Omnichannel marketing strategies for ecommerce success
Did you know that 73% of online shoppers use multiple channels during their shopping journey? We lovingly refer to these shoppers as omnichannel customers.
What’s more, omnichannel customers are incredibly valuable because the more channels they interact with, the more they spend.
So, if you hadn’t heard of omnichannel marketing and customers before now, I bet you’re glad you know now! You can now ensure omnichannel customers are a key part of your ecommerce marketing strategy.
What kind of omnichannel marketing strategies can benefit your ecommerce business? Read on to find out top tips and best practices…
What exactly is omnichannel marketing?
Omnichannel marketing is essentially the next evolution of multichannel marketing.
Multichannel marketing is when your brand is present on multiple channels like on websites, social media, email, physical store etc.
Omnichannel marketing involves ensuring your customers can move seamlessly from each of those channels as part of their shopping journey.
Whether it’s ensuring you have a solid ecommerce SEO strategy to help your audience find your website on Google, to using pay-per-click advertising on social media to get your content in front of your audience.
What are the benefits of omnichannel marketing?
The omnichannel experience combines all channels into one seamless experience.
The key benefits are:
- Increase sales
- Reach new customers
- Boost customer lifetime value
1. Increase sales
A study by Harvard Business Review found that omnichannel customers spend 10% more when online shopping compared to single-channel customers.
Who doesn’t want to increase their sales?
Omnichannel marketing means your customers have the best shopping experience possible, and a great shopping experience = more sales!
2. Reach new customers
Reaching new customers is key to growth. As great as it is to have an audience of loyal, repeat customers, it’s also important to reach new ones.
Omnichannel marketing by its very nature means there are multiple touch points i.e. multiple opportunities to get your brand in front of potential customers.
3. Boost customer lifetime value
Omnichannel marketing will help you reach new customers, but then you need to turn those into repeat, loyal customers. No problem, omnichannel marketing can help with that too!
The omnichannel shopping experience is all about putting the customer first, something customers tend to expect and need from brands.
By offering a positive customer-first approach, new customers are more likely to return to your brand in the future.
5 tips for building an omnichannel marketing strategy
The customer journey starts with awareness and ends in advocacy.
1. Map the customer journey
To have a successful omnichannel marketing strategy, you need to map the customer journey.
Make sure there’s no speed bumps in the road, no stop signs – just green lights.
Optimise each channel by putting your customer at the heart of it – how does that channel help your customer along their journey?
2. Data is king
Omnichannel marketing is not only great for reaching your customers, it’s also great for collecting lots of data.
Data that can be used to improve your customers’ experience with your brand and ultimately drive more sales and revenue for you.
Make sure you have the right tools in place to capture, analyse and action this data. It’s going to be super helpful for remarketing, building lookalike audiences and creating personalised content to name a few uses.
3. Get personal
Nowadays, customers expect brands to know what they want and need – they expect a personalised, seamless experience across every channel.
Leverage the data gained from your omnichannel marketing strategy to personalise content for your customers.
That’s going beyond just using their name in marketing communications – we’re talking personalised cross-selling, special treats on their birthday, reminding them it’s time to get a top up etc.
4. Know your customers and the channels they use
It’s important that you take the time to understand and get to know your audience.
What channels do they spend most of their time on? What are they doing on those channels – browsing, shopping, socialising?
Use social listening tools and heat maps to understand how your audience is using different channels so you can tailor your content to suit them.
To understand how your audience behaves in-store, you can ask shop staff for insights.
5. Test, iterate, and measure
You’ll struggle to improve or justify your omnichannel marketing strategy if you aren’t tracking its performance.
Improve your efforts by testing, iterating and applying your learnings constantly. Make sure you choose key performance indicators (KPIs) at the planning stage, so you can start tracking them immediately.
Some popular KPIs you can measure include:
- Engagement rate
- Email open and click rate
- Average order value
- Customer retention
- Average customer lifetime value
Final thoughts
So, we’ve discussed what omnichannel marketing is, how it’s different from multichannel marketing, its key benefits and some tips to help you start or improve your strategy.
Whether you’re a marketer looking for tips, or you’re a business owner looking to understand the value of omnichannel marketing, we hope this article has helped clarify some questions you may have had.
All that’s left is for you to take these tips and reap the rewards.