Omni-Channel Marketing: 5 Tips to Achieve Brand Consistency

Omni-Channel Marketing is how businesses become and remain relevant in our highly digitized world. Consumers are rapidly becoming more adept at conducting their own research across demographics and are exploring products and services on multiple channels and devices.

They’re knocking on your company’s physical door, cyber strolling onto your website or mobile application, and engaging you on your social media properties. And this trend isn’t reserved for a select few, it’s far-reaching.

Look no further than your own browsing tendencies. Have you researched a product on your smartphone only to go home and purchase that product on your laptop? Have you purchased goods on the go? Do you interact with a brand across all of their platforms? You most likely have. It’s the way the world’s rotating these days.

The modern day consumer can interact with a brand at any given time which is why creating a seamless, integrated, and consistent customer experience across all channels and devices dictates how impactful your brand will be. The essence of omni-channel marketing is brand consistency.

Here are some tips to start your Omni Channel Marketing efforts:

1. Start with the Basics

Become more connected with your customers. You’ll want to identify which channels your customers are using to access your brand. Some channels may not work for your company, some will be indispensable.. Starting an omni-channel strategy is more about picking the right channels strategically rather than using every channel because they’re available.

2. Develop Customer Personas

If you’ve been within earshot of the inbound marketing world within the last decade, you’ve heard about buyer personas. They’re an essential facet of every omni-channel marketing plan. You’ll want to begin establishing buyer personas for your customers before anything else. Brands can construct personas through the collection and analysis of relevant customer data (with a hint of educated guessing). Each one of your customers should fit snuggly into a specific persona.

To get started, ask questions. Are the majority of your customers men or women? Are they comprised of a specific age group? What are their pain points? How and where do they consume information? Online or offline? What are their career aspirations? For example, male iOS users who work in the tech industry, and are between the ages of 25 and 35, are more likely to buy based on technical specifications. In that case, you’d highlight technical specs on your landing pages and in your nurturing strategies to cater to that persona.

3. Measure Everything and Get the Right Data

There’s so much data available to marketers today. However, having copious amounts of data is not the same as possessing the right data. The most important information to collect from your audience are:

• Email Addresses
• Online Cookies
• Mobile Phone Numbers
• Home Addresses
• IP Addresses

Our customer profiles will never stop evolving and changing over time. Customers come and go, ebbing and flowing. . Your data will need to be updated or you run the risk of relying on outdated data. In fact, marketing email lists atrophy by about 22% year over year.

4. Be On the Channels that Matter

Most companies don’t have the resources to be on every channel available today, and for good reason. It’s important you are on the channels where your customers are. So how do you determine which channels are important for you?

• Use data to track the channels through which your customers prefer to reach you: phone calls, emails, online, or social.
• Identify the channels where your ideal customers tend to be most active.
• Listen and respond to customer interactions on those channels.
• Monitor your customers’ shopping patterns. Do they favor online, offline, or a mix of both?

Being everywhere doesn’t make your brand omni-channel. In fact, if you aren’t doing it right, you’re most likely squandering your time, money, and efforts.

5. Consistency, Consistency, Consistency!

You want to make the buying experience as easy as possible. Neil Mohan, Google’s VP of Display Advertising, said “90% of consumers start a task on one device and finish it on another.” If you start shopping on a mobile device and add an item to your shopping cart, it should still be there when you log in on your desktop computer. We want to create the same experience across all devices, from the content to the user interface. The goal of the messaging on your primary website should be the same as your mobile site, your email content, and your social media posts.

Here’s a chart from Telco 2.0 Research, illustrating the frequency of multi-device paths to purchase:

There’s no need to wait, start now! Omni channel marketing isn’t going anywhere. As the world continues to grow and use more technology, it will be increasingly important to present your products or services to the right audiences on the right channels. A great marketing agency can help you do this.