How to achieve true omnichannel relevance

As digital marketing channels continue to proliferate, the importance of cohesive messaging grows. Brands that fail to connect with their audience across all touchpoints risk the costly fate of irrelevance. But how can modern marketers spend less time inside marketing tools, and more time crafting narratives that resonate across all channels?

Consumer-brand relationships need to be nurtured, from awareness through to acquisition and on to loyalty. But as consumer attention spans decrease and their paths to purchase increase in complexity, that is much easier said than done.

It is perhaps not surprising that 80% of consumers state that their experience with brands feels fragmented.

That’s set to change. Personalization at scale is no longer a pipe dream of digital advertising; it is now possible to create one-to-one connections across devices and channels. By using the right technology, marketers can bring their data out of silos and unleash its full potential to create seamless experiences for their audience.

A recently-published report entitled The Growth Marketer’s Playbook’ provides some insight for marketers aiming to achieve omnichannel relevance at scale. Here are some of the key takeaways.

Content produced in partnership with Iterable.

Email works, but it could work harder

Email marketing still delivers a great ROI, but there are untapped opportunities within this medium for many businesses.

The onus is on brands to create personalized messages that inform, excite, or intrigue their email list. Otherwise, they run the risk of consumers hitting the ‘Unsubscribe’ button.

There are a few tips that can help any email marketing campaign stand out from the crowd:

  • Use welcome emails as a gentle way to build the relationship with a customer. Offer discounts for first-time purchases, for example.
  • Ensure that your ESP allows you to take behavioral triggers into account. Your customers’ interactions with previous emails should be the cornerstone of your data analysis.
  • Don’t be afraid to re-engage with lapsed consumers. Try a different message and offer incentives to try and win them back. After all, it costs between 5 and 25 times more to earn a new customer than to retain a current one.

Iterable email

Direct mail is not dead

A true omnichannel strategy requires you to connect the online and offline worlds. Direct mail sits at this intersection, as we can use our digital data to inform the content we send out to customers. Personalization is particularly effective when applied to direct mail. 84% of people surveyed say they are more likely to open mail if its message has been tailored to them as an individual.

But how can marketers create these experiences?

  • Use your proprietary data to segment your customers and align delivery dates based on important trigger points.
  • Past purchase behavior can be used to highlight products or services you know a customer prefers.
  • Make sure there are clear calls to action within each campaign. They should be very specific to the campaign to allow online analysis of responsiveness levels.

The mobile mindset

The automation of personalized messaging creates a new level of opportunity when we consider the growth of mobile, but the intimacy of this medium brings pitfalls too.

If we consider the vast quantities of data created and shared by smartphones, along with the targeting capabilities of social media networks, the powerful nature of mobile marketing becomes very apparent.

There are some tips we should all bear in mind when using mobile to communicate with customers:

  • SMS messaging gets eyeballs; in fact, 90% of texts are read within 3 minutes of delivery. Use this opportunity to make your purpose clear and monitor the reaction to your content to shape future campaigns.
  • In-app notifications can increase conversion rates by a staggering 400% when used to their best effect. Apps produce a plethora of data, so use these metrics to tailor your notifications to each customer segment.
  • Mobile marketing creates new opportunities for location-based marketing. Monitor these signals to inform your social media and search advertising.

All of the above points can lead to a much-improved ROI for brands, but we are also living in a time of unheralded complexity. Marketers are estimated to spend as much as 90% of their time in dashboards and technology platforms, trying to make sense of the data at their disposal.

For marketers seeking to take advantage of the omnichannel opportunity, it is essential they have the right technologies at their fingertips.  Platforms which simplify the creation of customer segments, build intuitive workflows, and automate messaging across touch points are particularly useful in this context. They allow marketers to spend time on what really matters: creating the narratives that connect with our audiences, no matter where they are.

To learn more about what omnichannel means for your business, download The Growth Marketer’s Playbook to Achieving True Omni-Channel Relevance.

Content produced in association with Iterable, an internet-scale growth marketing and user engagement platform. Click here to read our collaborative content guidelines.

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