Six Omnichannel Marketing Strategies Retailers Shouldn’t Miss out On

09 Sep Six Omnichannel Marketing Strategies Retailers Shouldn’t Miss out On

Six Omnichannel Marketing Strategies Retailers Shouldn’t Miss out On

Today, you have more channels than ever through which you can market your business. Even if you have a brick-and-mortar store, you should still target online audiences. You’ll also want to reach as many people as possible through radio, television, magazines, newspapers and other traditional and nontraditional methods. However, the strongest marketing strategies are those that incorporate multiple methods, known as omnichannel strategies.

Brands engaging their customers with an omnichannel experience have an 89% retention rate, compared to 33% for ones that don’t. Keeping the customers you have is almost always more profitable than seeking out new ones, and they tend to buy more over time. What could increasing retention rates by 56% do for your business? Think about the high return on investment of keeping your customers, rather than constantly seeking new ones.

When it comes to omnichannel marketing strategies, there are many different paths you can go down to offer customers an integrated experience shopping with your store. However, some work better for retailers than others. We’re going to focus on six you can use today to ramp up your promotional efforts. 

1. Create a Sweepstakes

One way you can incorporate an omnichannel marketing experience is by offering a contest of some sort. One example of this was when clothing retailer Camuto realized people easily lost the belts from their trenchcoats. They came up with a contest that reached across email, social media, their website and even in person to encourage people to come up with a solution to the problem. The more creative the idea, the better. 

Don’t offer a contest without a strategy. Think about a problem your customers face or something they already love about your product, and encourage them to share it with their audiences. Online and in-person sharing extends your reach beyond your current customers. Ideally, your contest will go viral and give you a ton of free advertising traction with little additional effort from you.

2. Consider Transactional Marketing

Transactional emails have a much higher engagement rate and conversion rate. Instead of looking so closely at the relationship, transactional marketing examines individual sales or products. So, the campaign might focus on a new item that just came in. To make the experience omnichannel, the marketer would take a multi-channel approach, getting the word out online and off. With transactional marketing, you might also focus more on a single goal for a single campaign, rather than growing brand recognition over the long haul.

3. Invest in Digital

Brick-and-mortar stores would be wise to invest in digital and take the plunge into multiple channel shopping. Consumers already expect the ability to browse for an item online and buy it in person, and vice versa. One way of offering this is creating an app that alerts customers about new products they might be interested in. Upon arriving at the retail location, they can then find and buy the item. Promotions might be in store or online, but the two should match one another perfectly and offer the ability to shop wherever the consumer is at that moment. If you need help, get in touch with one of our digital marketing experts to discuss what options might work best for your unique business. 

4. Making Display Ads Multichannel

Fortunately, incorporating other channels into one-dimensional marketing is easier than ever before, thanks to the rising popularity of augmented reality programs. You can create a large display that interacts with a game on the user’s cellphone or add a QR code that offers a coupon when scanned. If you aren’t quite ready to get that technical with your advertising, you can also add a website address or social media icon to an offline ad.

When creating online ads, point users back to your local stores and tell them they’ll get a discount if they take a screenshot of the ad and bring it in. You may even want to offer a gift if they share the ad a specific number of times. 

5. Unify Your Messages

No matter where you choose to promote your brand, make sure the messages are the same across all the channels. Users lose trust in a company that says there are only 500 of a product on their website and then advertise 1,000 of the product on a banner on the front of the store. Make sure you know the details of the promotion, have honest numbers and that all advertising matches. 

Any discounts, dates and other details also need to match perfectly. Have one of your marketing team work on looking for inconsistencies. However, you should also use some test markets to find any issues you may not have thought of. Sometimes, these contradictions are more subtle, such as offering free returns in one ad and not in another. 

6. Hire Influencers

Don’t overlook the significant power of influencers to spread the word about your brand. However, your influencers don’t have to work exclusively online. You can hire some bloggers or others with a broad online reach, then appoint a few local fans to serve as in-person brand ambassadors. By creating an omnichannel experience with your influencer marketing, you reach people in different audience segments more readily. People who already love and use your products are likely to be friends with similar people who will come to love and use your products if they hear about them. Ask your regular customers to talk you up, and reward them for doing so.

Since you’re asking them to represent your brand, make sure all influencers share a similar message. Offer detailed guidelines and even training sessions before letting someone else be the face of your company. 

Provide a Seamless Experience

Omnichannel is a buzzword right now because the worlds of online and offline sales have collided. Consumers expect a consistent across-the-board experience, no matter how they interact with your brand. When planning your marketing, you must talk to your website manager, social media manager and your store managers. Everyone needs to be on the same page and pushing the same message and offers if you want to focus on omnichannel marketing strategies.