7 Keys to a Successful Omnichannel Marketing Strategy

Not that long ago, marketers spent lots of time debating the relative merits of different promotional methods. Is it better to invest in email marketing, SEO, PPC advertising, or social media marketing? Today, it’s becoming apparent that you need a multichannel / omnichannel marketing strategy that lets you 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.

Multichannel or Omnichannel?

The terms “multichannel” and “omnichannel” are both quite popular right now. It can be a little confusing as they’re sometimes used interchangeably. While they have slightly different connotations, they share some fundamental traits. Shopify provides a fairly in-depth discussion of the similarities and differences between multichannel and omnichannelmarketing. Multichannel simply means connecting with consumers on many different channels, which is a good starting point.

Omnichannel implies a consistent and seamless cross-channel approach, where customers can seamlessly move from one platform to another. Omnichannel can be considered a more sophisticated and customer-friendly form of multichannel marketing. The terminology, however, is less important than understanding how vital it is to engage with your audience on multiple platforms and devices.

Why An Omnichannel Approach is Essential

People are no longer using just one or two types of communication. No matter what kind of business you have, there’s a good chance that most of your customers are doing all or most of the following:

• Using social media — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.
• Sending and receiving email.
• Watching videos on YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, or other sites.
• Looking up information on search engines.
• Sending and receiving text messages on their phones.
• Looking at ads, posters, and billboards offline — people still have to live in the real world!

It’s no longer relevant to ask whether your customers are using email, search engines, or social media. Today, it’s most likely “all of the above.” Technology makes it easy to shift quickly between devices and platforms. It’s now quite 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. There are also other formats such as podcasts and webinars where you can send your audience anywhere you want.

Most importantly from the standpoint of businesses, people aren’t only socializing on multiple channels but also when shopping (and researching buying decisions). Harvard Business Review found that 73% of consumers shop on multiple channels. This will only increase as people get accustomed to more devices and channels. We can expect the future to make this trend even more pronounced as more devices and platforms come along.

Build Brand Awareness

It’s widely known that people usually need to see a message many times before they respond. Hitting them with messages on a single channel can get tedious. For example, no one wants to receive emails day after 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, you might share technical information in a blog post or email while showing your followers photos, memes, or infographics on social media. Videos let you communicate in yet another way. This lets you build brand awareness without your messages getting overly repetitive. It also helps you reach people with different preferences. People might use a variety of platforms, but some are more influenced by text, others by 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. Chances are, you don’t have to start from scratch. Just about every business is active on multiple platforms nowadays. The key is to find the approach that’s right 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 than ever before and more are on the way. You can’t be active on all of them; nor should you try to be. You can determine this by doing research and by testing your results. While everyone needs to use social media, it’s best to focus on a few sites on which you know your audience is very active.

Facebook is still the leader for just about every niche. If you’re involved in B2B marketing, it’s a safe bet that LinkedIn is worth pursuing. On the other hand, Snapchat is more for businesses with younger customers. Pinterest, meanwhile, is a visual social media site whose members are more affluent than average and mainly women. It’s worth noting, however, that Pinterest reports that about half of new signups are men, so this may be changing (always check the latest data!).

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. You might 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 this popular online 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 of an omnichannel marketing strategy 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, chances are you’re thinking about online methods. However, it’s equally important to include offline marketing tactics into your overall strategy. As noted, one of the characteristics of the omnichannel approach 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 often 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 objective isn’t to be present everywhere but on those platforms where your customers are spending the most time. You can make an educated guess about this based on demographics. However, you also need to constantly track your results to find out which efforts are giving you a decent ROI and which aren’t worth your time.

When tracking, of course, you need to 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, though, you want to track metrics such as views, likes, shares, and other types of engagement.

Why Omnichannel is the Future of Marketing

The days when you could separate distinct types of communication and marketing are quickly passing. People are increasingly shifting from one platform and device to another. If you want to benefit from this long-term trend, it’s worth the effort to create an omnichannelstrategy customized to your needs. This isn’t something you figure out once and put into place. It’s a constantly evolving process that you need to monitor at every stage. Your customers are always updating their shopping habits and you need to do your best to keep up with them.

This article first appeared on Jefflizik.com: https://jefflizik.com/keys-successful-omnichannel-marketing-strategy/

Jeff Lizik is a serial entrepreneur and digital marketer. Jeff is the owner of RedShift, a stellar team of creatives and marketers in Pittsburgh, PA. He works every day to help businesses grow through digital marketing strategies and tactics.

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