Omnichannel Marketing: 3 Steps To Create A Seamless Customer Experience

**Brands today have more opportunities to engage with customers than ever before. When you align your messaging across all these channels, you can create an exceptional customer experience that isn't just transactional: it's an entire ecosystem built around your brand. You may have heard of multichannel marketing, in which you deploy each channel separately. The teams who run your website, social media, and brick-and-mortar stores, for example, all have their own strategies. In omnichannel, all these channels are connected through consistent messaging, branding, and overall customer experience. For example, take a fictional coffee shop called Mapple's. You use the Mapple's app to order a vanilla latte before you reach the cafe, checking your loyalty points at the same time. When you arrive to pick up your latte, the logo on the cup is the same as the logo on the app. That evening, you receive an email (complete with Mapple's branding) with an offer of a free vanilla latte when you buy a bag of coffee beans from the Mapple's website. The transaction also earns you loyalty points, which you can see on the app and on your online account. This is an omnichannel experience, and it's one customers want and expect. According to research by Google, 90% of people who own multiple devices switch between them when working on one task, and use an average of three devices a day. If you can provide a consistent experience across all those platforms and devices, you make it easier for customers to find what they're looking for, which ultimately increases the likelihood that they'll make a purchase. Additionally, omnichannel has also been shown to increase customer retention and customer loyalty. According to Worldpay, customers who shopped across multiple connected channels (i.e. in an omnichannel style) spent 50% to 300% more than those who used a single channel. Here's how to build a seamless omnichannel experience.

1. Optimize all your channels

Every channel has to pull its weight in an omnichannel strategy. It needs to sync with the others in terms of messaging, branding, and experience, while also being optimized to bring out its own particular strengths. For example, your website is the place where people go for information and to shop, so it needs to be informative, and easy to navigate. In comparison, your TikTok is an opportunity to promote your brand identity, and engage with users. Both channels need to use the same branding and messaging, but the content will be different in order to provide a consistently strong customer experience in both instances. This need for universal high quality extends to devices too. Your website should be as polished for people using their cell phones as users on their laptops. Although omnichannel technically means that you're using every available channel, if you're just starting out, consider beginning with three channels, and perfecting your strategy on those before branching out. A website, social media, and email are a good starting point.

2. Understand your customers

Omnichannel takes a lot of coordination and work to get every channel up to speed. Work smarter, not harder, by collecting data that shows you what customers actually want from your respective channels, and how they want each channel to interact with the others. Gather data on customers' interactions with your platform and marketing, and analyze which channels are most popular, and typical user journeys. For example, are people going from emails to the app, or from social media to the website? Once you know that, you can tailor the user interface to make that navigation easier. Or, you can steer them to a different channel entirely. You also need to collect data that shows how well your omnichannel approach is working. Metrics that can help determine this include customer retention rate, customer acquisition cost, and lifetime value. This information can help you sell people your omnichannel approach working across all the different channels and devices, and get all-important leadership buy-in. Finally, you can learn more about your customers based on what they're searching for on your site. Make sure you can tap into your site search provider to track common searches and frequently asked questions — allowing you to update your offerings and/or your site content accordingly. Learn how here.

3. Make it personal

The appeal of an omnichannel strategy from the customers' point of view is that you know who they are no matter the channel they're using to interact with your brand, which gives them a more streamlined experience. And if you have that information, customers assume that you also have the kind of information companies use to create customized experiences — which can mean product recommendations, personalized search results, and more. For example, they expect you to know:

• What types of products each customer typically looks at.
• The price range they usually stick to.
• What time they typically browse, and what time they typically complete a purchase — and which device they use for each activity.
• How often they click on social media ads, and how often that converts to a purchase.
• Which types of email they're most likely to open. Omnichannel isn't just about showing every customer the same branding across channels. It's about recognizing every customer, regardless of where they're shopping, and providing a personalized experience that makes them want to buy and want to come back.**