written by Paola Alunni
Being reachable anywhere, from any device, creating a continuous workflow between sectors and making the customer experience a positive experience. A competitive company must be able to adopt an omnichannel strategy and integrate all levels of communication. But what is omnichannel marketing, why is it important for the growth of a company and how should it be structured?
Omnichannel marketing allows a company to overcome the logic of silos by establishing fluid and linear communication with the customer and consequently a solid relationship of trust. It is closely connected with the customer experience but obliges to collect, analyze and integrate a huge amount of data.
What omnichannel marketing is
Many have a blog, a telephone number, an email address, perhaps a YouTube channel and various social profiles: few know how to integrate all these channels by addressing the customer with a single language. Omnichannel marketing is often confused with multichannel marketing: in the first case it is a question of integrating and coordinating the various touchpoints, in the second case it is simply present in all channels. Only in the first case is the ability to integrate all levels of communication shown.
Nobody likes to be contacted continuously by the same company and repeat the same things; with multichannel marketing, all possible touchpoints are simply activated, with omnichannel it is established instead of managing them in an integrated and organized manner. And this makes the customer experience fluid, pleasant and satisfying, with a return in terms of business objectives.
But the points of contact must be coordinated with each other through marketing automation technologies, building the right customer engagement, being guided by data and never by sensations.
Ma i punti di contatto devono essere coordinati tra di loro attraverso tecnologie di marketing automation, costruendo il customer engagement adatto, facendosi guidare dai dati e mai dalle sensazioni.
Why equip with an omnichannel strategy
Even the most traditional of retailers today must compete with an omnichannel strategy. The lockdown highlighted the importance of e-commerce and the ability to be present online in a strategic way. Companies that remain tied to a legacy of the past are unable to satisfy user requests, hence the need to know how to do omnichannel marketing, integrating, managing and optimizing a huge amount of data. Because beyond the emergency due to the pandemic, only an omnichannel strategy makes the customer experience a positive experience, responding to the needs of users by making them find what they need and increasing your business.
To meet the needs you need to know needs and needs in depth, it means asking the right questions at the right time with your favorite channel. It involves coordinating the touchpoints, managing them in a way that optimizes this experience. This is possible only through an omnichannel strategy, integrating, coordinating and managing the assets available to the company to build a quality relationship with the user throughout the process from engagement to purchase. That’s how.
Omnichannel Marketing: what strategies
We have seen how omnichannel marketing allows to know the habits and tastes of customers, to respond to their every need using the right channel. To do this, the company must equip itself with data driven solutions using Artificial Intelligence technologies and algorithms capable of collecting, integrating and analyzing as much information as possible.
To organize an omnichannel marketing strategy, one must start from an analysis and organization of company assets that can be physical such as a store or a call center, and online such as an e-commerce site, an app, social media , etc. Without a process that makes use of machine learning, however, all the information collected through the assets risks remaining empty drawers or pages of a manual written in an unknown language.
In omnichannel marketing, CRM, web analytics strategies and customer experience meet and integrate in a path that must be as linear as possible, through three fundamental steps. The best known omnichannel marketing model is based on three main actions:
- data collection
- data analysis
- data activation
DATA COLLECTION
The initial phase is the most delicate: the points of contact with users must be coordinated in order to collect as much data as possible without affecting the quality of the relationship. Data must be collected and integrated quickly but effectively at the same time.
DATA ANALYSIS
The data is cleaned, normalized and related, to carry out profiled activities, to improve the customer experience, to have the holistic consumer ion and generate insights. Here, the use of advanced technologies plays a fundamental role: algorithms capable of processing a huge amount of data quickly and well can help to cluster and reconstruct the customer journey in order to understand attitudes and needs.
DATA ACTIVATION
Having a lot of data but not making it usable is equivalent to not having any. Processing them, integrating them and making them “active” means interacting with the user in the most effective way. For example, sending the right communication at the right time with the most suitable channel. This phase brings benefits such as a net improvement of the customer experience and consequently excellent business performance. To be activated, the data must be processed by AI technologies capable of extracting useful information.
THE MEASUREMENT PROCESS
The three main steps end with a moment of verification useful for evaluating factors such as the channel that proved to be most effective, the content that worked, etc. The measurement process is the only one that allows you to give feedback and thus optimize the whole process.
DataLysm and omnichannel marketing
How to know in real time the expectations of a user, the needs of her to lead him to the purchase process? Over the years, the customer journey has also changed: you cannot bombard the customer with questions with invasive and massive communication. Today, on the contrary, there is a need for what is called “linear communication”, which follows the path of the user’s needs to lead him to be a satisfied customer.
DataLysm is the 3rdPlace predictive marketing platform based on first-party data and artificial intelligence that offers a 360 ° view of the customer, automatically identifying the most effective marketing actions.
Especially today, with the cookie-less policies implemented by many platforms to meet the privacy legislation, marketing companies must be able to unlock the potential of first-party data. Data that, in order to be usable and immediately usable, need the support of AI.
DataLysm uses AI-based algorithms and integrates with any CMS, with affordable costs even for small companies. With a few steps, DataLysm starts using the company’s proprietary data, transforming them into added value. Ask for advice and boost your online business.
