How Did Omnichannel Marketing Become So Dominant?
Most businesses with dedicated marketing strategies are now taking the omnichannel approach, utilizing many different communication channels simultaneously to reach more people and exercise more consistent messaging. But why is this approach still so powerful? And how did it become so dominant?
The Power of Omnichannel Marketing
These are some of the reasons this marketing approach remains so dominant across businesses of all sizes and industries:
- Repetition. Repetition in marketing is extraordinarily powerful. The more you repeat a given message or theme, the easier it’s going to be to remember, the more familiar your customers are going to become with it, and the faster your reputation will grow and spread. Omnichannel marketing gives you an opportunity to repeat your core messages and themes in many different ways, across many different channels, thereby defeating one of the greatest weaknesses of repetition: customer fatigue. Instead of displaying the same TV commercial over and over and over, hoping for your message to sink in, you can instead repackage it and distribute it across a variety of different engageable channels. You’ll get all the benefits of repetition with none of the drawbacks.
- Total reach. Some companies love omnichannel marketing because it gives them much greater overall reach. Intuitively, you can understand this immediately; broadcasting your message across more channels means reaching more people. Obviously, there’s going to be some overlap between channels, and this is a good thing. But there will also be segments of your audience who use some channels but not others. Without a truly omnipresent approach, there will be segments of your audience you simply won’t reach.
- Demographic targeting. Omnichannel also allows you to practice more refined demographic targeting. If you know which types of users use certain platforms, you can tailor your messaging to them specifically. Obviously, if you have a single market segment, this advantage may not be so apparent to you, but if you’re constantly juggling multiple market segments with different needs and different values, omnichannel becomes a practical necessity.
- A seamless customer experience. Customer experience matters. You want your customers to have a totally seamless, consistent experience with your brand every time they encounter it, whether they’re visiting a physical store or just hearing your jingle in the background of a YouTube ad. As long as you have the same brand standards and core principles underlying your approach across channels, you’ll be able to develop a much more positive and consistent customer experience.
- Evolution through the ages. Omnichannel marketing has a built-in mechanism for adaptability. As times change and technologies evolve, you can swap in new channels and swap out old ones. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses were forced to shift to a more digital experience, and as new social media platforms have taken over the digital landscape, the most successful brands have incorporated them.
Mastering the Art of Omnichannel Marketing
If you want to remain effective in your omnichannel marketing approach, these tactics are essentials:
- Set a high-level vision. Before you even think about individual channels to add to your repertoire, you need to develop a high-level vision for your marketing strategy. What is your brand and how is it unique in your industry? Who is your target audience and how do you reach them? What do you want the average customer experience to be like?
- Create touch points everywhere. The more touch points you have in your omnichannel strategy, the better. When a new customer visits your store, ask them for their email address. Send them a welcome email with a special offer if they follow you on social media. Showcase a limited-time sale on your social media platforms to drive them to your website – and welcome them there as well.
- Gather data and personalize. Personalization is more important than ever, especially as more of your competitors utilize this tool to consume your market share. As much as possible, gather data on your customers and track them as they interact with your brand across multiple channels. From there, you can personalize experiences and make each customer feel unique in your brand landscape.
- Measure and analyze. Not all of your channels and approaches are going to be equally effective, so make it a point to objectively measure as much as you can. Analyze these data and make changes as necessary.
- Remain open minded. Omnichannel marketing dominance requires constant evolution. Keep an open mind and be willing to make changes as you learn more about your audiences and adapt to new technologies.
Omnichannel marketing became dominant around a decade ago, even if the term wasn’t in the popular lexicon at that time. Even so, it’s likely to remain relevant for as long as we have multiple channels to juggle as consumers. In other words, your omnichannel marketing strategy is likely to persist and continue paying dividends indefinitely.
