With the increasing number of eCommerce businesses worldwide, it might become harder for you to set yourself apart from the competition and differentiate yourself in terms of the quality of the customer experience you offer. In other words, today, eCommerce businesses compete over who can provide their customers with the best shopping experience possible using various marketing strategies, such as omnichannel marketing.
Omnichannel marketing for eCommerce is a marketing strategy that eCommerce businesses adopt with the aim of creating a unified, seamless shopping experience for customers by offering their products or services across all channels, platforms, and devices available.
It is an approach dedicated to reaching customers wherever they are in order to constantly engage them; and, hopefully, keep them loyal to the brand.
In this article, we will present you with some of the best omnichannel marketing strategies that you can implement in your eCommerce business in order to improve the satisfaction of your customers; and hence, improve customer retention.
Achieving successful omnichannel marketing for eCommerce businesses is a challenging task. However, with the following omnichannel marketing strategies, you can be sure that it will be an easy road for you!
We indeed said that omnichannel marketing requires you to offer your products and services across all available channels, platforms, and devices. However, this does not mean that you invest in channels or platforms that your customers don’t use.
Keep in mind that omnichannel marketing does not mean existing everywhere as much as it means existing wherever your customers are. For example, if your research shows that your customers do not use Pinterest, then there is no point in extending your marketing there.
Therefore, you must start your omnichannel marketing plan by identifying the channels your customers use the most, how they interact with these channels, and the types of products or services they usually buy.
In order to properly implement your omnichannel marketing, it is important that you use a customer-centric approach which means placing your customers first and at the center of your eCommerce business while focusing on creating the best experience for them. In order to do that, you have to:
Customer segmentation is a very effective strategy you can implement in the omnichannel marketing plan for your eCommerce business. It allows you to properly tailor and customize your products, services, and marketing messages. You can segment your customers based on several criteria, such as age, gender, geo-location, interests, preferences, buying behavior, past history of purchases, and others.
Paying attention to the different stages of the customer journey gives you the opportunity to always tailor your message to the specific stage in which they are in, which enhances the engagement between you and your customers and makes them feel included into the narrative of your eCommerce business.
Segmenting your target audience and mapping your customers’ journey will only succeed if you combine it with an effort dedicated to understanding your customers' true needs.
Therefore, you have to make sure that you are always communicating with the customers of your eCommerce business in order to keep track of their feedback, their likes, and dislikes, and most importantly, the channels in which they need you to exist.
Another effective omnichannel marketing strategy for eCommerce is to leverage your customer data. The best way to use all the customer data you have is to direct it toward implementing personalization.
To demonstrate, while trying to offer your customers seamless shopping experiences by existing in all the channels and platforms they are using, make sure that these shopping experiences you’re offering are personalized and meticulously customized. This will definitely make your omnichannel marketing stand out more.
Moreover, in order for your omnichannel marketing to succeed, you have to guarantee your customers the privacy and the protection of their data so that they would feel safe and motivated to share their personal information across all channels and platforms.
After you identify the exact social media platforms that your customers use, start investing in them:
For example, Instagram now offers a new set of features called “Instagram Shopping”. Using this, you can tag your products or services in your Instagram posts and add a “shop” tab on which your customers can press and complete the whole buying process without having to leave the Instagram app at all.
Expanding your reach on social media platforms will help make your other channels, such as your eCommerce website and your brick-and-mortar store, more visible to your customers. This will eventually help in integrating and connecting all your channels and platforms together.
Mobile commerce is the use of handheld wireless devices, such as cell phones and tablets, to perform commercial transactions online. Investing in mobile commerce helps you extend the range of devices on which you can appear for your customers.
This is your sign to start focusing on optimizing your eCommerce website to be easily accessible from a mobile device and to even start developing a mobile app for your store.
Consistency is the keyword of a seamless shopping experience. Being consistent with the message you transmit and the quality of the services you offer to your customers makes them feel that you are available whenever and wherever it is convenient for them to shop.
However, being consistent in your message throughout all channels does not mean you reuse template messages in your live ads or use identical words repeatedly, which can make you face duplicate issues and penalties from social media platforms and search engines.
Therefore, keep your brand's message consistent but without repeating the same words everywhere.
Here are the Best 10 Omnichannel Marketing Examples for eCommerce to inspire you
For your omnichannel marketing strategies to achieve the expected results, maintain all interactions with your customers across all channels with a “call to action”.
Read more on How to Create A Winning Call to Action for your E-commerce Store
Doesn’t everything just work better when your whole team is working together?
One very important strategy you should follow in omnichannel marketing for your eCommerce store is to involve all the different teams of your business. Your marketing team is only one part of the equation. You should also integrate your sales and customer service teams to create a cohesive omnichannel experience for your customers.
Do you ever feel some doubt regarding the effectiveness of your omnichannel marketing?
If your answer is yes, don’t worry because this is very common. While working on marketing campaigns across different channels and platforms, it is possible to feel some doubt.
The best way to put this doubt to rest is to regularly evaluate your campaigns by testing and measuring your results. One of the ways you could do that is by doing an A/B test for your omnichannel marketing campaigns. This way, you can identify the marketing campaigns that are achieving your omnichannel objectives and those that are not.
In today’s world, it is very hard to do everything manually. Thankfully, we now have automation marketing tools that make managing your eCommerce business much easier.
Some of your omnichannel marketing tasks will require you to use automation tools that will help you make the best out of your omnichannel marketing strategies. ConvertedIn offers you a very effective tool that will help you:
What are you waiting for? Book your Demo now and enjoy this marketing automation system that will do it all for you.
