Omnichannel as a concept has been around for well over a decade.1 It could simply be dismissed as a buzzword. But the reason it’s such an enduring buzzword is because it’s still what marketers want. That is, to give customers a seamless, enjoyable experience across all channels. And to combine and analyze that data to generate richer insights and deliver even more engaging experiences. In this way, omnichannel helps with customer acquisition, retention, and lifetime value, and enables brands to respond quickly to new trends.
It’s a concept that the consumer is at the center of, but not necessarily aware of. As they skip between platforms and devices, an omnichannel experience reduces friction rather than calls attention to itself.
Some marketers today believe they deliver omnichannel, simply because they run campaigns on different platforms simultaneously. To us, that’s multichannel. It’s not true, breakthrough omnichannel. At Theorem, we see real omnichannel as integrating siloed data from different channels so it can influence the end-to-end experience. The shopper’s actions at one touchpoint should influence all future interactions on other channels in real time.
As noted in a previous blog, consumer media consumption is more diversified and fragmented than ever before in 2023. New channels (streaming services, IoT devices, podcasts) are added to the old (TV, in store, ecommerce site), creating an omnichannel marketing landscape that’s brimming with possibilities.
With so many channels, where do you start?
When you’re across many channels, there’s no obvious place to start. So, depending on your role, we’d recommend starting in one of two places. If you’re a marketer (or, if you’re not technical), the place to start is with your customers. Map out their journey, see which platforms they’re using, see where they’re engaging, where they’re dropping off, and how you can help lead them to purchase. And audit the consistency of your brand on this journey. Do your communications maintain a similar look, feel, and tone so that customers trust and enjoy interacting with your company?
For engineers, the starting point is your data. Often this means your CRM (customer relationship management) platform, as so much customer data is stored here. How can you start integrating data from siloed platforms? Do you know where and how it’s all stored? For both roles, reporting is really important, too. Before you start investing in omnichannel, do you have a way of measuring the impact of your efforts? Will you know what’s working and what isn’t?
Finding the way forward
Most brands are still using siloed data in a multi-channel strategy. Pulling web/social/commerce/search/mobile data from one place, to build customer profiles somewhere else, then pulling those over to an email provider, etc. For breakthrough omnichannel, all this data must be integrated and able to improve the customer experience in real time. The value is in the connection of the data.
Over the years at Theorem, we’ve created omnichannel strategies for many brands in different sectors, so we’ve the experience to build bespoke, reliable strategies for you too. After a robust end-to-end audit across your entire digital ecosystem, which reveals which channels/technology/integrations are a priority, we create a strategy and tactics which you can either take and do in-house, or we can execute it for you.
Delivering a breakthrough omnichannel experience will help you stand out from the competition. But it’s not simple. You’ll need a technical partner that can help you orchestrate and operationalize omnichannel.
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