Here are eleven omnichannel marketing strategies that will position your eCommerce store before the right customers and increase your sales over time.
Every eCommerce business looks forward to creating the best customer experience that will determine long-term business success.
Unlike in the past, when customers knew what they wanted and who to buy from, today’s consumers like to bounce through different channels before they finally make a purchase. There is a rapid change in customer behavior that businesses must respond to.
A customer-centric omnichannel marketing strategy is all needed to improve your customer’s experience with your brand.
What Is Omnichannel Marketing?
Omnichannel marketing refers to the sales approach that offers an integrated and streamlined shopping experience to customers across channels. Whether the customer is using a mobile or desktop to buy from an e-commerce store, they can always have a seamless experience.
In the diagram above, customers can decide to use an eCommerce site, or social network, or visit the brick-and-mortar store to buy products and still be assured the same experience regardless of the channel they choose to buy.
In this article, I will share eleven omnichannel marketing strategies that you can implement in your e-commerce business to improve customer retention, order value, and interactivity.
Make Your Website Mobile Friendly
You must work on your website if you intend to create a seamless online experience for your customers. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly. This is because the majority of customers use their mobile phones to access the internet.
In fact, 79% of online shoppers are using their smartphones to buy online. 30% of buyers are likely to abandon their order baskets in the middle of shopping if they find out that your website is not mobile-friendly.
Your website should look and provide the same shopping experience across devices.
When you optimize your eCommerce websites and make them mobile-friendly, you make it easy for your customers to browse, view, sign up for your newsletter, and finally buy your products. Here are some best practices to optimize your website:
- Improve your product pages and make them more convincing for the customers to buy.
- Optimize all your web page descriptions and titles for mobile search.
- Adopt personalization to recommend products to your customers based on their shopping behavior and browsing history.
- Troubleshoot all the common usability errors on your website that increase the bounce rate.
Segment Your Target Customers
Customer segmentation helps create tailored marketing messages and campaigns for each shopper. Custom marketing messages increase the chances of conversion.
Use data analysis tools to collect more information about your customer buying behavior. You should have all the data and metrics that can help you segment your customers.
With the right information about your customers, you can develop the right marketing content that will drive more customers to your online store. For instance, you can craft the best target emails for new leads, which improves your accuracy with targeted adverts.
Here are different ways you can segment your customers and pick the most appropriate digital marketing strategy that can convert them to buyers.
- Gender: Group your customers into male or female to know which group is more likely to buy your products.
- Geo-location: Where do your customers come from? If most of your customers are not from your state, it’s time to think about offering subsidized delivery to their doors.
- Customer loyalty: Is the customer loyal to your brand? If not, think about how you can increase their loyalty.
- Interests: Determine your customers’ unique interests or shopping behavior.
- Past purchase history: Group your customers based on their previous engagement with your brand.
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Apply Customer Journey Mapping
You must map out your customer journey from different platforms as you build your e-commerce omnichannel marketing campaign.
At the start of the customer journey mapping, you have to inform the customer about your brand and entice them to show interest in your products. If the customer is interested, they are likely to buy from your store. Lastly, you will be able to develop a marketing strategy that focuses on retaining the customer so that they can advocate for your brand to the other potential customers.
Ensure you don’t leave any gaps in the buyer journey that can prevent them from buying your products.
For instance, if a customer opts into a lead generation form and begins to fill your discount lead magnet, make sure they don’t have to go through a lengthy signup process.
When you send customers a direct email with product recommendations, you can include a discount code that encourages shoppers to purchase from you instantly. If the customer does not buy, you can still follow them up with targeted adverts that will entice them into buying.
A customer journey map helps you focus on a customer that has shown interest in your brand. Every channel that you adopt should lead to another and help you achieve the ultimate goal of making the customer buy your products.
Ensure Your Customers’ Data Privacy
Ideally, most customers are reluctant to shop online because they fear leaving their digital footprints behind. Online stores ask for personal details about customers, such as their physical address, full names, credit card numbers, and contact information. If such information falls in the wrong hands, it can be used to harm your customers.
When customers trust you with their personal information like postal addresses and full names, they expect you to use it carefully.
Therefore, it is crucial to assure your customers that any information they share on your website is safe. You can add the SSL certificate on your website to prove to your customers that their data is kept private and confidential.
Use the information your customer provides for the benefit of your business by personalizing your product promotion content.
Here are some tips to ensure your customers’ personal information is secure:
- Ensure your database and CRM are secure.
- Always update any website security software that you use regularly.
- To keep all the malicious web attacks at bay, you must use the best security tools.
- Avoid connecting to the internet on public networks because they are more susceptible to hacking.
- Implement a Web Application Firewall (WAF) to prevent hackers from stealing sensitive customer data. Highlight that you are using WAF on your website to build trust with your customers.
Optimize Your Purchase Experience
E-commerce businesses need to ensure that the purchase experience on their website is smooth. Doing so reduces any last-minute hassle and increases the chances of conversion.
Here are some tips you can apply to optimize your shopping experience and make it more engaging:
- Use high-quality images on your product page.
- Write accurate and complete product descriptions.
- Highlight return and refund policy.
- Add third-party trust seals indicating that your customers’ credit card information is safe.
- Offer the same purchase experience across devices.
- Personalize customer experience to boost sales.
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Boost Customer Engagement On Social Media
Social media networks can boost your online visibility and brand awareness if you use them the right way. Once you expand your social media reach, your customers get the chance to learn more about your business and brand.
You should begin by establishing your personal brand on social media. Set up a complete profile on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
When customers interact with you on social networks, they learn more about your brand. You also get feedback from your customers and the information that you need to improve your business.
Every time you respond to your customers’ comments on Facebook and other social platforms, you give them a new perspective about your business.
When you build a relationship with your customers, they are more likely to remain loyal to your brand for long. That is what you need to keep your sales at the peak.
Use Social Media Adverts
Social media is not just for socializing. You can use social media in many different ways, and advertising your products is one of those ways. Social media adverts are critical components of an e-commerce omnichannel marketing strategy.
Use a paid search channel and come up with unique content to market your brand on various social platforms. Facebook Ad is one useful platform that you can use to your advantage.
Use Facebook’s custom audience feature to narrow down your targeting and reach ideal customers. Also, leverage Facebook remarketing ads to target shoppers who have previously shown interest in your products.
Also, do not forget to prepare an exceptional landing page on your website so that when customers click on your advert, they can get a personalized user experience.
Collect more information about your customers from different channels and use them to personalize their experience with your brand on social networks.
Engage Your Whole Organization In Your Campaign
Coming up with a perfect e-commerce omnichannel marketing campaign takes time. That means you should assemble all your business resources to help you pick the best strategy that you believe will work for your business.
The omnichannel marketing campaign is a bit complex and will require input from every department in your company.
Work closely with the different departments in your organization to ensure that the strategy you use works smoothly. Choose the right people in the organization to act as your omnichannel marketing coordinator and strategist.
The coordinator will supervise omnichannel marketing teams to ensure they stick to your marketing strategy’s ultimate goal. When there is someone to lead your marketing team, you can be sure that your whole company will be working with a common goal to improve your customer retention and acquisition rate.
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Launch A Mobile Application For Your E-commerce Store
Most online shoppers use their mobile phones when shopping online. The worldwide mobile application market is expected to grow to $189 billion by 2020. Mobile phone users now enjoy the best online experience through the mobile application they download and install on their devices.
If you want to improve your customer’s experience with your e-commerce store, you should come up with a quality mobile application that they can install on their mobile phones and access your products.
When customers install your smartphone application, they are more likely to visit your shop frequently because it is easier to purchase using mobile phones.
Mobile applications deliver special product recommendations and in-app messaging links that you can use to the advantage of your online store.
Lastly, by using mobile applications in your omnichannel marketing campaign, you improve your customers’ omnichannel experiences by giving them a chance to engage with your store regardless of the device they are using.
Invest In A Marketing Stack
If you want to create a successful omnichannel marketing campaign, you must have a great marketing stack by your side. This will help you to run your content marketing campaign with much ease, track your successful campaigns, and find out if you are getting any positive results with every strategy you adopt.
To create an all-around omnichannel marketing campaign, you will need both offline and online tools. Here is a checklist of the tools you need to launch a successful omnichannel marketing campaign.
- On-ground posters and displays that create an offline experience for your customers.
- Analytics software to capture customers’ information. You need this for campaign tracking and management.
- An engaging landing page for your website that can easily convert your visitors to customers.
- A customer value optimization tool to get the most out of your customer segmentation and create custom experiences based on their behavior.
- Email-marketing software that you can use to craft personalized marketing content for your target customers.
Final Thoughts
The best omnichannel marketing campaign allows you to offer a seamless experience to your customers, both offline and online. Omnichannel marketing also helps you build your brand and increase customer loyalty over time.
Employ the eleven omnichannel marketing strategies I have discussed in this article, to position your eCommerce store before the right customers and increase your sales over time.
