The way in which retailers market goods to shoppers has evolved immensely over the years, especially since the advent of the digital gerenation. As technology advances, customers change their behaviour and expectations to match, and marketers, have to adapt continuously to reach them. This is where omnichannel marketing comes into play, the strategy that’s going to drive sales growth and strengthen your customer loyalty. It’s the marketing technique of the future, and it’s already making a significant impact.
Omnichannel vs Multichannel Marketing
As close to multichannel marketing as omnichannel may sound, they’re vastly different and have different primary focuses. Both utilise all of the channels available to create a unified experience for retail customers. This includes digital, traditional, instore, offline and online. Your message and user experience are spread seamlessly across these channels to provide a personalized customer experience.
While both strategies may involve multiple channels, they provide a different experience. Multichannel marketing is company-focused, targeting customers with brand-focused messages that are uniform across all channels to all customers. It’s static compared to the personalized, targeted approach of omnichannel marketing, which has been proven to be the most effective means of reaching your customers and developing relationships with them today.
With omnichannel marketing, your customer is the focus, and your marketing efforts will revolve around them, what they want and making sure they get it when and where they want it. You need to provide the same shopping experience no matter which channel is used.
Retail trends we see in Omnichannel Marketing
To understand omnichannel marketing trends, you must first understand how they work. Omnichannel is a self-fulfilling strategy thanks to its very nature. By keeping the focus on the customer, retailers can gather information to target them more effectively.
Thus, your marketing strategy should start from the moment they sign up to your website or newsletter. Incentivize them to open as many channels of communication (store, mobile, social media and website) with you as possible through rewards and benefits, such as discounts, promotions and early access to new products or ranges. Once they sign up for emails or SMSs, you can keep in contact with them, and track their purchases through your website to monitor what they like and don’t like.
In-store, one of the latest trends is to hand over control to the customer through the use of interactive digital kiosks, thereby blurring the divide between online and in-store shopping. Interactive digital kiosks are self-standing kiosks with a built-in touch screen that provides information and self-service functions. Customers can enjoy a seamless shopping experience, browsing your inventory and accessing their accounts with the same ease as they would on your online store.
How does omnichannel affect the customer experience
Customers love a convenient, personalized shopping experience, and you’ll find that omnichannel marketing improves your relationship and engagement with customers, and encourages brand loyalty. Once you have an established customer base, it’s easier to market to them as they already trust your brand, and thus need less convincing to remain loyal.
Customers also highly appreciate the in-depth, personalized nature of omnichannel marketing. It targets them and their interests more accurately and keeps them in the know. So use all that valuable data you’ve acquired to effectively reach out to your customer base.
At AVT we can assist with revolutionizing your in-store marketing strategy, allowing you to merge your customers online and in-store shopping experience by custom designing and incorporating interactive digital kiosks into your retail space. Digital kiosks are the way of the future, and we’re happy to help you streamline your in-store shopping experience.
