Not that long ago, marketers spent lots of time debating the merits of different promotional methods. Is it better to invest in email marketing, SEO, PPC advertising or social media marketing? Today, you need a multichannel/omnichannel marketing strategy to reach customers and prospects wherever they are. If you’re only investing in one type of marketing, you’re missing many opportunities to reach your audience. Put these keys to successful omnichannel marketing to work instead.
Multichannel or Omnichannel?
The terms “multichannel” and “omnichannel” are both popular right now, and they’re sometimes used interchangeably. While they have slightly different connotations, they share fundamental traits. Shopify provides an excellent discussion of multichannel and omnichannel marketing. “Multichannel” means connecting with consumers on many channels, which is a good starting point.
“Omnichannel” implies a consistent and seamless cross-channel approach, where customers can move from one platform to another. Omnichannel is a more sophisticated and customer-friendly form of multichannel marketing. Terminology aside, it’s vital it is to engage with your audience on multiple platforms and devices.
Why an Omnichannel Approach is Essential
People aren’t using just one or two types of communication. No matter what kind of business you have, most of your customers are:
- Using social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.
- Sending and receiving email
- Watching videos on YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, etc.
- Looking up information on search engines
- Sending and receiving text messages
- Looking at ads, posters and billboards offline
It’s no longer relevant to ask whether your customers are using email, search engines or social media. Today, it’s all of the above. Technology makes it easy to shift quickly between devices and platforms. It’s simple for you to send readers and followers from one location to another, provided you are set up to do so. You might, for example, include a link to your website or Facebook page in an email. You can post links in your social media pages to a website or product page, too. And don’t forget about podcasts and webinars to send your audience anywhere you want!
Okay, so as a business, why else should you use omnichannel marketing? Most importantly, people aren’t only socializing on multiple channels but also when they’re shopping (and researching buying decisions). Harvard Business Review found that 73 percent of consumers shop on multiple channels, which stands to increase as people use more devices and channels. Take advantage of these trends to help your company’s image. The first of many keys to successful omnichannel marketing? Brand awareness.
Build Brand Awareness
People usually need to see a message many times before they respond. Hitting them with messages on one channel is tedious. After all, no one wants emails every day repeating the same messages. Being active in multiple formats increases exposure and lets you communicate your message in a variety of ways. This is good for educating your audience and holding their interest. For example, share technical information in a blog post or email, and show your followers photos, memes or infographics on social media. Videos let you communicate in yet another way. You can build brand awareness without your messages getting repetitive. And it helps you reach people with different preferences, as some folks are more influenced by text, images or video.
How to Create a Powerful OmnichannelMarketing Strategy
Now let’s look at some of the ways to create the right omnichannel marketing strategy for your business. You probably don’t have to start from scratch. Just about every business is active on multiple platforms. The key is to find what works for you.
Choose the Right Platforms for You
It’s easy to talk about the benefits of an omnichannel marketing strategy. However, there are now more marketing possibilities, and more are on the way. You can’t be active on all of them, nor should you try to be. So another one of the keys to successful omnichannel marketing is to find the right platforms. Make your selections by doing research and testing your results. Focus on a few sites on which you know your audience is most active.
Facebook is still the leader for just about every niche. If you’re involved in B2B marketing, LinkedIn is worth pursuing. On the other hand, Snapchat is ideal for businesses with younger customers. Pinterest, meanwhile, is a visual social media site, whose members are more affluent and mainly women (Of course, Pinterest reports half of new signups are men, so this may be changing).
Reuse and Repurpose Content
You don’t always have to create completely new content for every platform. Whenever possible, think of ways to repurpose old content for new purposes.
- Turn articles and blog posts into videos. There are several tools that make it simple to convert articles into videos. Videos where you or other experts actually appear and talk can also contribute greatly to your marketing strategy. However, as long as you have articles and blog posts, why not reuse them in this way? Remember to optimize your videos with keywords in your titles and descriptions.
- Put blog posts together to create more extensive reports and even e-books.
- Turn data-rich posts into infographics. Infographics are highly shareable and perfect for social media.
- Create tweets that are teasers for your other content. You can even do this for older content, provided it’s evergreen.
- Turn blog posts into podcasts. It’s not hard to start a podcast with today‘s technology. You can read your best posts, perhaps with some additional commentary and create interesting podcasts. Podcasts, in turn, can be uploaded to YouTube as videos!
Segment Your Audience
Segmentation works hand-in-hand with your omnichannel marketing strategy. The object of omnichannel marketing is to make it easier to interact with your customers. You also have to keep in mind that not everyone wants or needs the same kind of content. If you offer a variety of products or services, you want to segment your audience so you’re not sending out or pointing people to irrelevant content. Segmentation is often discussed in the context of email marketing. If you have customers with diverse demographics, buying history, and interest you can create multiple lists and send out appropriate messages to each. You can extend this idea to other types of marketing, such as social media. Consider creating multiple Facebook pages and other social media pages for different types of customers.
The type of segmentation you employ really depends on your business. In some cases, it’s worthwhile to create two or more distinct brands. This is most commonly done by larger companies. Amazon, for example, has many sub-brands such as CreateSpace, Alexa, Audible and Zappos (Amazon acquired the shoe company in 2009). As you identify different types of customers, make sure you implement an omnichannel strategy for each segment. If you have two or more email lists, for example, you might connect each with a different Facebook page and website. In some cases, it suffices to send people to different pages on a single website (e.g. if you have product pages for different types of items).
Maintain Brand Consistency
One challenge among the keys to successful omnichannel marketing is maintaining the essential look, tone and values of your brand. You can do this while delivering your message in different formats. Obviously, if you’re posting on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, you have to alter your approach to fit the platform. The same is true when you’re sending emails or posting long-form content to your blog. However, you still want to make sure you maintain consistency when it comes to factors such as tone (e.g. formal and professional, casual, humorous), layout, colors and style.
Integrate Online and Offline Marketing
When you think about an omnichannel marketing strategy, you also need to consider online methods. However, it’s equally important to include offline marketing tactics into your overall strategy. One of the characteristics of omnichannel is providing a seamless experience for customers as they navigate between devices and platforms. Keep in mind that people are also constantly shifting their focus between the online and offline worlds.
- Advertise your URLs offline on posters, business cards, billboards, flyers and other printed material. It’s a little trickier to track offline campaigns because you can’t use online analytics tools. There are, however, ways to track offline campaigns, such as by using custom URLs and landing pages. You can include your segmentation strategy offline by sending people to specific web and social media pages rather than everyone to the same place (e.g. your website’s homepage).
- Use mobile marketing. Smartphones provide an efficient link between the on and offline worlds. While users access the internet on their smartphones, you can also reach them via text message. SMS is especially good for generating leads. You can, for example, ask people at a live presentation to text a shortcode (simply a 5-digit number that you set up) in exchange for a report or other gift, similar to an email lead magnet. You can also advertise shortcodes on any offline materials you hand out or post.
- Traditional offline networking. It’s still extremely useful to meet and talk to people in your community and at business events. Not simply to pitch them, but to learn about their needs and preferences. Along with exchanging business cards, ask them which social media sites they use and how they prefer to communicate. The more you talk to people, the more you’ll stay in the loop and have a good sense of which platforms to focus on.
Track Your Results
Analytics are essential for the success of your omnichannel marketing strategy. Your can’t be present everywhere, but you can use the platforms your customers spend the most time on. Sure, you can make an educated guess about this based on demographics. At the same time, you need to constantly track your results to find out which efforts are giving you a decent ROI and which ones aren’t worth your time.
Be clear about your goals. Some campaigns are more about building brand awareness than getting people to take specific actions (such as signing up for your list or buying something). Even in this case, you want to track metrics such as views, likes, shares and engagement.
Turn to Omnichannel for the Future of Your Marketing
The days when you could separate distinct types of communication and marketing are fading. People shift from one platform and device to another. Create an omnichannel strategy customized to your needs so you can cash in on this trend. It isn’t something you’ll figure out, then set it and forget it. It’s a constantly-evolving process to monitor at every stage. Your customers shift their shopping habits constantly—do your part to keep up with them.