journey from beginning to end.

A seamless Customer Experience covers how usable (UX), valuable and enjoyable the experience is for customers, end-to-end.

What do consumers expect from a business?

Omnichannel marketing is not just about a business 'going digital' to keep up with the times. But instead, to ease the transition of new customers via diverse channels and enhance their overall customer journey.

Omnichannel marketing creates brand engagement and connected experience for consumers. Instead of confining your audience to a single brand experience, opening the door to omnichannel marketing can significantly improve CX when done right.

Examples of omnichannel implementation

Disney

One of the biggest brands in the world, Disney gets the omnichannel experience right, down to the smallest detail. From beginning to end, Disney creates a seamless experience and offers more than its customers have ever dreamed of.

Disney's website for trip-planning is easily accessible across all devices (desktop, tablet, and smartphone). The My Disney Experience tool assists guests to plan their entire trip. That includes everything from dining, securing a Fast Pass, and much more. There is even a mobile app providing specific information about each location in the park, with estimated wait-time.

But that's not all! Disney takes it one step further with its MagicBand program. Whether its the MagicBand or card, it acts as a hotel room key, theme and water park admission with FastPass option, a storage device for photos taken with Disney characters, and a food ordering tool.

Oasis

With the desire to remain 'the same Oasis you know and love,' UK retailer Oasis has grown and implemented an omnichannel brand while maintaining its original brand vision. Blending its eCommerce website, mobile app, and brick-and-mortar stores into a seamless shopping experience, Oasis provides a helpful, accessible, and interactive customer experience.

Walk into an Oasis boutique, and you'll find sales associates armed with tablets ready to provide up-to-date product information and assist with queries. The tablet acts as a cash register and stock ordering tool. That means sales associates are fully equipped to handle all processes on the spot. Whether it be to provide accurate product details in-store, putting through sales transactions, or ordering a product that is out of stock to be sent directly to the customer's address.

An all-encompassing retail experience as soon as you step into the store, click into the website, or access the mobile app.

Starbucks

A classic example of omnichannel marketing can be seen in the Starbucks reward app. By creating a seamless payment and rewards program, Starbucks took something simple and made it even easier for customers.

You may go to a cafe regularly and get a rewards card stamped whenever you buy a coffee, but what if you forget the card or lose it? You'd have to start again. Not at Starbucks; as a loyalty member, you receive a free rewards card that connects to your online Starbucks account. That means customers can access their rewards card via phone, website, in-store, or on the app. Not only that, they can pay with their rewards card and instantly top-up whenever they need to. Any changes to the card or profile are updated across all platforms in real-time.

Here at SMSGlobal, we provide communication solutions developed to seamlessly integrate with existing systems.

Contact us to find out how we can implement bulk SMS and OTT messaging into your omnichannel marketing strategy.