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We live in exciting times, where customers want to interact with, learn and make purchases from your business through a variety of channels and platforms, instead of being tied to a single method. And they expect you to keep up!
Brands have to embrace this shift toward a new omnichannel world and adjust their marketing campaigns to engage with their customers where they are.
A well-crafted omnichannel marketing campaign will maximize your reach and yield an impressive return on investment. The following 5-step guide will help you create the perfect one.
Step 1: Determine the objective of your omnichannel campaign
Let’s get down to the basics: the first step is to pin down the why behind your campaign. This will help you tie it to a tangible business outcome, justify the cost, and get the clarity needed to design an effective campaign. To do this, determine the following:
Goal — Ask yourself what you intend to accomplish. For instance, if you’ve been struggling to generate leads through your existing channel(s), a goal could be to get more MQLs through new channels.
Quantified Metrics — These will help you measure the success of your campaign. Tie them to the omnichannel marketing goal you determined previously. For instance, a KPI-defined goal could be to “recover at least 30% of the abandoned carts by engaging prospects through the new channel(s).”
Your objective will serve as the north star for your entire campaign. From this point onward, it’s all about finding a creative way to attain it.
Step 2: Understand the channel preferences of your target audience
Contrary to what the name suggests, an “omnichannel” approach doesn’t mean being on all the channels but rather on all the channels that matter. Identifying the channels that the audience for your campaign — usually your customers or potential customers — use on a daily basis is key. This will help you narrow your focus and get the maximum number of your customers to see and interact with your marketing messages.
Start by looking at your existing customer journey data to identify the most common channels that your target audience uses on a day-to-day basis. Tap into your customer relationship management (CRM), web/app analytics, and any other customer journey mapping tool for this purpose. Alternatively, if your own data isn’t accurate enough yet, you should take a look at generic geographical or demographical channel statistics. For example, WhatsApp has a larger user base in India compared to the U.S. Similarly, Snapchat is more popular with younger generations.
Use the insights uncovered from the primary and secondary data to shortlist the best channels for your campaign.
Step 3: Lean on the right omnichannel tools
The next step is to make sure your marketing tech stack is in order and ready to handle the channels you shortlisted. After all, it’s next to impossible to smoothly run an omnichannel marketing campaign at scale without the necessary tools to automate it.
This entails having the following:
Customer data platform — A repository where you store all of your customer’s data in one place. Without customer data, you can’t create personalized experiences that will resonate with your customers.
Marketing software — A central marketing platform where you’ll create and manage your entire campaign. This must seamlessly integrate with all of your shortlisted channels and the other tools in your tech stack.
Content management tool — A platform where you can design content for your campaigns. For instance, MessageBird Studios lets you create channel-specific content with just a few clicks.
Workflow automation platform — A logical workflow builder that helps you automate repetitive tasks, such as sending an SMS containing an exclusive offer to a customer when they qualify for your loyalty program. MessageBird Flows is a user-friendly example of such a tool and lets you create custom workflows for any channel or use case.
Step 4: Design your omnichannel campaign
With planning out of the way, it’s time to build your omnichannel marketing campaign. Use the information and tools at your disposal — coupled with your creativity — to create something that will resonate with your customers.
The creation of any omnichannel marketing campaign can be broken down into the following two phases:
Phase 1: The journey
Decide how your campaign is going to flow and where it’s going to lead your customers in order to achieve its objective. The best way to do so is to break down the entire journey into steps while explaining the different customer touchpoints involved. For instance, a typical campaign aimed at shopping cart recovery could look like this:
The campaign is triggered after an abandoned cart has been left for a certain amount of time.
The marketing platform sends the customer an automated message reminding them about their abandoned cart on their preferred channel of communication. Bonus: If the customer meets certain conditions, such as this being the third purchase they’ve made this month, include an exclusive discount as an extra incentive..
The customer clicks on the link and is immediately taken to their basket on your website or eCommerce mobile app. They enter the discount code (if available) and proceed to checkout.
That’s just one example of a particular type of campaign. Use your creativity, industry best practices, and knowledge of your customers to create the perfect campaign.
Phase 2: The content
Finally, craft the content you’ll use to engage your customers at every step of your omnichannel marketing campaign. This, too, will depend on the unique nature of your campaign, your customers, and your objectives. Here are some best practices to keep in mind:
Leverage your CDP to create content that feels personal and contextual. For example, a workflow can pull up the purchase histories of your customers and create personalized messages to promote relevant products. Your marketing automation platform will help create such personalized messages in real time at scale.
Design with the best practices of the channels you’re going to use in mind, and stick to your brand guidelines to offer a coherent look and feel everywhere. The goal is to have your customers recognize your brand anywhere they interact with you. If you don’t adhere to this guideline, the customer experience won’t feel omnichannel but, instead, multichannel — with siloed campaigns for each channel.
Step 5: Get testing
A marketing campaign should never be left unattended. It’s vital to look at the results after a while in order to gauge whether you’re on track for achieving your objective and uncover any potential opportunities for improvement. Experiment with different channels, content types, and message frequencies to determine what brings in the best results.
For instance, instead of just using SMS and email, consider introducing WhatsApp into your channel mix to increase your reach. Or, instead of using plain text, experiment with rich media — such as images, videos, and GIFs — to boost customer engagement.
Remember, it takes time to get results. Let the experiment run its course before optimizing your campaign.
Rinse and repeat!
Use the insights gathered from your past omnichannel marketing campaigns to inform your future ones. Lean on your creativity to come up with fresh new ideas to engage your audience, whether it’s through great content, a different set of channels, or a unique process.
The possibilities of the campaigns that can be created are endless, thanks to the abundance of channels, content types, and tools at your disposal. You know your customers best — use that information to create great omnichannel experiences that will help move the needle for your business.
