How to Expand Your Online Store by implementing Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing (also called cross-channel marketing) is focused on delivering the same, consistent customized user experience across different channels, such as the store experience for customers with brick and mortar locations.

By using an omnichannel marketing strategy, your business will be able to place ads on the shelves of customers for products that are relevant to their interests and purchase history and reduce business-to-business sales procedures. Connecting prospective customers to appropriate products and deals will increase the chances of conversion and increases the efficiency of advertising expenditure.

What distinguishes omnichannel advertising than multichannel advertising?

You're probably already using multiple channels in your marketing strategy. If you're still using one channel Your first step will be to begin using multiple channels.

Multichannel marketing differs from an omnichannel strategy in the way the channels collaborate to provide the same seamless and consistent experience no matter where someone is in the journey of a customer.

With multichannel marketing, each channel might be working independently from the other. There could be a distinct marketing division to manage each channel, and then determine the ROI of each one individually. The campaigns could be more disjointed campaigns each with their individual customer experiences. A customer could engage with any of these channels, and be treated as if this is the first time they've ever interacted with your company.

On the other hand Omnichannel marketing is the integration and blending of marketing strategies on different channels, which results in a better customer experience.

Through a successful omnichannel approach, a customer who begins their buyer's journey through a PPC advertisement, but fails to buy anything after visiting your store online is likely to be contacted through other channels based upon their initial engagement and will enjoy an experience that is consistent.

That could mean seeing advertisements on social media or display that are relevant to a first-time purchaser, messages when they visit your website, customized advertisements in video, or store offers that appeal to the buyer.

We've all seen instances of marketing that was omnichannel in some way.

When you click the social media advertisement, then sign up for a coupon on the store's website via the pop-up. If you don't buy the product, you might receive an abandoned cart message offering a sale or look at ads that advertise the item on different digital channels.

If you choose to buy something, you'll probably get an email that offers suggestions on related products and get an announcement about sales in the near future. You may even get catalogs or postcards with a message inviting shoppers to purchase an item in the store purchase, if the shop has brick and mortar locations.

It's an omnichannel experience. It may involve a combination of both offline and online marketing, as well as numerous points of contact.

Do you think it's too complex? The good news is that there's no need to spend big budget or hire a large staff to devise a minimalist and yet successful Omnichannel Marketing Strategy for your business.

Omnichannel marketing has many benefits to both clients and companies

An omnichannel strategy for marketing has many advantages over multichannel marketing- for your business and for customers. The most significant advantages are:

It's also more economical.

In the case of businesses, Omnichannel marketing is cost-effective because it's much more efficient. Instead of creating individual marketing campaigns that include email, direct mail, social media as well as PPC, you'll be able to create just one and use it on all your offline and online channels.

However, more than a mere marketing campaign, you'll use automated marketing that responds to how current or potential customers react to your marketing.

Instead of creating new campaigns the omnichannel model seeks for a range of options based upon the circumstances.

Imagine two customers that are both exposed to the same ad. One of them buys, and then your marketing automation offers them a first-time buyer special offering, hoping to turning them into a repeat customer.

The other person doesn't buy yet, however, their actions indicate they're full of interest. They receive marketing messages that are designed to make them revisit and complete purchases.

It's easy to set up the omnichannel marketing tools once after which your automation program will make use of them depending on where someone is on their journey to becoming a customer. It's a bit of work to set up and once you've got it running using an omnichannel plan, it's an enormous time saver.

It results in better customer service

If your customer is comfortable, and not like someone who is not familiar the tools you use to automate marketing will be able to identify the place they are in the buying process. An omnichannel experience is better and more efficient and aligns with expectations of the customer.

This helps the client save time, helps them take faster decisions, and reduces confusion.

It helps you provide superior customer service.

When customers need help by phone, omnichannel solutions allow your customer support team to get more information about the person they are dealing with so that they won't need to talk with them just like the rest of us. They can get up to speed quicker, without wasting the time of starting from scratch, and have an intelligent and relevant dialogue.

How to create your own omnichannel marketing strategy

Following is a step-by-step procedure for developing an omnichannel marketing plan that won't break your budget.

Incorporate one channel at a moment

There's no way to start taking on everything in one go but thankfully it's not necessary to. Omnichannel marketing is the process of reaching your customers through a consistent messaging in several places.

Begin with your most dominant channel and identify the primary channel you wish to connect with. As you add more channels, invest in the marketing automation tools you need that will help your customer relationship management (CRM) software communicate to all of your offline and online channels, which includes a brick and mortar store.

Target your marketing messages

Targeting your ads to audience segments that are likely to purchase your product is a crucial aspect of creating a successful omnichannel marketing strategy.

Make sure you are focusing on marketing at every stage of the customer journey

The journey for customers begins when someone first discovers the business, and culminates in lifelong loyalty. Below are the five stages of the customer's lifecycle, as well as some popular methods for reaching customers at every stage using multichannel marketing strategies.

1. Reach

Here, a shopper is looking for a specific product or a solution to a issue. This is an opportune time for you to get the customer aware of your brand. A customer may be comparing products, reading reviews, or trying to find out more information about whether a product is the right fit for the person they are shopping for.

2. Acquisition

It happens when a customer goes to your site, signs up to your newsletter, chats via your chatbot, calls out to your company by telephone or email or even visits an offline store. There isn't a single purchase yet, but are checking your business out and gathering further information.

During the acquisition phase during the acquisition phase, you are able to keep collecting data from customers and use it to begin delivering an omnichannel experience for each segment of your target customers.

3. Conversion

When someone buys while shopping online or makes purchases in stores, they've "converted" into a client. An omnichannel customer experience will ensure that they feel appreciated and acknowledged. This could include emails, push notifications, or more in-store opportunities if you have a physical store.

4. Retention

In addition to delivering an increase in ROI, but cultivating repeat customers builds the brand's reputation and your loyal customers will be your biggest advocates through their reviews and telling their friends and family about your products.

At this step in the customer journey You should make use of the data you collect from customers to build on your conversion process. It is possible to market your clients via email follow-up messages with other product recommendations or special discounts relevant to their previous purchases. You could also ask them for a review or a feedback survey, offer an incentive program for loyalty, or offer excellent customer service.

5. Loyalty

Satisfaction with the customer is what builds loyalty. You can't simply set it and forget it.

Choose which marketing platforms will work best for your omnichannel strategy

If you're operating on limited funds, you may want to choose carefully which platforms for marketing to choose in the process of creating your omnichannel marketing plan. Choose low-cost methods for advertising first before moving on to more expensive advertising options as your budget grows.

The aim is to provide numerous touchpoints through various channels, delivering a consistent customer experience.

 Low-cost marketing methods include:

Organic search

Then, use the customer information that you gather from Google Analytics and other marketing tools to boost your omnichannel marketing efforts.

Google Shopping

Email marketing

Through services such as MailPoet which you can use to send a welcome email series to your new subscribers, offer product recommendations based on past purchases, abandoned cart emails for those who abandoned items in their carts sales announcements and more omnichannel marketing strategies.

Rewards programs

These customers can then be notified of an omnichannel program that is tailored for them regardless of other channels and multiple devices. Imagine a rewards member seeing a display ad that tells their how many points they've got and provides suggestions for how they can use their points. That's an example of an experience that is omnichannel.

Customer service

Every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to market. Instead of viewing customer service as merely a way to handle questions and complaints take it in the context of an opportunity to create an army of loyal customers.

By implementing an omnichannel strategy for marketing the customer service department can view an individual customer's past engagements and purchases, as well as past interactions with your staff. And when you take this to its fullest potential it will allow you to provide an unmatched experience, regardless of the customer service channel they use whether it's text messages, chatbots or phone and email or in-store at brick-and-mortar locations.

Utilizing a customer relationship management (CRM) software like Jetpack CRM helps facilitate customer service and make it easy. Install a support portal, track the status of tickets and much more, from your store. It's not necessary to log into a third-party CRM site to manage your customers -- you can do it by accessing your WordPress administrator section.

Organic social media

It's not easy to attract attention from organic sources in social media when there are so many competing voices There are however some good alternatives for advertising that is free and quite efficient. You can:

• Create a Facebook group to promote your company
• Be active and engage regularly on all your social media channels
• Do an AMA on Reddit with the "Ask Me Anything subreddit

 Marketing methods that are more expensive comprise:

Paid search

If you're looking to pop up above the organic search results or generate instant traffic as you work to improve the SEO of your site, paid advertising on search engines is the method to take. You should also ensure that the landing page for your business is mobile-friendly, loads quickly and is consistent with the message of your ad copy.

With remarketing tools, paid search is an important source of data about your customers data you can use in implementing your omnichannel marketing plan.

Paid Google Shopping

Advertisements on display

Ads on social media

Advertising to users who are on social media is an excellent opportunity to gain new customers because they can immediately share your ads to their friends. You can market to people by demographic data, perceived interests, customer preferences as well as by submitting an email address list of customers to build a similar audience that has similar profiles to your existing customer base. Additionally, you could implement an omnichannel strategy for marketing using social media when you have integrated these channels with your CRM.

Facebook allows you to connect your store's catalog of products to Facebook and Instagram to ensure a unified customer experience. It is also possible to purchase advertisements from your account's dashboard.

Video ads

With the advent of online platforms like YouTube and more budget-friendly editing equipment and production tools, video advertising doesn't have to be out of budget for smaller businesses.

If you are planning to utilize video as part of your multichannel marketing plan, be sure that you make videos that are able to be utilized across a variety of channels. Make clips available for blogs, social media marketing or product pages to make the most of these marketing tools.

Although the most prominent media platform to advertise on is YouTube, other options include:

• Platforms for social video, such as TikTok as well as Snapchat
• Video live streaming services like Twitch and Vimeo
• Video streaming on-demand services such as Amazon Prime and Hulu

Print advertisements

Based on your target audience and your products printing ads could be a great way to complement your marketing initiatives online as well as blend offline and online marketing strategies. Consider taking out an ad in a publication, mailing a printed catalog, sending postcards with special offers, or using front-door marketing strategies such as door hangings as well as product samples.

Like the digital market, it is possible to measure the effectiveness on your offline and in-store efforts. Omnichannel marketing relies on a steady stream of accurate data about your customers, which is customized for every customer.

Here are the top marketing tools that can be used offline for data collection and an omnichannel in-store experience:

• QR codes that include tracker links. You can create special tracking-enabled links for those QR codes. Add these codes to your marketing collateral printed on paper in order to track when a potential customer visits your shop, you'll be able to determine the exact printed item that prompted that customer to make the trip.
• Special landing page hyperlinks. As a QR alternative to QR codes, you could make custom landing pages using distinct links. Include the URL within the printed advertisements. Just be sure you keep these URLs short since the users must enter them into their browsers.

Make ad copy and art which can be utilized on several platforms

Omnichannel marketing is about consistency and efficiency. In addition, creating your images, video, and ad copy with multiple uses in mind save you cash on the creation of creative materials, it also helps provide an unifying, consistent customer experience for shoppers across all channels.

Be sure to film images and videos that are designed for different advertising platforms. Different platforms employ different aspect ratios, so you'll have to shoot and edit videos and photos taking this into consideration. Common aspect ratios include:

• Horizontal 16:9
• Square 1:1
• Vertical 4:5 and 2:3
• Full Portrait 9:16

Create your video and images in the highest quality possible before exporting as smaller resolutions.

Make use of your customer information

Regularly reviewing the results of your omnichannel marketing campaigns across all channels is essential. If an ad campaign is underperforming, you may need to alter it before investing money into it. Reviewing your statistics can help you determine the ads that are effective and which aren't.

Google Analytics is probably the most comprehensive tool for tracking activity on your website. You can look at referral sources to see what websites visitors are coming from, and get an understanding of the performance of display and search ad campaigns, and get information on the demographics of your website visitors.

By integrating this data with your CRM system, other marketing channels will be able to utilize it to create an experience that is consistent for your clients.

Give your marketing team the tools to succeed

With omnichannel marketing, your team will be able to raise their game by tailoring efforts based on customer behaviors.

In the event that you use sales staff, they'll be much better at engaging customers individually by having access to details of prior purchases interaction, emails as well as clicks, shares reviews, and other customer data resulting from the multichannel customer experience.

Refresh your advertising strategy according to the key performance indicators (KPIs)

When you have reviewed the results of your multichannel marketing campaigns After reviewing the results of your omnichannel marketing campaigns, you are able to update the strategy you are using. For most companies, ad campaigns that are low CPAs and high ROIs must be awarded additional advertising as campaigns with high CPAs and low ROIs should be eliminated. But you may have other metrics of performance that are crucial for your business.

If you're running advertisements that do not result in direct sales, however they frequently correlate with higher organic search traffic or lead generation this could mean that your ads are very successful in connecting with customers in the earlier stages of the customer journey.

Experiment with turning certain underperforming ads on and off for a period of time in order to determine if they have any effect on other measures.

To improve customer retention and loyalty campaigns, if you notice that not many customers take benefit of the rewards points they earn or don't use certain coupons, you might think about tweaking the offer or adjusting the number of points needed to redeem. Just because one strategy in your omnichannel campaign is currently underperforming doesn't mean that it can't be upgraded to generate more sales for your business.

Watch your business grow

By being strategic in selecting your marketing platforms and marketing automation tools, creating sustainable and repurposable creative assets, as well as constantly reviewing and tweaking your omnichannel marketing strategy in line with the results, you'll see your revenue grow.

Like anything worth doing, it will take time to optimize. Beginning with only some channels for marketing then expanding the results of your prior efforts, you'll create an omnichannel strategy for long-term success which generate revenue to your business.