Según la publicación del portal Forbes
CEO of Bidease, an AdTech startup on a mission to bring fully transparent, value-driven advertising to the mobile world.
The life of a modern consumer is extremely fast-paced. They are active, mobile and demanding—not only regarding the goods and services that brands provide but also how the companies communicate with their audience. Many modern consumers expect each interaction with the brand to be convenient, simple and personalized.
However, it is the customers who choose when and how to start communication with their brand of interest today. For example, they can start adding items to their cart in a mobile app during a lunch break at work and complete the order and pay for it on their laptop when they get home in the evening.
It is extremely convenient for consumers. But with the growing number of communication channels, brands are finding it more difficult to track down and identify their customers. After all, there is a flip side to using multiple channels—a consumer using different means of communication with the brand may often not be registered as a single customer.
This has led to companies building unified end-to-end consumer communication regardless of the channel: online or offline, app or website, social media or email, etc. As a result of this need for seamless audience interaction, we have seen a rise in omnichannel marketing.
What does the brand’s audience get?
First, it’s important to understand what each of the participants gets from omnichannel communication. Let’s begin with what the brand’s audience (the customer) receives.
Clear And Concise Communication Without Overlaps
In their daily lives, customers are already overloaded with all kinds of content, particularly advertising content. When a consumer is choosing a product or a service, they often expect the brand to offer specific information and convenient communication. Without an omnichannel approach, a brand can easily inundate consumers with loads of similar advertising messages, which, on top of everything, may be completely irrelevant to them.
Customer Service That Doesn’t Overstep
Consumers may also expect a certain standard of customer service in the chosen communication channel (i.e., the one they use in their daily life). An omnichannel approach helps brands maintain an appropriate level of customer service, effectively monitor it and resolve disputes if necessary, thereby increasing customer loyalty.
A Personalized Experience
An omnichannel approach also allows a brand to use its platform to record customer actions through any communication channel. A deep analysis of this valuable information helps individualize the approach to each client, get some insights, identify non-conventional behavioral patterns and anticipate the wishes of your audience.
What does the brand get?
Rational Allocation Of Marketing Money
Regarding the advertising budget, an omnichannel approach can help companies rationally allocate marketing money to the communication channels that bring the desired result in a given situation at a given time.
In-Depth Analysis And Detailed Audience Segmentation
Varying communication channels and the possibility to aggregate all the audience interactions in one place can let the company get more information about consumer behavior and preferences and use this knowledge to make their communication more thoughtful, personalized and effective.
Wider Reach
Presence in various communication channels helps the brand stay in touch, even with clients who practice digital detox. With the help of the omnichannel approach, companies can reach out to the audience that uses an extremely limited number of communication channels and address them with a relevant message.
Lower Risk Of Losing Contact With Customers
Even if your consumer has stopped using a certain communication channel for some reason, you can always reach out to them elsewhere and tell them about the current promotion or a new collection. This could be through social media or push notifications, for example.
How Brands Can Begin Their Omnichannel Journey
With this in mind, let’s figure out where brands that do not use this approach yet should start their journey into the world of omnichannel marketing.
Understand channel preferences.
It is important to know which channels your audience uses to communicate with the brand and which sources they use to make purchases of goods and services. This can help determine whether there is anything worth adding to the list.
Map out the customer journey.
The brand needs to know what information about the customers they receive, which channels it comes through and how it will be used in the future. Or is it sitting around pointlessly just in case you might need it?
The customer journey map can help sort everything out. Give this stage plenty of time. The more detailed the map, the better your future marketing results will be. It is important to carefully examine how consumers interact with the brand and which channels they use.
Choose the right tool.
The next step is choosing the right tool. An omnichannel platform should suit the brand in terms of cost, toolkit and ease of operation. Here, much depends on the complexity of the business and the variability of their audience communication as well as the tasks this communication is supposed to handle.
You also have to prepare your employees for the transition to the omnichannel approach. Think about what will be needed to train them and decide who is going to be responsible for each channel.
Create a strategy to monitor communication.
And, of course, do not forget about analytics. Don’t think that after introducing the omnichannel approach, everything will work and bring profit by itself. You have to monitor the omnichannel communication, analyze consumer actions and ad campaign performance, continuously create hypotheses and run tests, study and improve the consumer experience.
Conclusion
An omnichannel approach is not only about a huge number of brand-customer interactions but also the quality, comfort, relevance and usefulness of these interactions. This communication style allows you to better meet the needs of your audience and react to the slightest changes in their behavior. Ultimately, all of this can help lead to effective sales and business growth.
The omnichannel approach helps brands look at their customer communication through the customer’s eyes. When you understand your consumer and know where and how to interact with them, you are halfway to success.
