In today’s technology-driven world, good customer service isn’t just about the in-store experience - companies need to focus on their customers’ online experience, too. Whether consumers are visiting a physical store or checking out a brand’s website, they’re looking for a seamless transition between all marketing channels and devices. If a company doesn’t have the convenience and consistency that their customers are looking for, they risk losing them entirely. How can an omnichannel marketing strategy help businesses secure their interest, satisfaction, and loyalty?

What is omnichannel marketing?

Omnichannel marketing is an approach in which businesses create and maintain clear, consistent messaging across all their marketing channels. Its main purpose is to increase reach, reduce friction, and boost sales.

Customers want to have the same experiences and interactions with a brand no matter where they are or what device they’re using. If they use a brand’s mobile app to check their inventory and in-store offers, they expect to see those same products and deals when they visit a brick-and-mortar location. They also expect consistency along every step of their path to purchase, from an online ad that makes them aware of a brand to the emails they receive as a member of a brand’s loyalty program. 83% of them are willing to share their data if they get a cohesive, personalized shopping experience in return.

Omnichannel marketing has grown significantly in recent years. In 2012, only 20% of companies were utilizing omnichannel marketing strategies; today, over 80% of them do. It’s proven to result in notable increases in ROI, purchase frequency, and customer retention, encouraging brands to make the switch from single-channel or multi-channel marketing and invest in an omnichannel approach.

For omnichannel marketing to be effective, companies must make the most of two things: personalization and first-party data. Without personalization, the data they collect won’t be as insightful and useful as it could be. And without data and analytics, it will be harder for them to understand how to personalize their marketing efforts to nurture customer loyalty.

Omnichannel marketing vs. multi-channel marketing

Omnichannel marketing and multi-channel marketing may sound interchangeable at first. However, while both strategies focus on the buyer’s journey, omnichannel marketing is more interconnected, providing the cohesive shopping experience customers are looking for. Shoppers move between different devices and touchpoints seamlessly. With multi-channel marketing, customers are meant to interact with each channel independently. It also lacks the data-driven personalization that omnichannel marketing has to offer.

In a multi-channel marketing strategy, a company communicates with its customers through a select few channels, such as its website, its email campaigns, and its social media accounts. Everything is standardized and fairly generic, meaning its messaging and creatives are the same across all channels.

Customers receive the same promotions and deals no matter what their buying behavior is like or where they are on their path to purchase. For example, a clothing retailer will send the same email campaign to everyone on their mailing list to promote their upcoming holiday sale. A furniture store will recommend the same chair to everyone who visits their website. In multi-channel marketing, the call-to-action is the same for every single customer.

In an omnichannel marketing strategy, companies use the same “brand voice” across all of their channels. Whether customers are visiting their stores, looking at their website or social media accounts, or scrolling through their app, the overall messaging is the same. The copy’s wording may vary, but the language, tone, and style are consistent. Omnichannel marketing also makes use of channels not typically used in a multi-channel strategy, such as push notifications and SMS marketing.

Customers receive personalized recommendations, offers, and rewards. For example, a bookstore won’t send the exact same email to all of its customers. Instead, they inform comic book lovers about upcoming comic releases or offer thriller enthusiasts a 25% discount on their next James Patterson purchase. When customers visit a makeup brand’s website, their personalized recommendations consist of lipstick shades similar to the ones they’ve bought before. In omnichannel marketing, every customer’s shopping journey is unique.

Best omnichannel marketing practices

Data-Driven Personalization

First-party data helps marketers make the most of their omnichannel marketing strategy. Without it, they won’t be able to offer customers the cohesive, personalized content and brand experience they’re looking for. Today, 71% of consumers want brand consistency across platforms and devices, but only 29% say they actually experience it. When companies collect, analyze, and leverage first-party data, they can fully meet their customers’ expectations.

Why is first-party data so relevant to omnichannel marketing? 84% of marketers use customer data to guide their marketing decisions. When building customer profiles and buyer personas, companies need to look at more than just basic demographics. Shopping preferences, purchasing behavior, and survey data all play an important role in fulfilling customer needs. If customers feel seen and understood as individuals with their own values and expectations, they’re more likely to become repeat customers or even brand advocates. Companies see significant increases in revenue, brand engagement, and customer loyalty in return.

There are many ways in which brands can use first-party data to cater to their customers. For example, Sephora offers their loyalty program members a free birthday gift, which they can pick up in stores. Neiman Marcus’s website takes note of the sizes and styles of clothing their customers purchase so they can make tailored suggestions on their next visit. Lastly, Spotify’s “streaming intelligence” serves their consumers the right playlists at the right time based on their listening habits, such as a morning workout playlist or an evening wind-down. There are endless possibilities for incorporating first-party data into omnichannel marketing strategies.

Centralize Your Information

When collecting and leveraging customer data, it’s important to have one place to store it. Companies should have a CRM platform so they can easily access their customers’ contact information, location, shopping preferences, and so on without having to cross-reference multiple databases. It makes omnichannel marketing strategies easier to plan, manage, and track from start to finish.

Customize Your Call-to-Action

One of the limitations of multi-channel marketing is its generic call-to-actions, resulting in low clickthrough and open rates. Not all of a brand’s customers are interested in opening an email about a new smartphone model or clicking a banner ad for a sale on pet food. In omnichannel marketing, CTAs should suit the customer’s needs and devices. Marketers should consider whether to link their desktop website or mobile website in their email campaigns and social ads. They should also use different email subject lines and social ad copy depending on which consumers they’re trying to reach and where they are on their path to purchase.

Focus on Personalization, Not Segmentation

Omnichannel marketing is about more than just segmenting customers by demographic and calling it a day. As mentioned previously, brands should make the most of first-party data to create personalized experiences that encourage customers to keep coming back. For example, if a brand notices some of their customers prefer to shop on their app instead of their website, they should consider sending them app-exclusive offers. Or, if a brand sees a significant number of shoppers frequently buying two specific products together, they should think about marketing and selling them as a package deal.

Test, Analyze, Rinse and Repeat

Instead of using the same copy and creatives across all channels and platforms, companies should utilize A/B testing to see how their marketing efforts resonate with consumers. For example, brands might learn that shoppers respond more favorably to one email subject line over another, or are more likely to follow through with a special offer if it’s advertised on Instagram instead of Facebook. Another test method is to act as a “mystery shopper” and go through the buyer’s journey to check for issues and friction. Once they’ve analyzed the results and refined their strategy based on their findings, the final step is to do it all over again.

Step-by-step omnichannel strategy

1. Identify Your Consumers’ Shopping Journey

First, brands should review their consumers’ entire path to purchase, from when they initially hear about their brand to when they become repeat customers or even brand advocates. They should look at their website, social media accounts, mobile app, past email and physical mail campaigns, and brick-and-mortar stores to see where and how customers are engaging with them.

2. Reduce Friction On Their Path to Purchase

Companies should also identify potential issues while looking at their customers’ shopping journey. For example, does an Instagram ad take them to the desktop website instead of the mobile website? When they put items in their basket on the website, does it not carry over to the app? Are email campaign images not optimized for viewing on mobile devices? Brands need to find and fix these issues so customers get the seamless experience they’re looking for.

3. Unify Your Messaging and Creatives

Brands should avoid using generic, impersonal messaging often found in multi-channel marketing. Instead, they should focus on developing a brand voice that unifies their language, tone, and style across all channels. Not only will this make writing copy and designing creatives easier for marketers, but it will also help consumers feel as if they're being addressed as individuals and not as a collective.

4. Choose the Right CTA

Marketers should take care in targeting the right audience with the right call-to-action at the right time. For example, do they want to educate leads about their best-selling products? Do they want to ask shoppers to tell people about their new purchase on social media? Do they want to offer loyal customers a special discount? Creating targeted, dynamic messaging helps direct consumers along their buyer’s journey.

5. Refine Your Omnichannel Strategy

The last step of omnichannel marketing is where companies need to test, analyze, and modify their strategy. First-party data and analytics helps identify and solve potential issues and friction. It also helps brands develop a deeper understanding of their customers and better personalize consumers’ brand experience. In order to be successful, companies need to consistently test, analyze, and refine their strategies.

Omnichannel marketing examples

One of the best examples of omnichannel marketing is Starbucks’s mobile app. Customers can order and pay for their food and drinks, keep track of their Starbucks Rewards membership, and earn and redeem their rewards. They can also play games for a chance to win prizes like free refills, coffee mugs, and so on. Additionally, Starbucks partnered with Spotify so customers can use the app to identify the music playing in stores and add their favorite songs to a Spotify playlist. The app helps Starbucks collect and leverage valuable data about their customers’ orders, purchasing behavior, and reward history.

Loyalty programs are a great way to incorporate omnichannel marketing strategies across multiple channels and increase customers’ lifetime value. Universal’s All-Access Rewards loyalty program encourages movie lovers to collect points and participate in spin-and-wins to get rewards. Customers can collect points by purchasing movies and movie tickets, sharing Universal content on social media, watching movie trailers, or participating in polls and quizzes. Rewards include t-shirts, digital movies, and theatrical posters. Universal also uses personalized messaging to engage consumers by sending them movie recommendations via email based on their watch history.

Lastly, Disney’s MagicBands provide Disney World visitors a frictionless omnichannel experience. MagicBands are plastic bracelets with RFID technology that helps guests in a number of ways, including tracking their luggage from the airport to their hotel room, confirming their restaurant reservations and having their pre-ordered meals brought to them, and checking them onto park rides without having to wait in line. Disney uses the data from the MagicBand system and their recently-launched MagicMobile app to anticipate and improve their visitors’ park experience.

Leverage first-party data in your omnichannel marketing strategy

If businesses want to drive sales, retain customers, and increase brand engagement, an omnichannel marketing strategy is the way to go. Companies that take an omnichannel approach comparatively have a 91% higher customer retention rate than companies that don’t. As mentioned previously, first-party data collection and personalizing marketing efforts are instrumental in truly understanding and engaging with consumers. Without these two factors, customers are more likely to switch to competitors that offer the frictionless experience they’re looking for.

3 tier logic’s PLATFORM³ helps brands create seamless marketing campaigns like gift with purchase promotions, sweepstakes and contests, loyalty programs, and more. Modules like Dynamic Messaging and Data Capture & Analytics provide marketers with the critical tools and information they need to make informed business decisions and connect with customers. To learn more, book a demo with our team today.

Complete Guide to Omnichannel Marketing (Examples Included)