Omnichannel marketing is a Madison Avenue marketing wizard’s dream come true. Just imagine what Don Draper could have done with unlimited around-the-clock access to his customers
Considering that 85% of online shoppers will begin a purchase with one device and then finish with another, omnichannel marketing simply cannot be overlooked. It’s only going to become more important as eCommerce continues to augment physical businesses of every kind.
Omnichannel marketing is not a plug-and-play solution to all of your marketing woes, however. Incorporating multiple networks and analytic platforms into your existing marketing campaign brings a lot more moving pieces into your marketing campaigns.
Using omnichannel marketing effectively involves both logic and creativity. You’ll need to be an artist as well as a data scientist (and a little bit of a sociologist).
Lucky for you, we are here to help! Here are 8 tips for optimizing your omnichannel marketing efforts!
8 Omnichannel Marketing Optimization Tips
We’ll start off with a disclaimer. There’s no such thing as a boilerplate marketing strategy. Anyone who tells you there’s an out-of-the-box marketing solution that will make you millions is lying to you.
Successful marketing requires understanding your customers and your brand. It means understanding your buyer persona’s pain points so you can solve them.
It also means understanding your brand and aesthetic to an almost molecular detail to create a consistent brand message. Which brings us to our first point…
1. Make Your Content Consistent
60% of millennials expect consistent brand experiences. They want to know what to expect, no matter if they’re engaging with your content on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
Consistent branding across all of your marketing platforms helps customers to know they’re still dealing with the same company. With so many different businesses operating on the same platforms, this simple step helps remove their anxiety so they can give you money with a clear conscience.
Some easy ways to include consistent branded content in your omnichannel marketing campaign include:
- A logo or thumbnail that you use on each network
- Branded header graphics
- Consistent tone and language
- Fill out ‘About’ pages and bios
- Homepage link
2. Choose Your Channels
When social media marketing first started trending, it was tempting to rush out and start as many profiles as possible. We could consider this the ‘social media gold rush.’
An unfocused marketing strategy can actually do more harm than good, however. It’s a better idea to focus on channels that you can ultimately excel at. Think of this as “working smart, not hard.”
Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are the best social media monoliths. You’d do well to focus on these three if you’re just starting to build your brand or focus on social media marketing.
Social media certainly doesn’t end with there, however. Some other popular, powerful networks for omnichannel marketing include:
- YouTube
- Snapchat
- Tumblr
- WeHeartIt
- Pearltrees
- GitHub
YouTube and Pinterest alone have an enormous user base that can drive ridiculous amounts of traffic to your website or digital assets. Pinterest users, in particular, are notoriously well-known for spending money through the platform.
Instead of spreading yourself too thin, take the time to really master the channels you’re working with. Learn how to make your graphics look as appealing as possible for each individual platform.
Your customers will thank you with engagement, retweets, and – ultimately – cold, hard cash!
3. Decide on Your Business Goals
Your end goal is going to have a huge impact on every aspect of your marketing. It will color the language you use and the images you broadcast. It will shape your intended audience and even impact when you schedule your content!
If you’re in business, the end goal is almost always money, except for very special circumstances. The buyer’s cycle has gotten longer and more complicated than ever before, however.
Getting customers to spend their money is a much longer proposition that it used to be. Our marketing strategies need to reflect that.
If your goal is raising brand awareness, for instance, you might spend more energy on curating content and engaging with your industry. Hashtag campaigns and user-generated content are highly effective in this area.
If you’re looking to convert to hard sales, however, you’re going to need to rely on more time-honored marketing techniques like strong copywriting or testimonials. You can still leverage the powers of digital marketing to use with these classic marketing principles.
4. Be Authentic
Online marketing and eCommerce has made the interconnected world we’re living in all-too-obvious. Digital natives know all-too-well the impact their purchases can make. “Vote with your wallet,” has been a slogan for the entire 21st Century, and it’s only getting more extreme.
Use your omnichannel marketing to tell your brand’s story. Illustrate your values and your unique value proposition. Specify what separates you from your competition. Your customers will reward you with brand loyalty, potentially the most valuable element in the galaxy at the moment.
5. Make It Measurable
When it comes to marketing, “Work S.M.A.R.T., not hard,” takes on a whole new meaning.
In this instance, S.M.A.R.T. stands for:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Actionable
- Realistic
- Timed
In short, marketing’s job is to eliminate the guesswork from our day-to-day business. Getting these formulas even slightly off returns us to crossing our fingers and hoping people buy our stuff. Not an ideal business model, to put it mildly.
S.M.A.R.T. is essentially the STEM component of marketing. In science and math, the goal is to eliminate variables to get a clear picture of what’s working and what isn’t.
Scheduling content and using digital tools such as hashtags or link shorteners to segment your audience delivers a clear picture of how your content is performing.
When done correctly, it can yield powerful insights. It serves as a stop-gap, unofficial A/B testing method, which can cost thousands of dollars when done in a laboratory or boardroom.
6. Break Down Silos
Getting data out of its silos is one of the most challenging aspects of omnichannel marketing. Comparing and contrasting data is where the insights lie. Making sure the data is all in the same language also prevents miscommunication and faulty conclusions.
CRM software is one way to break down the data silos. An enterprise-level marketing database is another. AI or a dedicated data team is a third way to get all of your data working together to yield maximum insights.
Having clean, clear, actionable data is an essential component of omnichannel marketing strategies like Social Recommendations or Suggested Selling. That alone is worth investing some energy into data integration.
7. Segment Your Audience
Remember when we were talking about the buyer’s cycle earlier? The same content that will convince someone to sign up for your newsletter is not the same as something that will make a customer buy your products.
Not only is un-targeted marketing a waste of time and energy, but it can also even do more harm than good. In this day of personalized recommendations, customers have higher expectations than ever before. Inappropriate advertising can be offensive and leave a bad taste in your customers’ mouths.
Integrate some way to annotate audience segmentation in your database or CRM software. Then create specific content for different customers based on where they’re at in their buyer’s journey.
8. Market Your Content
Content is still king in 2018. Of course, the type of content most in vogue is always changing, year-by-year. The common wisdom is still that content marketing is one of the most essential aspects of any marketing strategy.
Creating blog posts, branded graphics, infographics, or video content gives you something to share on your social media channels. It’s also easy to share, which raises the possibility of going viral.
When marketed correctly, content raises brand awareness, increases customer confidence and loyalty, and steers your audience towards actual conversions without your having to do anything. In fact, your customers will do the work for you a lot of the time.
Are You Looking for Omnichannel Marketing Solutions?
If not you should be. It is so important to have a consistent message with all customer-facing content. Furthermore, a similar experience amongst all channels and devices.