It seems like brands are everywhere these days — social media, email, SMS, Google, and everywhere in between. When you’re trying to build your brand, it can be difficult to choose which channels you want to take advantage of and how you can best utilize them.
While many brands go with a multichannel approach, you may want to consider an omnichannel approach instead. Here’s what you need to know and what you need to do to make that happen:
What Is Omnichannel Commerce?
With omnichannel commerce, your business properly utilizes and integrates all available channels to provide an enhanced customer experience. That being said, omnichannel commerce involves more than just being present on a variety of different channels. Instead, you need to develop a strategy to ensure that all of these channels work together naturally and intuitively.
What Is Multichannel Commerce?
With multichannel commerce, your business is involved in multiple channels, but these channels aren’t properly integrated. Additionally, there are gaps in this approach so that not all possible channels are being utilized. The odds are that you currently have a multichannel approach to commerce, but should you try for an omnichannel approach instead?
What’s the Difference and Which Is Better?
The difference between omnichannel and multichannel isn’t necessarily about the channels being used but how you use them. With a multichannel approach, the channels are disjointed and don’t work together. However, with an omnichannel approach, the channels are integrated, have a purpose, and work together.
Omnichannel is the better approach, but implementing such a strategy can take a lot of work. So is it worth it? Here are some of the advantages of omnichannel commerce over multichannel commerce:
- Enhanced user experience: Omnichannel can enhance the overall user experience by focusing on the customer rather than the platform itself. All of these channels are chosen and developed strategically with the customer in mind rather than just randomly.
- Build brand identity: Omnichannel can help build your brand identity. Your brand should be easily identifiable across all your different channels. At the same time, you need to make the necessary adjustments based on the nature of the channel. For instance, your content on TikTok should be different from your content on Facebook.
- Boost revenue: Buyers who are more engaged with multiple different channels end up purchasing more. These different channels can also help build brand loyalty since you’re constantly top of mind with your customers in numerous different places.
- Improved data insights: Omnichannel provides you with more valuable and insightful data that you can use to improve and grow your business. You can learn different things from each channel and incorporate these different things together into an actionable strategy.
How to Take Advantage of Omnichannel Commerce?
Omnichannel is the way to go. But how can you take advantage of this revolutionary concept? All you have to do is follow these four steps:
Step 1: Consider Your Customers
The first thing you need to do is to consider your customers. Every business is different with different target customers. And while it can be helpful to use other businesses as inspiration, your omnichannel approach should be unique to your business.
You need to think about where your customers are and what channels would benefit them. For instance, if you have a younger customer base, your approach would likely look different than if you had an older customer base.
Step 2: Choose Your Channels
Now you’re ready to choose your channels. This step can be intimidating since there are so many different options to choose from. You should always start with a website and expand from there. Depending on your customer base, you may want to expand into social media, email marketing, and SMS marketing. You should also consider creating branded content for SEO purposes.
Step 3: Connect Your Channels
It’s one thing to have several random and disjointed channels. It’s another thing to have connected channels that work together. You’re trying to create an intuitive customer experience across all of these different channels.
Step 4: Maintain Your Channels
You need to continue working on your omnichannel approach even after launching and establishing your different channels. Monitor and track KPIs to ensure that each channel makes sense and is working properly. Ask customers for feedback to see what’s working and where you can improve.
How to Choose the Right Channels for an Omnichannel Approach?
Here are some of the different channels you should consider incorporating for an omnichannel approach:
1. Website
The basis of any business should be a professionally designed website. On your website, you need to include the story of your business, the goal of your business, and your business contact information. You also need to include information about your products and services, including but not limited to photos, descriptions, prices, and customer reviews.
That being said, your website will look different depending on the function of your business. An ecommerce business’ website should look different from a service-based business or even a brick and mortar business. As a result, you may need to consider different website hosting platforms depending on how you want your website to function.
2. Mobile Application
If you have a tech-savvy customer demographic, then you should consider creating a mobile application in addition to your desktop website. It should be easy for customers to browse and purchase products on your mobile application.
To incentivize the use of your mobile application, you should consider incorporating exclusive deals and features. For instance, you can offer free delivery, 5% off, or free items with purchase for mobile users. You can also integrate a rewards system with your mobile application — similar to what Starbucks does — making it easy to pay and redeem rewards directly from the application.
3. Social Media
It seems like everyone is on social media these days — so that means you need to be there too. The right platforms for your brand will depend on your customer base. For instance, if you have an older customer base, you need to be on Facebook.
If your customer base is Millennials, you need to be on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. If your customer base is Generation Z, you need to be on Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.
You can start by creating business profiles on these platforms. Then you can start posting interesting and engaging content to build your follower base. You may also want to consider investing in paid advertising on these platforms to get more followers and conversions as a result.
4. Email, SMS, and WhatsApp
In addition to social media, you also need to utilize email, SMS, and WhatsApp to communicate with your customers. Email marketing, while considered old-school, still has its place in 2021. Email marketing can help you stay relevant and build relationships with your customer base through interesting content, great offers, and special access.
SMS and WhatsApp, on the other hand, are more of a 21st-century digital marketing solution. These platforms allow you to communicate more personally and instantly with customers to enhance the overall customer experience.
5. Live Chat and Chatbots
While SMS and WhatsApp are great features for customer service, you shouldn’t neglect other conversational avenues such as live chat and chatbots. If you want to offer top-notch customer service, you need to include a live chat feature on your website. This allows customers to get near-immediate answers to their questions and gives them all the information they need to feel confident about making a purchase.
If you cannot offer a live chat feature due to cost or workforce constraints, you should consider a more cost-effective chatbot feature. A chatbot can help answer some of your customers’ most frequently asked questions.
6. Branded Content
The last omnichannel component you should consider is branded content. Branded content can help you become more credible and authoritative in your industry. Branded content can also help enhance your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.
By including content with specific keywords on your website, you can rank higher on Google without paying for advertising. And while SEO is a long-term strategy, it’s more organic and natural than paid advertising and offers incredible returns.
Final Thoughts on Omnichannel and Multichannel
You need an omnichannel strategy to grow your business. However, implementing such a strategy on your own can be intimidating. The good news is that there are experts out there like Greg Gillman who can help. Reach out today to see how he can help your business grow and expand thanks to a tailored omnichannel approach.
Sources:
The Importance of Omnichannel Marketing | Forbes
The Importance of Creating a Multichannel Marketing Strategy | Inc.com
Omnichannel vs. Multichannel: What Is the Difference? | Shopify
