Why is omni-channel marketing important for your business?

In this post, we’ll cover the following:

• What's omni-channel marketing?
• How can you implement it?
• How EDGE can help

In this modern age, marketing is undergoing some major changes. The idea of ‘pull’ and ‘push’ marketing, where businesses either push their products directly to the audience or try and gain loyalty to pull in customers, is adjusting. Today we are moving towards a more personalised way of engaging with consumers, through the vast array of channels and devices on offer.

With the outbreak of coronavirus and the government lockdown, more consumers and businesses are heading online, so making use of online marketing has never been more important. Today’s screen-addicted consumers have pushed marketing and advertising into a whole new digital realm. The effect of this digital surge is what is now known as “omni-channel digital marketing”.

What is omni-channel marketing?

Omni-channel marketing is a core strategy that brands use to engage with customers across multiple channels.

Marketers need to provide a seamless user experience across all channels relevant to the buyer’s journey. Businesses can now interact with their consumers in store, on an online website or app, through print ads and catalogues or through social media platforms.

The Office for National Statistics released their annual report for Internet access in Great Britain in 2019, stating: “among all adults, 84% had used the internet ‘on the go’ in 2019, using a mobile phone, smartphone, laptop, tablet or handheld device”.

A customer’s purchasing journey can now span across many different days, locations, devices and channels. It is therefore crucial that a consumer’s experience remains as coherent as possible, across all networks, in person and behind a screen.

So, if a consumer can engage with a brand at anytime and anywhere, how should your business prepare to accommodate this?

How to implement omni-channel marketing:  

Putting yourself in your consumers’ shoes:

It is helpful to regularly examine the experience you are offering to your customers by re-enacting your customers purchasing journey.

Place an order or search for specific information on your channels. Do you provide a seamless experience? Are there any issues or obstacles? By employing a marketing agency like EDGE Creative, we can do this for you. We can help you to achieve this seamless experience you need by examining and expanding on your current marketing strategies through high-quality tools such as Hotjar.

Utilising data:

Data is vital in helping you to understand your business and its developments. Data processing includes increased productivity and profits whilst providing you with reliable, accurate statistics. Investing time and expenses into gathering data will help you to measure your success in terms of the response of real people, over a specific amount of time.

You should also be carrying out conversion rate optimisation (CRO). This practice functions to improve the conversion rate in any advertising, marketing, sales or other business practice that has a goal of getting a person to take an action.

The process of CRO involves understanding how your visitors are using your website, what actions they are taking and what is stopping them from completing your goals.

At EDGE Creative, we have over 15 years’ experience in creating digital campaigns that encourage users to convert. Our expert team are pioneers in using remarketing to boost conversion rates, while raising your business’s reputation, visibility and bottom line.

Defining your target market:

A target market is the specific group of people who you want to reach with your marketing message. These are the people who are most likely to purchase your products or services.

Creating a customer persona is a method of segmenting your target audience. These are profiles based on the analysis and research of your existing customers, which help to build more of a detailed picture of how old your customers are, where they live and what their personal motivations might be.

If you have a wide audience demographic, you can create personas for the different products or services you offer. Building these personas mean that you can be sure to target the right person from day one, meaning your business no longer wastes money targeting people on the off chance they slightly fit your audience.

Defining your audience will ensure you are effective in your marketing efforts; it will not stop people from buying your products. Defining your target audience will eventually help you to tailor your future content across all channels. 

As a digital marketing agency, we have over 15 years’ experience in devising customer personas, which makes us experts in helping you to define your audience online.

Listening and responding to your customers:

More than ever people are now using multiple devices during a single transaction process. You should be responding to these interactions.

An example of this could be to preserve the items in a customer’s shopping basket across their devices. This way, if a customer logs off their mobile app and switches to desktop, the product will still be in their basket. Sending emails to customers reminding them of the existing items in their basket could also encourage them to confirm their transaction.

EDGE CREATIVE

At EDGE Creative, we have extensive experience in providing a first-class marketing service that creates an impact and retains your audience. We can support you and your business in designing tailored marketing solutions across both traditional and digital platforms. If you are interested in finding out how EDGE Creative can help you, get in touch by calling 0121 355 8092 or email us on info@edge-creative.com.