Close your eyes for a moment and imagine yourself enjoying an orchestra –
The joyful notes of a violin, the soothing tone of a flute, the radiant music of the Xylophone, and the upbeat mood of a Brass –
Each instrument capable of producing a nice tune of their own, but blending in to craft a memorable symphony that delights and engages the audience. How mesmerizing!
That’s what an Omnichannel Strategy for your brand looks like.
Every channel at every touchpoint works together in coordination to offer a consistent brand experience to your target audience, and in return, gains their loyalty and lifetime value.
In this blog, we will explore what an omnichannel strategy is and how you can build one to give an unforgettable experience and form a remarkable image for your brand –
What is an Omnichannel Strategy?
It is a customer-centric approach that strives to offer a seamless and unified customer experience in every stage of a buyer’s journey, across all the touchpoints they encounter and interact with.
In simple terms, it is about being consistent in the experience you build for your customers, no matter the channel or stage at which they reach out to your brand – be it while scrolling through your website, visiting your store, or engaging with your social media accounts for inquiries and purchase.
Omni-Channel Strategy vs. Multi-Channel Strategy
First, let’s begin with what’s common between these strategies.
In both, an Omni-channel and a Multi-channel approach, we use more than one channel to reach and engage with our target audience.
Now, what’s the prime difference between them?
Multi-channel strategies focus on building a robust presence on multiple channels in the mix, each acting as an individual entity and not being seamlessly connected and consistent with each other.
Here, you might have a different tone of voice, communication style, messaging, and design for every channel.
An omni-channel strategy connects every touchpoint your buyer will come across in its journey to create a smooth and unified experience through content & communication, campaigns, design, and customer service.
Hence, no matter the channel your customer will choose to interact with your brand, they will always receive the same level of engagement and service.
One more difference is that while a multi-channel strategy only focuses on the marketing channels your brand will use, an omni-channel strategy will integrate every channel, platform, and device your customers might use together.
Why is an Omni-channel Strategy Important Today?
It enables your brand to –
- Build an Unforgettable Experience
In a omni-channel strategy, your consumers’ will receive a seamless, frictionless experience no matter the –
- Stage of their lifecycle (Whether they’re looking for pre-purchase offers/ recommendations or post-purchase customer service)
- The channel (Whether they reach out on Instagram for issue resolution/ help or give you a call)
- The device they choose to interact with the brand (Whether they visit your website through a laptop, phone, or a smart watch).
This builds trust and strikes an emotional chord with your target audience as you appear genuine through your consistent messaging, visuals, and tone across all touchpoints.
- Gain a Competitive Edge
As we said above, through this strategy, you gain your target audience’s trust which helps your brand build a strong relationship with them.
In today’s time, customer loyalty and experience can be your greatest differentiator to stand out in a market crowded with direct and indirect competitors.
- Boost your Bottom-line Metrics
When you gain your customer’s loyalty, satisfaction, and engagement through your experience, you will see an obvious impact on the bottom-line numbers of your business.
A Statistic from Evergage states that companies with a strong omni-channel customer engagement strategy retain an average of 89% of their customers.
How to Start Building an Omni-channel Strategy for your Brand in 4 Easy Steps?
- Begin with your Existing Channels. Engage there!
Once you know that omni-channel strategy is the way to growth, it doesn’t mean you have to be everywhere from the next day.
Your logical first step should be to focus on evaluating and strengthening your brand’s presence and experience on the channels you are already there.
- Are you sharing Content regularly on these channels?
- Are you engaging with your target audience (through comments, reshares, chats, and any other ways)?
- Are you focusing on organic & paid Campaigns like Contests, Co-creation activities, and Sale Seasons to deepen your consumers’ level of engagement?
- Are you consistent with your content, visuals, and brand’s personality on these channels?
If the answer to any of the above questions is a No, then you should work to solve that first before jumping onto the journey of exploring a new channel altogether.
Also, if you’re willing to go the extra mile in this step, try figuring out how you can naturally integrate your existing Channels for a smooth customer experience.
- Do Customer Journey Mapping. Find more Channels to have in your Mix.
After strengthening your brand’s position on your existing channels, it is time to explore what other channels you can add to your marketing mix.
What’s the first factor to think of when you’re trying to choose the next channels to be on?
Obviously, it is your customer’s choice.
Through your ideal customer profile, you will get a clarity on the stages your target audience goes through in their buying journey.
Once you know the stages, you can pinpoint/ find out the channels they visit or interact with.
After that, take a step back to evaluate which channels also blend in well with your brand marketing efforts and pick those channels.
That’s it. You now have a list of new channels to add to your omni-channel strategy for reaching and engaging with your customers.
- Create a Consistent Brand Voice. Be Flexible with the Content
The biggest catch in gaining success through an omni-channel strategy is being consistent throughout all touchpoints.
You have to be consistent in your content and design for your consumers’ to easily recognize you when they come across a website, a social media page, an Ad, or an Email.
But being consistent doesn’t mean having the same message or visual elements throughout all the channels.
It means you should develop a tone of voice based on your brand’s identity: whether you will be hard-core professional, casual, witty and humorous in your tone.
After that, all of your communication and design should reflect that brand personality – your wording in the content and elements in design can and have to be different.
- Lead the Users to the Right Channels with a CTA
It is a given to end any engagement with a CTA, but the point here is to make sure the CTA is appropriate and it guides the audience to a channel that lets them enjoy a seamless experience.
For example, if I’m running an Instagram Ad for my spring clothing collection, I should direct them to the product page of my mobile website instead of my blog to get the full potential out of your omni-channel strategy.
That’s it. Sounds easy and exciting, right?
Now you know what, why, and how you can use an omni-channel strategy to grow your brand.
That’s the first part of our 3rd section of a Business Model Canvas – Channels.
Stay tuned for the next 2 parts!
You can schedule a workshop/ training session with Mili Kataria to build each section of a Business Model Canvas to ensure a robust foundation.
Pandora’s Box is a Business Consulting and Brand Marketing Agency that helps firms build robust, consistent, and differentiating presence online.