Technology has had a significant impact on consumer behavior, especially post-pandemic, with the average share of digital customer interactions going from 25% to 65% in just three years (2017-2020). With most customers using several channels when they shop, an omnichannel approach is fast becoming the rule rather than a new approach.
Back-to-school shopping is a season once dominated by brick-and-mortar, but in 2024 ecommerce was expected to grow by 7.4% compared to just 1% growth for actual brick-and-mortar sales. This means if you’re not joining the thousands of businesses out there leaning into an omnichannel approach, you’re missing out. Implementing such a strategy can give your company a good shot at grabbing customers’ attention and keeping it through a sales funnel that can wind through multiple forms of technology.
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The benefits of omnichannel
This approach has proven results. A study done by the Harvard Business Review showed customers who engage through several channels spend more both at brick-and-mortar and online than single-channel customers. But using omnichannel has benefits that go beyond the bottom line.
- Present a cohesive brand identity: A seamless strategy across multiple channels lets you display your brand identity and messaging to customers regardless of how they choose to interact with you.
- Opportunities to increase revenue: A larger number of touchpoints means the ability to interact with more prospects, and consequently, more opportunities to turn them into customers. For example, as part of my marketing consulting with startups, I’ve helped make ad retargeting a part of their strategies. It reduced cart abandonment because it showed ads through a different channel after a user abandoned their shopping cart. Research has actually shown that 26% of users return to a website if retargeted.
- Data that drives decision-making: Instead of statistics from siloed, single-channel, one-off campaigns, omnichannel data helps you better target consumers on the platforms where they will both receive and respond to your messaging.
How omnichannel strategies improve lifetime value
The customer shopping experience is very different from back in the day. Today’s technology-driven consumer is researching products on their phone, reading about other customer experiences on social media and then either ordering online or visiting a store.
While print media, billboards, and commercial media buys are still part of the landscape, customers want to be reached on any and all digital platforms and want the option of using those platforms to make purchases. Let’s look at how omnichannel can help you create returning customers.
Personalized communications
Businesses can use data from across channels to create targeted communications based on customer preferences. Examples of this include loyalty programs that let customers get rewards across channels, such as Starbucks rewards. Other examples include in-store purchases that lead to online discounts or cross-channel communications where one channel leads to customer interaction somewhere else. Examples could be an email reminder about an abandoned shopping cart or a printed card handed out at an event with a QR code that leads to a website or social media page.
Cross-selling and upselling
A holistic view of your customers’ behavior across multiple channels creates opportunities to increase awareness about and sell both complementary and premium products.
Improved customer experience
Ever had a cashier order something for you online that wasn’t in the store right from their register or tablet? I had a customer service rep do that for me in a store recently. It’s a simple example of an omnichannel experience that solves a customer problem. Omnichannel can also help customers before they even enter the store using local inventory ads. Office Depot uses mobile ads to target customers with relevant products that the customer can be assured are in stock when they visit the store.
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How to tell if omnichannel is working for you
Instead of siloed data, an omnichannel marketing strategy provides data from different channels that needs to be interpreted together in order to make meaningful decisions about the direction of your customer outreach. With that in mind, below are some key metrics you should be gathering from your marketing data.
- Conversion rate: Conversion rate is the ratio of total visitors or leads to those that engage in a desired action like completing a purchase, attending an event or filling out a form for a newsletter or savings program.
- Customer lifetime value: This is the total revenue for an individual customer for the entire length of their relationship with your business. It’s basically a ratio of time to revenue, so two customers who have been with your brand for a year could have different customer lifetime values based on how much they purchased.
- Retention rate: The percentage of customers who continue to make purchases over a specified time frame. While lifetime value and retention rate are both metrics of customer loyalty, retention rate measures the percentage of customers a company keeps rather than a calculation of revenue.
- Average order value: The average spend per transaction across various channels. This metric can be broken out by channel so that you can see which channels are generating the highest value orders.
Examples of effective omnichannel strategy
The following are examples of field-tested omnichannel strategies I’ve seen firsthand.
Amazon and Whole Foods
Amazon has combined with Whole Foods to create a seamless omnichannel retail experience. Amazon One is a biometric payment system that registers a customer’s palm print, allowing them to pay for groceries by showing their hand to a scanner. Dash Wand is an affordable device that combines Alexa with a barcode scanner that is small enough to carry, allowing customers to get product information while they shop. These combined with Amazon’s easy online grocery ordering and mobile app create a true omnichannel experience.
Pharmaceuticals
As a journalist covering Salesforce in the past, I learned about this omnichannel strategy. It involves marketing to healthcare providers by having physicians and nurses opt-in to communications at one of the many company-sponsored events they attend. The names, email addresses and phone numbers are then fed into Salesforce which has a campaign set up to send them targeted, personalized communication via email or text message which drives them to engage with the company website.
Further communications are based on whether doctors and nurses click the links in emails and text messages. If they click they get messages encouraging them to attend future events. If not, they might get communication that encourages them to engage via social media.
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Leave no channel unchecked
An omnichannel strategy lets your business engage with as many customers as possible while staying agile enough to adapt to their changing preferences. The seamless incorporation of multiple channels gives you an advantageous position in the shifting landscape that is digital commerce.
