How to Increase the Sales of Your Online Store by implementing Omnichannel Marketing

Sep 20, 2023

Omnichannel marketing (also known as cross-channel marketing) is focused on delivering an identical, brand-named personal user experience across different channels, including the in-store customer experience for bricks and mortar stores.

By using an omnichannel marketing approach, you can put ads before people who are interested in merchandise that is relevant to their interests and purchase history and reduce business-to-business sales procedures. Making sure that potential buyers are offered appropriate products and deals will increase the chances of conversion and increases the efficiency of advertising expenditure.

What is the difference between omnichannel marketing than multichannel advertising?

It's likely that you're using a variety of channels to promote your business. If you're still using one channel Your first step will be to begin using multiple channels.

Multichannel marketing is different from an omnichannel model in the manner that the channels cooperate to create the same seamless and consistent customer experience regardless of where someone is in the journey of a customer.

Multichannel marketing means that each channel could be operating independently from the other. There could be a distinct marketing team for each channel and analyze the ROIs for each separately. Campaigns may be more disconnected campaigns, each having their own unique customer experiences. The customer can engage in all of these channels and feel as though this is the first time they've interacted with you.

On the other hand Omnichannel marketing is the integration and blending of marketing strategies on different channels, which results in an improved customer experience.

With a successful omnichannel strategy one can expect that a client who starts their journey as a buyer through a PPC advertisement but does not decide to purchase when they visit your online store, will be engaged by other channels depending upon their initial interaction, and they will experience the same experience.

person working on a website layout on a whiteboard

It could be that they see advertising on display or social media that are relevant to a first-time buyer, push notifications when they return to your site, targeted advertisements in video, or store specials relevant to them.

Most of us have experienced cases of omnichannel marketing one way or another.

Suppose you click on the social media advertisement, then sign up for a coupon on the site of the retailer through a pop-up. If you don't buy the product, you might receive an abandoned cart message with a discount offer or view ads for the item on different digital channels.

If you choose to buy something, you'll probably get an email that offers suggestions on other products that are similar and receive the latest sales announcements. There may be catalogs or postcards that invites you to make an in-store purchase if they have brick and mortar locations.

That is an omnichannel experience. It can involve a blend of both offline and online marketing, as well as many interactions.

Do you think it's too complicated? The good news is that you don't have to shell out a large sum of sums of money or a huge team to create a lean but successful, omnichannel marketing strategy for your store.

Benefits of omnichannel marketing to both clients and companies

A multichannel marketing strategy offers several advantages over multichannel marketing -to your business as well as for customers. The most significant advantages are:

It's more cost efficient

Business owners will benefit from omnichannel marketing saves money because it's more effective. Instead of creating separate campaigns for direct mail, social media as well as PPC, you could design a single one that you can use it for all of your digital and offline channels.

More than just another advertising campaign, you'll also be using responsive marketing automation that reacts based on how existing or potential customers react to your advertising.

Instead of having to keep creating new campaigns, an omnichannel approach looks at a variety of possible offers depending on the specific situation.

Imagine two customers that see the same display ad. One of them purchases, your marketing automation then sends them a first-time buyer special deal, with the intention of becoming a regular buyer.

The other person doesn't buy, but their behavior indicates that they have a lot of interest. You will receive messages from marketing that are designed to make them come back and make the purchase.

There is no need to develop such omnichannel marketing tools once the automation system will use the tools based on where a person is at in their buyer journey. This process isn't easy and once you've got it running the omnichannel approach is an enormous time saver.

This results in improved customer service

When a customer feels known and is not someone who is not familiar Your marketing automation tools connect with where they are in the buying process. A seamless experience is more timely and relevant as it is in line with expectations of the customer.

It saves customers time, helps them take faster decisions, and also reduces the amount of confusion.

customer service rep on the phone

This helps you to provide superior customer service.

For customers who require help, an omnichannel approach enables your customer support team to learn more about the person they are dealing with so that they do not have to speak with them just like the rest of us. They will be able to reach speed more quickly, and not spend so much time starting at the beginning, and can have an intelligent and relevant conversations.

What is the best way to develop an omnichannel marketing plan

This is a step-bystep guide to developing an omnichannel marketing plan that doesn't exceed your budget.

Integrate one channel at a moment

There's no way of taking on everything in one go, and thankfully, you don't need to. Omnichannel marketing aims to reach your customers through a consistent messaging in multiple places.

team working in an office

Beginning with the dominant channel and identify the primary channel you wish to incorporate with. If you decide to add additional channels, acquire the software for automation of marketing that will help the customer relationship management (CRM) software communicate to all of your online and offline channels, including a brick and mortar retail store.

Make sure you are targeting your marketing messages

Targeting your ads to audience segments who are the most likely to buy your products is a crucial aspect of developing a good multichannel marketing strategy.

Prioritize marketing throughout the customers' journey

The customer journey starts the moment a person first encounters your company and concludes with lifetime loyalty. The following are the five steps of the life cycle of a customer and some popular methods for reaching consumers at each stage with the omnichannel approach to marketing.

diagram of customer lifecycle

1. Reach

Here, a shopper is seeking a specific item or a solution to a issue. It is a good opportunity for you to get this shopper aware of your brand. Customers may be trying to compare products, reading reviews, or trying to find out more information about whether a product is the right fit to the person they are shopping for.

2. Acquisition

Acquisition happens when someone is on your website, sign up to your newsletter, chats with your chatbot, reaches at your business via telephone or email, or visits a brick and mortar store. The customer hasn't purchased at this point, but they are looking your company out and collecting additional information.

When you are in the phase of acquisition there is the possibility to keep collecting data from customers in order to start offering an omnichannel user experience to the various segments of your customer base.

MailPoet settings and dashboard

3. Conversion

If someone purchases something online or makes an in-store purchase, they've "converted" to being your customer. The omnichannel experience for customers will ensure that they feel appreciated and acknowledged. It could involve email, push notifications, or additional opportunities in stores in the case of a physical location.

4. Retention

In addition to delivering more ROI, but cultivating regular customers helps build the brand's reputation and those who are loyal customers will be your biggest supporters through their testimonials as well as telling their friends and family about your products.

In this stage of the journey of a customer You should make use of your growing customer data to improve the conversion experience. You might market to your clients via email follow-up messages including other suggestions for purchase or special discounts relevant to their previous purchases. You could also send them a request for an evaluation or feedback survey, or offer a loyalty program, and give excellent customer service.

5. Loyalty

The satisfaction of customers leads to loyalty. However, you shouldn't leave it to the side and then forget about it.

free shipping setting in

Choose which marketing platforms will work best for your omnichannel approach

If you're operating on a small budget then you might want to choose carefully which marketing platforms to focus on when you create your omnichannel marketing plan. Choose low-cost methods for advertising first before moving on to more costly advertising platforms in the event that your budget expands.

The aim is to provide several touchpoints on different channels to provide a consistent customer experience.

 Low-cost marketing methods comprise:

Then, use the customer data you acquire through Google Analytics and other marketing tools to enhance the effectiveness of your multichannel marketing strategies.

Magna-Tiles listings in Google Shopping

Google Shopping

Google ad for a blue t-shirt

Email marketing

MailPoet email builder

Utilizing services such as MailPoet which you can use to send a welcome email series to new subscribers, recommendation for products based upon previous purchase, emails about abandoned carts to people who left items in their cart, sales announcements and more omnichannel marketing strategies.

Rewards program

 Cart page with a reminder to earn points

Customers can get an omnichannel advertising program that is tailored for them, even across different channels and across multiple devices. Imagine that a member of rewards seeing ads that show them how many points they have and suggests ways to use them. This is an example of the omnichannel experience.

Customer service

Each interaction with customers represents an opportunity for marketing. Instead of looking at customer service as merely a way to handle issues and concerns consider it an opportunity to create long-lasting fans.

By implementing an omnichannel strategy for marketing, your customer service team can see an individual customer's past engagements and purchase, as well as past interactions with you. If you utilize the full advantage of this, you can deliver an unmatched experience, regardless of which customer service channel they use, be it SMS, chatbots, phone and email or within bricks and mortar locations.

CRM list of customers

Utilizing a customer relationship management (CRM) tool such as Jetpack CRM helps ensure that customer service is smooth and easy. Set up a support portal, track the status of tickets and much more within your store. It's not necessary to log into an external CRM system for managing your customersYou can manage it all from within your WordPress administrator section.

Organic social media

It can be difficult to gain organic interest on social media, especially with the many voices that compete, but there are some good alternatives for low-cost marketing that could be quite successful. You can:

  • Create a Facebook group to promote your company
  • Engage and post frequently on your various social media platforms
  • Do an AMA on Reddit using the "Ask Me Anything" subreddit

 Methods for marketing that cost more comprise:

If you're looking to pop your website above natural search results, or get immediate traffic, while improving your SEO, paid advertising on search engines is the way to go. It is also important to ensure that your landing page is responsive to mobile devices, loads fast, and reflects the content of the ad's copy.

Through remarketing, paid search is an important source of data about your customers information that you can utilize to develop your omnichannel advertising approach.

mockup of an ad

Ads to display

Social media advertisements

Engaging with people who are who are on social media is a great opportunity to gain new customers since they are able to easily share your advertisements with their circle of friends. It is possible to market via demographics, perceived desires, interests, or by uploading a customer email list to build a similar audience of people with similar profiles to your current customers. Additionally, you could implement an omnichannel marketing approach on social media once you integrate these channels with your CRM.

shop pages on Facebook

Facebook for connects your store's catalogue of products and Instagram. Facebook and Instagram so you can ensure an unison experience for customers. You can also purchase ads from your account's dashboard.

Video advertisements

Thanks to the rise of online platforms such as YouTube and more budget-friendly tools for editing and video production tools, video marketing doesn't necessarily have to be out budget for smaller businesses.

If you plan to incorporate videos as part of an multichannel marketing strategy, you must make sure to create videos that can be used across multiple channels. Use clips to create blogs, social media marketing as well as product pages in order to make the most of these marketing tools.

Although the most prominent advertisement platform for video is YouTube There are other alternatives to YouTube:

  • Platforms for social video, such as TikTok as well as Snapchat
  • Video live streaming services including Twitch and Vimeo
  • On-demand video streaming networks like Amazon Prime and Hulu

Based on your audience as well as your products printing ads could provide a fantastic method to enhance your digital marketing efforts as well as blend offline and online marketing strategies. You could consider putting up an advertisement in a magazine, mailing a printed catalog, sending postcards with special deals, or using door-to-door marketing techniques like door hangers and sample products.

magazines on a table

Like digital marketing, you can measure the effectiveness of both your in-store and offline initiatives. In the same way, omnichannel marketing is dependent on having an ongoing flow of precise data about your customers, which is customized to each customer.

Here are the top marketing tools for offline marketing information collection as well as an experience that is omnichannel and in-store:

  • QR codes that include tracker hyperlinks. You can create unique tracking-compatible links that work with the QR code. Include these codes on your printed marketing materials, and when a customer uses it to visit your business, you'll know the exact printed item that prompted the customer to pay the trip.
  • Special landing page links. As a QR alternative to QR codes, make custom landing pages using distinctive links. You can also include the URL on the printed advertisements. Just be sure you don't make them too long as customers have to input them manually.

Create ad copy and artwork which can be utilized across multiple platforms

Omnichannel marketing is all about consistency and efficiency. Not only does crafting your videos, images and ads with multiple uses in mind save you cash on the creation of creative materials but it also provides a a unified, branded customer experience to shoppers on all channels.

filming a video in a library

It is important to shoot videos and photos designed for multiple advertising platforms. Different platforms have different aspect ratios, so you'll need to film and edit videos and photos taking this into consideration. Common aspect ratios include:

  • Horizontal 16:9
  • Square 1:1
  • Vertical 4:15 and 2:13
  • Full Portrait 9:16

Create your video and images at the highest resolution possible before exporting as lower resolutions.

Analyze and leverage your customer information

Regularly reviewing the results of your omnichannel marketing campaigns across your various channels is crucial. If an ad campaign is underperforming, you may need to alter it before continuing to spend money on the campaign. Reviewing your statistics will let you know which ads are working and which ones aren't.

Google Analytics is probably the most extensive tool that tracks the activity of your site. You can look at referral sources to see which sites your visitors are coming from, get an understanding of the performance of display and search ad campaigns, as well as collect demographic data on your site visitors.

By integrating this data with your CRM system, other marketing channels can use it to deliver the same experience to your clients.

 Analytics dashboard

Let your marketing team be empowered

With omnichannel marketing, your team can increase their effectiveness by customizing strategies based on the behavior of customers.

In the event that you use sales teams will be better at engaging each customer individually by having access to information about previous purchases and interactions, email messages, clicks, shares, reviews, and other customer data resulting from the omnichannel experience.

Make changes to your ad strategies according to the KPIs. (KPIs)

After reviewing the performance of your omnichannel marketing campaigns, you can update your plan. For most companies, ad campaigns that have small CPAs as well as high ROIs ought to be allocated additional spending on ads and campaigns that have large CPAs and low ROIs should be retired. There are other key performance indicators to your company.

If you're running ads that don't result in direct sales but that regularly are associated with higher organic search results or lead generation It could indicate that the ad is very effective at reaching out to shoppers at the earlier stages of the customer journey.

people working in an office

Experiment with turning certain underperforming advertisements off and on for periods of time to determine if they have an impact on other metrics.

For customer retention and loyalty programs, if you find that fewer customers are taking benefit of the rewards points they earn or aren't redeeming specific coupons, you may want to think about tweaking the offer or adjusting the number of points needed to redeem. If one method of your omnichannel strategy is not performing, doesn't mean it shouldn't be improved to increase revenue for your company.

Watch your business grow

When you make a smart choice when choosing your marketing platforms and marketing automation tools, creating evergreen and reuseable creative assets continuously evaluating and revising your omnichannel marketing strategy according to the results, you'll increase your revenues.

Just like any other thing worth doing, it will need time to perfect. By starting out with just a few marketing channels then expanding upon the information you've gathered from prior efforts, you'll create an omnichannel strategy for long-term success that work to build revenue to your business.