Omnichannel Marketing Strategies to Boost Sales
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Meta-description: Successful omnichannel marketing is a strong presence across online and offline channels and a unified experience for your customers. Learn how to do this.
Omnichannel marketing is crucial in the modern digital world. The strategies your business creates require the act of maintaining a presence across online and offline channels to offer a unified experience for your users, most of whom will be customers.
If you understand the strengths and benefits of each channel, you can exploit them to boost conversions and sales, creating loyal customers along the way. Read on to learn more about omnichannel marketing and how you can include it in your overall strategy to help your business grow.
Why use omnichannel marketing?
As opposed to multichannel marketing, which uses multiple channels to promote one message, omnichannel marketing takes the idea of the customer’s overall experience one step further. It involves the integration of all channels in a seamless way.
Customers who are exposed to three or more marketing channels are more likely to purchase. We also see huge benefits when it comes to customer retention rates, which are around 90% higher when we compare an omnichannel strategy against a single-channel option.
These are some very impressive and conclusive stats that speak to the benefits of omnichannel marketing. As a result, optimizing your campaigns to incorporate an omnichannel approach (along with content marketing) is more than worth your time. But how do you do this? Let’s dive in.
Strategy #1: Creating shoppable posts
There are many ways to leverage social media in e-commerce to boost your revenue. However, we all know that simply saying “link in bio” isn’t great. Do people even notice it anymore, or has it just become background text? Well, Instagram has done something about this with a feature that integrates ads with your Facebook shop. You can now tag products in posts with a dedicated shop button through which consumers can directly (and more easily) complete the sales process. This shortens the path between product discovery and checkout by keeping it all in one app.
This feature has also been integrated into primary e-commerce site builders like Shopify, making it much easier to optimize shoppable social posts. For example, a potential customer may see an item they like via a post on Facebook or Instagram and then be able to add it to their cart straight away. This powerful integration makes it easier for customers to purchase products they like directly from your social media feeds, significantly increasing the chance of a purchase. Combine this with some eye-catching, custom post designs that can give that human touch, and you should see some drastic improvements in your sales numbers.
Strategy #2: Tracking and monitoring results
As you consider the various strategies we will present in this article, it is important that you use metrics and KPIs to track and evaluate their impacts. Your omnichannel marketing campaigns will significantly benefit from the gathering and analyzing of data. Align your goals with your campaigns and e-commerce strategies, then make adjustments as needed.
Turn your data into action points by identifying what you want to achieve, listing the issues that the data should solve, and presenting it via a visualized result. As with any marketing venture, data is your friend, but with so much available in the digital space, it’s super easy to let it be your primary guiding light!
Strategy #3: Streamline your process with the right tools
Managing an omnichannel marketing campaign (and collecting the correct data) can be made infinitely easier if you ensure you have the right tools. The goal is to streamline the process so you can manage each campaign and channel effectively.
Any program that works with your existing marketplaces, like a CRM that integrates with LinkedIn, allows you to import your inventory and connect multiple marketing channels with a clear dashboard. This will help you dramatically.
For example, FitSW is a fully integrated software for personal trainers that does exactly this for personal trainers and gyms. If you can find an industry-specific option like this to suit your sector, you will be even better off!
Strategy #4: Choose a core eCommerce Ads Marketing Channel
Along with the importance of creating an omnichannel customer experience, selecting the right eCommerce ad channels is also important. You want channels that work seamlessly together, especially as they increase.
The primary e-commerce ads marketing channels to consider are:
- Google ads
- Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads
- Microsoft ads
- Pinterest ads
- TikTok ads
- Snapchat ads
- Amazon ads
Strategy #5: Market via your invoice
Utilize every channel possible to sell and promote your products, services, and business – including your invoice. An invoice is one of the best places to generate more conversions, as your customer’s eyes are already on it. Add some exciting visuals or more products they may be interested in based on audience data insights. These additions will definitely be seen as they check the prices or fees on the document.
You can also promote new marketing campaigns or offer a discount on their next order to help the sale. This simple addition can improve the brand experience. However, it is important that your invoice still looks professional and easy to read. Invoices should be customized, branded, and integrated with your online store. This is all part of creating a seamless and unified experience.
Strategy #6: Plan some retargeting
Your strategies should be focused on both loyal customers and leads that haven’t converted yet. There are various lead nurturing techniques that will allow you to send personalized content to leads that are at various stages of your marketing funnel. They don’t even need to be on your email list or following your socials!
With a well-structured retargeting campaign, you can track consumers’ behaviors even if they didn’t buy anything. This will vary based on the specific information you have been able to collect. Run retargeting ads on social platforms or third-party sites or recover abandoned carts via emails that include special offers and reminders. Encourage people to join email lists or visit landing pages with CTAs in your social posts to help this along.
You can also leverage live streams to establish a deeper connection with your audience. This will advance your retargeting efforts even more. There are various tools like OneStream Studio that allow you to stream branded and coordinated video streams with a professional look.
Source: OneStream Studio
Strategy #7: Run with a mobile-first approach
Mobile devices are incredibly popular for shopping because they are easy and likely always in your hand or pocket. Consumers also have a short attention span, which means they will leave your site if pages load slowly or the design looks bad via a mobile view. No one wants to pinch and zoom to read product descriptions, so a big part of successful omnichannel e-commerce marketing is a great mobile site.
As a result, your online store needs to be optimized for mobile use and feature responsive and well-designed pages that make it easy (and quick) to view your content on any device. Consider your landing pages, especially the sections that require people to fill in personal information. Use simple themes and visuals, make buttons and forms easy to find, and other ensure your CTAs are clear.
Strategy #8: Personalize wherever possible
No one wants to feel like a number. In cases where customers engage with you via several platforms, any sort of continued personalization will really be noticed and give you an edge over your competition. An easy way to ensure this is by tracking buying or browsing behavior, then creating a unique fingerprint for every consumer.
Once you have done this, it becomes easier to create a personalized experience that will really catch their attention the next time they engage with you. You should already have access to data that can help you create various customer personas or determine what individuals may like. From here, suggesting related or complementary products or services is a great way to cross-sell and increase sales.
An effective inclusion in this strategy is adding images and links of anything that other customers may have bought at checkout. This encourages buyers to add more to their cart as it is a subtle positive review that says, “other people similar to you also bought this.” Seal the deal with a bulk-buy offer or free shipping when the cart reaches a certain amount. These are just some digital customer engagement trends that can really make a difference in your sales.
Strategy #9: Consider the whole journey
Your data analysis and customer personas will help you get familiar with the consumer, and from there, you can focus on and personalize the journey. We’ve discussed how vital personalized messages are, so be sure to look at how these can be applied through the journey while understanding the holistic view of the entire process.
When designing these processes, maps, or communications, remember to ensure customer care is a focus. This should not look like a sales pitch; instead, it should be about convenience and comfort for the consumer. If you have inaccurate message pop-ups that are incorrectly targeted, the experience takes a turn for the worst and becomes annoying, creating a negative customer experience and possibly losing the sale.
In the same vein, systems that are poorly integrated can cause headaches for you and your consumers. Customer issues will always exist, but it is vital to ensure your channels and automated systems are helpful and convenient to mitigate further issues and make things as easy as possible for everyone.
Strategy #10: Ensure sufficient information is present online
Well-optimized websites and content is informative. If you integrate your social media and live chat with your customer care solutions, you can guarantee that people are receiving accurate information to help with the sales process.
Consider the following to create smooth customer care processes:
- Reduce response time: Like it or not, customers want instant solutions when they have an issue – especially on social media. Most customers expect problems to be resolved immediately, so at the very least, have a team or process in place to acknowledge messages and mentions as soon as possible.
- Offer live chat: Live interactive chat is the preference of most website visitors looking to resolve an issue. Be it integrated with social platforms or standalone via a website; a reliable live chat solution is a must.
- Create a customer self-service option: A more efficient way to solve issues is a comprehensive FAQ that’s easy to navigate. Do this once, and it may save a stack of questions in the future!
- Automate your emails: Emails remain an effective service tool, and they can address customer queries without any need for you to intervene, much like the FAQ section. Set up email automation based on specific queries to save yourself time. It’s all about working smarter, not harder.
Strategy #11: Continually rectify customer pain points
There is no better way to truly understand your customer’s pain points than with omnichannel marketing. Every click and swipe can easily be tracked and used, from profile data to behaviors, to ensure the best experience possible.
With multiple platforms through which customers can engage with your business, your responses on each channel become equally important. When all of your platforms are integrated, it is simpler to ensure consistent service. You can set up trackings on off-domain platforms using URL builders, track the delivery and receipt of emails or use pixels to gather helpful. Where are sales being abandoned? What content is seeing no response? Study these elements, remove them from your process, and hone your output to create a well-oiled online sales machine!
Always choose the right platform to build your e-commerce site on
There are many great platform builders available these days, but it is essential that you choose one that allows you to create custom eCommerce automations. First, identify the best e-commerce platforms available, then see which features will line up with your goals before you build your new online store.
CoreCommerce provides the tools to seamlessly accept secure online payments via exceptionally robust shopping cart technology, with thousands of online websites worldwide and a suite of e-commerce products.