Many companies have communication channels like social media and messenger apps in addition to their website. However, these touchpoints are not always well connected. With an omnichannel strategy, you want them to be connected to each other as seamlessly as possible. If you want to know more about what omnichannel exactly means, we will explain it all in this article. With an omnichannel strategy, it is important that customers don’t experience any difference in the channels they use. Channels such as the website, email, chat, social media and the physical store should all give the same experience. This consistency in communication channels gives more confidence in the brand. It is one of the ways to communicate to customers that you spend time and attention on them.
Here are a few things to consider when creating an omnichannel strategy:
Get Your Marketing Team Omnichannel Ready
Let’s say you want to start with an omnichannel strategy. Than you will have to build a bridge from a regular marketing team to an omnichannel marketing team. The first step in this is to appoint an omnichannel manager. One of the tasks of this position might be to connect the different (marketing) teams. For example to work on an overarching project. The e-commerce team and the social media team are often both optimizing their own channels. Which can lead to different communication styles. These styles will need to be on one line.
After that it is crucial to work on the omnichannel customer experience. Determine the most important touchpoints and apply this to your campaigns. Also make sure that the overall message of the campaign is clear to everyone. In addition, set common goals, budgets and rewards.
You can do all this by using digital tools such as a marketing planner to implement the entire omnichannel strategy.
Get Your Social Media Omnichannel Ready
Social media is the driving force behind the omnichannel strategy. But a social media campaign is not an omnichannel campaign. The benefit of omnichannel is that your social media campaigns are enhanced by complementary channels. And you can also extract feedback from them. So you get more insight into the customer journey.
In addition, (new) customers often search for a company on social media first. For more information, or to see what others are saying about it. Your company will be more trustworthy, if it can easily be found on social media. You must also respond quickly to messages on those platforms. A good chat function can already do a lot for your brand. For example, a 24/7 chatbot on Facebook messenger.
Don’t Forget Your Physical Store (if You Have One)
You should ensure that your webshop and your physical store reinforce each other.
This can be done by offering customers the option to ‘pick up in store’. This will keep customers visiting the store, where they can be triggered to buy something else. But even if something is not in stock in the physical store, there must be an option to order it online immediately and have it delivered to the customers’ home.
Some people prefer to go to a physical store. Others prefer to be helped quickly via chat, WhatsApp or social media. In the best case scenario, you would have to offer each consumer a customized experience.
In fact, every company should have an omnichannel communication strategy. Are you ready to start as well? Then take a look at what we have to offer for optimizing your business!
