What is Omnichannel Marketing?
Businesses are facing a competitive scenario, and businesses must adapt to emerging changes, align with global trends, and work on their customer engagement models to sustain in the competitive retail business scenario.
Digital enablement of businesses has become an integral part of marketing and business communication.
Affordability, better reach, and economies of scale in online marketing and sales encourage retail businesses to focus on the social and digital options of marketing for better customer engagement.
However, despite the increase in social and digital business management, the need for conventional campaigns, and customer engagement through direct touchpoints still has a significant impact.
One way to make the retail business grow is to make it as easy for customers as the seamless order and communication process from the retail business website to the store as it is for them to walk from the living room to the shop counter.
Such an integrated approach to a marketing plan called is “omnichannel marketing”.
Omnichannel marketing is often confused with multichannel marketing, which has the same name.
Multichannel means running separate sales funnels on different platforms (in-store, website, mobile, app, and social), while omnichannel marketing means connecting them all so customers can move from one to the next and there is an effective customer engagement system.
“Click-and-collect” is another classic set-up of omnichannel marketing commerce. It’s like customers buying something online by placing an order online and then driving to the store at any time convenient to pick it up directly from the retail business outlet.
“Click-and-collect” is the best of both worlds. Customers can place orders for the products remotely basis the website or mobile app or telephonic orders, and they can still get the item the same day.
The change can also happen the other way around. Even when the store is busy, employees can’t be everywhere at once.
Omnichannel retail in retail businesses put tablets in their stores so that customers can look up the information they need on their own.
Some of the best kiosks let customers see what’s available and finish the whole transaction there.
Such kind of customer engagement can improve the operational performance of the business, in addition to helping in service quality improvement.
To deal effectively with the omnichannel marketing setup, one needs to understand the effective practices of omnichannel retail to improve overall customer engagement in the retail business.
Table of Contents
1. Website and Social Media Channels
It takes time to set up an omnichannel marketing experience. While every dimension of digital and physical presence is important, to establish an effective omnichannel retail, one needs to have a strategic plan and preparation in place.
Starting with the business website and social media channels, one should ensure they work well before moving on to other platforms.
It is important to consider the regular posting of content or update of product info etc. on the respective channels in the omnichannel marketing for the retail business.
Some instances like the CRM team being highly active on Instagram, but not responding well or time-consuming replies for queries on Facebook pages or WhatsApp business, etc. will deter the customer engagement process in the retail business.
Balancing the communication system, and effectively addressing customer requests in quick turnaround time across omnichannel retail is important.
2. Develop an Exclusive Mobile App
Mobile commerce is at the forefront, and globally for businesses, customer engagement is seen as more active on mobile devices as the interface.
Depending on the business, and product, this step of creating a good mobile app can be a strategic decision.
But in the case of the retail business, for seamless connectivity and update to customers, choosing to develop a custom mobile app, can be effective and lead to sustainable ways of omnichannel retail management.
Choosing a good service provider or freelance professionals to work on the app for the SMBs can help the retail business enhance its digital presence, and deal with customer requirements systematically and insightfully.
3. Customer Touchpoints
With the increasing competition in the retail business, one of the key areas to focus on for businesses is work on customer touchpoints.
The touch points could be physical or digital interface but plays a vital role in developing omnichannel retail business set-up.
For instance, a customer can place an order over Twitter or WhatsApp messenger system for the items added to the wish cart over an online platform and picking up the order from the nearby outlet can be assuring levels of customer engagement.
4. Unified Communication
The other key aspect in dealing with omnichannel retail management for retail businesses is unified communication.
Across the marketing communication channels, and medium, the retail business should handle the same kind of communication.
In an illustrative scenario, discount offers in the stores being promoted in the Instagram channel, but none of the other digital channels carrying such communication can lead to disoriented customer engagement practices.
In addition to marketing communication, seamless integration of communication across the platforms can help in dealing with a brand reputation for the retail business.
The other strategic importance for unified communication is customer engagement from all marketing channels.
Some users might be active on Facebook, while other users could only be preferring messenger-app communications or custom-app notifications.
5. Developing Call-To-Action
Across omnichannel retail, there could be many campaigns, and strategic communication like promotional offers, newsletters, deals, discounts for quick orders, etc being used for improving sales.
To reap the potential benefits of such development, the businesses should work on an effective call-to-action page wherein the business can have their customers take the necessary action towards the sales or related queries.
While the touch points could be different, the call-for-action should be one, and such strategic integration can help in gaining more insights in terms of how each of the mediums in omnichannel marketing is functioning, and the scope.
Periodical assessment of omnichannel marketing and dealing with the requisite changes to improve the overall operational efficiency of omnichannel retail can help in significant improvements to retail business.
To know more about developing an omnichannel retail set-up, reach out to Exabytes Malaysia for more information and assistance.
