Omnichannel

Consumers are increasingly embracing the omnichannel shopping experience, and many retailers have risen to the challenge. Omnichannel retailing helps brands reach customers in new and creative ways, which can pay off in big ways in today's competitive digital marketplace.

So what are effective omnichannel retailers doing to leverage their online presence and capture customers' attention? It starts with channel integration.

What is omnichannel retailing?

Omnichannel retailing is a marketing approach wherein retail brands connect with customers via various channels and platforms. While it has similarities to multichannel marketing, omnichannel retail strategy differs by connecting cross-channel efforts with an overarching strategy.

Potential channels in an omnichannel retail strategy include:

• In-store experience, messaging, and signage
• Brand website
• Mobile app
• Social media profiles
• Traditional channels, such as TV, radio, and print

Omnichannel strategies provide a seamless, integrated experience across all channels. In the modern marketplace, customer expectations are high, and competition is fierce, so brands should take advantage of all available channels and platforms to deliver an exceptional customer experience.

Let's look at some tips to help retailers get a leg up with their omnichannel efforts.

Three tips for omnichannel retailing

Get to know your customer

Every omnichannel retail strategy should start with the customer. If you already have customer profiles or personas in your marketing efforts and ad targeting, that's a great place to start. If not, you need to spend time creating your ideal customer personas. Identify basic demographic information like age, gender, location, and income, but don't stop there. Answer these questions to get to know your ideal customer on a whole new level:

• Where do they shop?
• What channel do they shop through — online, in-app, in-store, or a combination?
• How much do they typically spend on orders?
• Do they have seasonal spending trends?

You can get this information through customer surveys or through a solution that provides real bank transaction data from real shoppers, like Cardlytics. No matter which method you use to collect this information, these data-based insights are essential as you grow your omnichannel retailing efforts.

Make all channels shoppable

There was a period in history when a "shopping channel" was a TV network where you could watch product presentations and order items over the phone. Now, a retail shopping channel is any means by which consumers can purchase goods or services. And to succeed as an omnichannel retailer, brands need to take advantage of every channel to sell. This includes:

• Brick and mortar storefront(s)
• Website
• Mobile app
• Social media platforms

You may be using most of these channels already, but if customers can't make purchases through them, you're missing out on sales. Build ecommerce into your website and app, and implement shoppable social media posts and ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Create cross-channel touchpoints

To take your omnichannel retail strategy to the next level, create a variety of cross-channel touchpoints. The more you can offer a combined offline and in-store experience, the more seamless your customer experience. Curbside pickup, also known as buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS) is a great example of a cross-channel touchpoint. Other ideas include:

• Real-time inventory updates online for in-store stock
• In-store signage with social media tie-ins
• A mobile app customer loyalty program that can be used both online and in-store
• Digital gift cards and coupons for in-store use

Cross-channel touchpoints create an integrated experience for customers, and they also create a sense of personalization.

Benefits of being an omnichannel retailer

Omnichannel retailing sounds exciting, but is it worth the effort? Here are several of the benefits of implementing an omnichannel retail strategy.

Competitive advantage

Even if you aren't an omnichannel retailer, your customers are omnichannel shoppers. Many customers use more than one channel during a single transaction. If you offer a convenient and compelling omnichannel experience, you'll gain a competitive edge over brands that haven't caught up.

Better results

Omnichannel retailing offers more opportunities for customers to buy from you, which naturally leads to more sales. Other results brands see when they go omnichannel include:

• Increased operational efficiency
• Increased customer retention
• Overall better customer satisfaction

Better customer experience

In addition to the benefits for business, omnichannel retailing leads to many benefits for shoppers. Omnichannel efforts give customers more purchasing options, more brand engagement, and more overall convenience. The positive customer experience makes consumers more likely to repeatedly shop with you and recommend your brand to friends and family.

Better data

With omnichannel retailing, you gain access to more data than ever before. This cross-channel data helps you refine and optimize your strategy, leading to even better results.

Use Cardlytics to launch your brand into the future of omnichannel retailing

With the right tools and solutions in place, your omnichannel efforts can transform your business. Cardlytics supports omnichannel retailers with powerful insights based on real customer transaction data. Cardlytics Purchase Intelligence™ can help you get to know your ideal customer and craft customizable, cross-channel offers for those most likely to buy. Learn more about Cardlytics today.

Ecommerce’s share of total retail sales has grown immensely in the past decade and will only keep growing. Omnichannel marketing helps businesses meet customers where they are — both online and in stores. To capture audiences’ attention in today’s distraction-filled world, brands must adopt an omnichannel strategy. This means implementing data-backed promotional and shopping campaigns across a variety of platforms.

We’ve devised a set of clear, simple steps for creating an omnichannel strategy for your business.

Seven steps for creating an effective omnichannel strategy

1. Define your ideal customer

The first step in creating an omnichannel marketing strategy is identifying and defining your ideal customer. While multichannel strategies are broad and channel-centered, omnichannel strategies are specific and customer-centered. The more specific you are about your target audience, the better. Ask these questions about your ideal customer:

• What do they care about? 
• Where do they shop?
• Where do they get information?
• What annoys them?

There are many more questions to explore when getting to know your ideal customer, but these are a good place to start.

2. Find your ideal customer

Once you’ve outlined your ideal customer and target audience, you need to know where they spend time. This isn’t just where they physically live but also where they hang out online. Answering these questions can help you find your ideal customer:

• Do they primarily shop online, in stores, or both?
• When do they shop?
• Do they shop with your competitors?
• How much do they spend?

To answer these questions, use whatever data you can access — website analytics, social listening tools, surveys, social media, and more. If you can get your hands on customer transaction data, you’ll receive valuable insights into spending habits and trends.

3. Choose your channels

Based on the insights you’ve gathered, select which marketing channels and platforms you’ll use for marketing to your customers. A successful omnichannel strategy should have a mix of digital and traditional channels. Examples of potential marketing channels include:

• Social media
• Brand website
• Mobile app
• Email
• Broadcast — radio and TV
• Digital ads
• Paid search
• Print materials
• In-store ads and promos

An effective omnichannel strategy needs to integrate multiple marketing channels seamlessly and give customers multiple options for where to make purchases. An example of this is a loyalty rewards program customers can use via website, mobile app, and in-store.

4. Enhance your online presence

Your online presence is extremely important, even if your brand primarily operates as a brick-and-mortar business. You must ensure your digital efforts align with in-store branding and messaging.

Make sure your brand image is cohesive, and the user experience is pain-free across all channels and platforms. When consumers interact positively with your brand across multiple channels, your reputation grows, and you stay at the top of their minds. Here are a few things to look for as you audit your online presence:

• Consistent imagery and messaging across social media platforms
• Mobile-friendly website with simple UX and clear CTAs
• Frictionless experience within your app
• Seamless integration with relevant third parties, such as delivery apps for restaurants

5. Map the customer journey

As you build your omnichannel campaign, you’ll find many moving parts across the various channels. Create a map of your customer’s journey, highlighting which channels customers will encounter along the way. Putting yourself in your customers’ shoes will bring clarity to your omnichannel efforts and help you shape your messaging to speak to the right audience at the right moment.

Mapping the customer journey also helps you find potential pain points and inconveniences that could deter customers from engaging with you. As you create your map, look for ways to encourage crossover between online and offline experiences — offering in-store pickup for online orders is one example.

6. Prioritize customer support

A customer’s journey doesn’t end when they make a purchase. Customer support is an important part of the customer experience. A strong customer support strategy can turn casual shoppers into loyal customers — and a poor customer support experience could turn someone away forever. Provide support through multiple channels, and create a personalized experience through warm, friendly support specialists.

7. Collect and protect customer data

As you implement your omnichannel marketing strategy, you’ll undoubtedly need to tweak your targeting, messaging, or other elements of your strategy. Rather than basing changes on trends or assumptions, make data-driven changes based on the results you’ve seen so far. 

In addition to your own customer data, investigate solutions like Cardlytics Purchase Intelligence™ to gain powerful insights based on real customer transactions and purchase habits.

What a successful omnichannel marketing strategy looks like

Once you’ve implemented your omnichannel strategy, how do you measure success? Since your campaign spans multiple channels and marketing platforms, cross-channel or aggregate, metrics are important. Some KPIs to consider when evaluating your omnichannel efforts include:

• Cross-channel pageviews
• Social media engagement metrics
• Cross-channel conversion rate
• Average order value
• Churn rate

Your KPIs will differ depending on your overall campaign goals and which stage of the customer journey you’re looking at. Additionally, an effective omnichannel strategy may look different depending on your industry vertical — travel brands will craft a different customer journey than restaurant brands, for example.

Make Cardlytics part of your omnichannel marketing strategy

A successful omnichannel marketing strategy is key to reaching your target audience where they’re at. Cardlytics can provide marketing insights based on over 179 million consumers’ actual transaction data — all while protecting customers’ identification and personal information. Reach out today to learn more about how Cardlytics can enhance your omnichannel efforts.

Brands favor omnichannel marketing strategies for many reasons, including the opportunity to reach more customers and make more sales. However, in addition to business benefits, omnichannel efforts can greatly improve the customer shopping experience.

A well-crafted omnichannel customer experience can help you build a satisfied, loyal, and enthusiastic customer base.

What is the omnichannel customer experience?

The omnichannel customer experience is simply a way of describing how customers engage with and interact with brands through several channels. This is also known as the omnichannel customer journey. 

An effective omnichannel strategy should include a customer journey map, with details about which channel(s) the customer interacts with at each stage in the purchasing process.

What do customers really want?

To provide an exceptional customer experience, you need to understand what customers want and give them what they want. Some examples of consumers' customer service expectations include:

• Foresight
• Convenience
• Flexibility
• Reliability
• Empathy

With a well-crafted omnichannel strategy, you'll have various resources at your fingertips to meet and exceed these expectations, ultimately providing a satisfying, elevated experience that keeps customers coming back.

Meeting customer needs with your omnichannel customer journey

Adopting an omnichannel approach is the best way to serve your customers and improve their overall experience with your brand. Here are some ideas for crafting an omnichannel customer experience that meets and exceeds customers' expectations.

Foresight — anticipating needs

Customers want brands to anticipate their needs, not just respond to them — but brands aren't mind readers. To effectively anticipate customer needs, you need an in-depth understanding of your customer, which you can get through data and customer feedback. Some ways to improve foresight include:

• Soliciting customer feedback across multiple channels — add a link to a survey on printed receipts, in order confirmation emails, and on social media posts
• Including proactive outreach as a part of your customer communication
• Analyzing cross-channel customer data and looking for patterns

Swift, thoughtful responses are now the bare minimum in customer service. To really connect with customers, use data and feedback to anticipate their needs.

Convenience — reducing friction

Customers expect convenience when shopping in-store and placing orders online, and even small inconveniences can cause them to shop elsewhere. Your omnichannel customer journey should be streamlined and optimized to provide the level of convenience customers want. Here are some ways to achieve a more frictionless customer journey through your omnichannel efforts:

• Optimizing your digital platforms — website, mobile app, social media profiles, Google My Business profile — for speed and usability
• Giving customers a real-time view of inventory to see what's in stock
• Streamlining the ordering and checkout processes

You can see increased sales and more repeat customers by improving convenience and optimizing your customer journey.

Flexibility — providing options

The more options you offer, the more personalized your customer experience. As you create your omnichannel customer service strategy, look for opportunities to offer a variety of options, such as:

• Allowing customers to make purchases through any channel
• Allowing all forms of payment
• Offering a variety of shipping and fulfillment options

Customers have unique wants and needs and are more likely to shop again when their preferences are accommodated.

Reliability — being consistent

Consistency can be challenging with an omnichannel strategy because you may have many channels to coordinate and integrate. Try these tips to increase your reliability across your omnichannel efforts:

• Consistent branding and brand messaging across channels — your presence and promotions should be instantly recognizable no matter where customers encounter you
• Fast response times across all customer service channels

When you provide an exceptional customer experience, you'll gain a reputation for excellence. Maintain and grow your brand's reputation by being consistent and reliable with branding and customer service.

Empathy — showing you care

Although you may handle a large volume of customer inquiries, each customer wants to feel like you care about their specific question or issue. To show you care and to build trust with your target audience, incorporate these things in your omnichannel customer service strategy:

• Warm, friendly customer service representatives
• Multiple customer service channels — email, phone, online chat, social media, in-store
• Creating customized responses to customer reviews

When consumers feel cared for, they develop an emotional connection with your brand, and they're more likely to return and share their positive experiences with others.

Provide a better omnichannel customer experience with Cardlytics

A well-executed omnichannel strategy can transform the customer experience into a seamless series of touchpoints where you're meeting customers' every need. Solutions like Cardlytics Purchase Intelligence™ offer transaction-based data and insights that can boost your omnichannel efforts and drive results. To learn more about how Cardlytics can help meet your customer's needs and expectations, reach out today.