Marketing for the Omnichannel Customer Journey

The customer journey has become more complex with the introduction of the digital age, and social media’s influence has only increased that complexity. Rather than seeing an ad on TV and heading straight into a brick-and-mortar store, consumers have millions more options than they used to. Mobile apps give customers access to shoppable content, ecommerce sites are expanding into other platforms, and the customer journey stages are not as finite as they’ve been in the past.

The omnichannel customer journey encompasses that new level of touch points, incorporating all the different ways a user interacts with and relates to your brand. Whether your users are navigating an in-person shopping experience, speaking at length with customer support, or scrolling through your TikTok profile, they’re making connections with your brand. Each of those connections counts immensely towards their understanding of your value – and defines how long they’ll continue a relationship with you. More avenues, more channels, and more apps mean more places for your brand to sink or swim with customers.

Why Looking through an Omnichannel Lens Makes the Difference

Because the customer experience has changed, it’s important to optimize your marketing efforts to adapt. Though modifying your approach takes time, you can see the substantial advantages a new lens can bring, from additional customer data to increased engagement.

Data Comes from an Omnichannel Lens

Historically, you might have been able to predict precisely how your customers would flow through the funnel. Now, with endless digital channels, new ways to engage customer interactions, and the addition of social media to the game, it’s impossible to forecast a specific, linear journey. 

Instead, an omnichannel marketing lens gives you the insight you need. It doesn’t necessarily predict a linear journey, but it gives you data to understand how and when customers will engage. Metrics you get from approaching the customer journey from an omnichannel marketing angle give you everything you need to know about customer needs, pain points, etc., and how to bring it all together. 

Your Customers Will Enjoy a Smoother Experience

The central pillar of omnichannel marketing is a customer-centric approach. This perspective can help you customize your platforms and marketing strategies to cater to each customer as an individual. 

That opposes traditional one-size-fits-all views wherein every customer was assumed to enter and exit the marketing funnel at the same place. With your omnichannel approach, you’ll recognize that users are unique, and so must be your strategies to grab them. When you emphasize that, your customers will feel a personalized experience that gives them that extra push towards loyalty. 

Engagement and Retention Will Increase

The obvious side effect of a smoother user experience is that customers have a better time with your brand and are more likely to stay. By building closer relationships with your users, you’re able to manufacture situations that increase engagement because you know exactly what they want and need and how to give it to them. 

Similarly, you can increase your customers’ lifetime value by looking at your marketing strategies with awareness of the omnichannel journey. Developing loyalty and continuing that long-term engagement will help you and your customers benefit from each other.

How to Enhance the Omnichannel Customer Experience

A new perspective on the customer journey requires a shift in marketing strategies. Undeniably, the customer experience has developed more variety and will likely continue to do so. As you build on marketing strategies and look forward, it’s important to concentrate on how to address this new dynamic.

Map Out the Customer Journey

There are numerous ways to analyze the customer journey, and as long as your method looks at the end-to-end customer experience, it can work. Customer journey mapping, whether completed in a traditional visual representation or otherwise, can help you identify customer behaviors and pain points. It also lets you better understand the consumer experience based on demographic data. 

Consider that users experience your brand via a variety of platforms. Their interactions with you include everything from calling a contact center to reading a review on Amazon to getting a notification in their inbox. Finding every customer touchpoint and understanding how it affects customers in real-time is the only way to appreciate where you work along that journey.

Eliminate Marketing Silos

You’re managing what might seem like a thousand different channels, and customers often feel that way too. When users have ample experience with one channel and then switch to another along their lifecycle, they may feel an abrupt shift if marketing silos haven’t been broken down.

For example, an Instagram follower interacts with your account regularly, liking and commenting on posts. But as they switch to your site, they notice a change in tone and lose their momentum. Streamlining your collection of customer information is a great way to minimize that.

Zoom in on Channel Attribution Data

Dealing with multichannel marketing and the never-ending streams of data that come with it can be a challenge and a benefit. One way to ensure you profit from your data is to be very intentional about learning how each channel plays a role in the omnichannel ecosystem. 

Find out which spaces get the most customer engagement, what it is that’s working, and how you can remodel that information to apply it to others. Incorporating customer journey analytics ensures you concentrate on the right spaces at the right times for each customer.

Encourage a Seamless Experience

Customer expectations now include a simplified buying experience, whether in-store or on an ecommerce platform. Your job is to amplify the simplicity of the experience by whatever means necessary. 

Luckily, using an omnichannel strategy means you’re attending to the inherent fluidity. However, it’s still important to find places for improvement wherever possible. Go through the user experience yourself, look for any pain points or areas for added simplicity, and modify your strategy to fix them.

Look at Customer Feedback

Since the omnichannel customer experience is so fluid, it’s crucial to analyze and integrate customer feedback from reviews, surveys, social media comments, and offline feedback. The importance of the omnichannel customer journey is its customer-centered focus. As a result, one of the best ways to attend to that focus is to ensure customer satisfaction is at the forefront and really listen to users regarding their experience.

Using Omnichannel Distribution for the Omnichannel Customer Journey

Along with the basics described above, omnichannel distribution is an essential tool. The customer journey flows through multiple avenues, so it follows that the best way to reach users is with multiple cohesive channels.

At First Media, we distribute content where the audience is, not just with social media and other digital channels but with out-of-home media as well. Our omnichannel distribution ensures that our brands see mass audience reach and engagement. Consumers are faced with high-quality content that encourages real-world action, and they develop consistent and cohesive relationships with brands. Using Custom Shoppable Content, proprietary AI technology for data-driven results, and digital expertise, we offer brand partners an effective opening into successful marketing for the new omnichannel customer journey. Contact us to learn more about what partnering with First Media can do for your brand.