Learn how to create effective omnichannel marketing campaigns with these 5 key steps: set objectives, define value propositions, choose channels, leverage automation tools, and design cohesive customer journeys across platforms.
Business in a box.
Discover our solutions.
Talk to our sales team
Today's customers don't want to be tied down. They want to interact with a variety of platforms and purchase from more than one channel, and they expect you to keep up with any new buying experience they want to explore.
To stay competitive in this market, brands need to embrace this shift toward omnichannel experiences and adjust their marketing to engage with customers where they are. Maximizing your reach (and revenue) requires optimizing your omnichannel marketing campaigns for today's consumers. Here are five steps you can take today to create end-to-end omnichannel engagement.
Determine the objective and KPIs for your omnichannel campaign
Setting a clear objective and determining your corresponding KPIs is essential to building and measuring an impactful campaign. Your campaign objective should correspond to your business goals, product, audience, and budget.
For example, if a tech startup's business goal is to attract more customers, a corresponding campaign objective to reach this goal would be brand awareness. To measure the effectiveness of a brand awareness campaign, they might track KPIs like the number of MQLs or new orders generated.
Once you set your objectives and KPIs, you can build a campaign around them.
Define the Unique Value Proposition for your omnichannel campaign
Omnichannel marketing campaigns begin like any other — they start with the “why.” Why should consumers pay attention to your product (a.k.a. what is your unique value proposition)? What story will you tell consumers about the experience on the other side of conversion?
Omnichannel marketing is about tying your product to a desired outcome to create value for the consumer. You have to start with what unique outcome you can offer your audience.
To determine your why, ask yourself the following questions about your product or service:
What specific features or attributes make it unique?
Who is my target audience, and what are their needs and preferences?
What problem does it solve for customers?
What are the key benefits or advantages customers will experience when using it?
Why should customers choose it over competitors?
Once you've defined your UVP, it's time to find the right channels to broadcast it on.
Learn what channels your target audience prefers
Contrary to what the name suggests, an "omnichannel" approach doesn't mean being on all the channels but the ones that matter to your audience. Start by identifying the channels your target audience uses regularly to get the maximum impact from your campaign using primary and secondary data sources.
Primary data sources include proprietary data your organization gathers straight from the source.
For example, you can analyze which channels you get the highest engagement on by tapping into your customer relationship management (CRM) software, web and app analytics, and other customer journey mapping tools.
Secondary data sources include data gathered and analyzed outside your organization.
For example, you can research broader audience trends and channel statistics based on general demographics, like how WhatsApp has a larger user base in India compared to the U.S. or Snapchat is more popular with young people.
Use the insights uncovered from both primary and secondary data to shortlist the best channels for your campaign.
Leverage omnichannel automation tools
The next step is to make sure your marketing tech stack is in order and ready to handle the channels you've identified as the most strategic. Without the right tools and automation, it's next to impossible to effectively run an omnichannel marketing campaign at scale. The essential tool belt for teams that want to reach their audience on more than one channel includes:
Customer data platform (CDP): A data lake to collect all your customer data in one place to power personalized cross-channel experiences that resonate with your audience
Marketing software: A central platform to seamlessly integrate all your channels where you'll create and manage your campaign
Content management tool: A content-specific command center where you can plan, produce, and distribute content for your campaigns
Workflow automation platform: A tool that enables you to automate repetitive tasks, such as sending an exclusive offer via SMS when a customer qualifies for your loyalty program
The right tools make it possible to build and deploy impactful omnichannel campaigns easily.
Harness the power of AI in your omnichannel strategy
As marketing technology evolves, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly powerful tool for creating more effective, personalized omnichannel campaigns. Here are some key ways to integrate AI into your marketing strategy:
AI-Powered Customer Segmentation: Use AI to automatically segment your customers based on their behavior, preferences, and interactions. This can include labels such as "High-value customer," "Highly engaged," "Dormant customer," or "Repeat purchaser." These AI-generated segments can be used in your campaign targeting and personalization efforts.
AI-Generated Email Content: Implement AI writing assistants in your email editor to help generate dynamic, personalized content. This can take into account the recipient's attributes and past interactions to create more relevant and engaging emails.
AI Decision-Making in Customer Journeys: Incorporate AI decision points in your customer journey maps. This allows you to use AI to determine the best next step for each customer based on their individual data and behavior patterns.
AI-Driven Insights: Utilize AI to analyze your campaign performance data and provide actionable insights. This can help you understand trends and identify opportunities to drive more conversions and revenue across your omnichannel campaigns.
By integrating these AI capabilities into your omnichannel marketing strategy, you can create more personalized, efficient, and effective campaigns that resonate with your audience and drive better results.
Design your omnichannel campaign
Now comes the fun part: It's time to get creative in designing your omnichannel campaign strategy. The key to effective omnichannel marketing is creating a cohesive strategy across the channels you identified in step three. To make this more digestible, break down campaign creation into two phases.
Phase 1: Map your customer journey
You know where you want to take your customers (i.e., your campaign objective); now it's time to think critically about how your audience will get there. Start by breaking down each consumer step toward conversion and label each touchpoint. An omnichannel customer journey should be seamless throughout the entire customer lifecycle.
A typical omnichannel customer journey may look something like this:
Discovery: A customer discovers a brand through various channels, such as social media, search engines, or word of mouth.
Research: The customer researches the brand and its products/services across different channels, such as the brand's website, social media pages, and online reviews.
Purchase: The customer purchases the product/service either online, in-store or through a mobile app.
Fulfillment: The brand fulfills the customer's order through various channels, such as shipping, in-store pickup, or delivery.
Post-purchase: The brand follows up with the customer through different channels to ensure customer satisfaction and encourage repeat business. This could include email surveys, social media engagement, or personalized recommendations.
Service and support: The brand provides ongoing customer service and support through various channels, such as chatbots, social media, or phone support.
Consistency across all of the touchpoints is the key. All channels should be fully integrated and provide a personalized experience for the customer based on their preferences and behaviors.
Phase 2: Curate the content
Once you have your touchpoints mapped out, it's time to craft the content you'll use to engage your audience throughout your omnichannel marketing campaign. The type of content you create will be determined by your customer's preferences, campaign objectives, and the channels you use. However, here are a few good rules of thumb as you create your content:
Stick to your brand guidelines — A coherent look and feel helps customers recognize your brand anywhere they interact with you and make you memorable
Personalize to the user — Use an automated workflow to pull customers' purchase histories from your CDP to send personalized promotions with relevant products
Tailor to each channel — Design content to fit the context of the channel. Follow best practices like recommended orientation, file size, character count, etc.
Test and optimize
An omnichannel marketing campaign is not something you can just hit play on and leave. Especially with campaigns that have such a wide reach, it's important to closely monitor engagement and continuously optimize. If a campaign isn’t performing well, look closely at where a breakdown in the customer journey may be happening. Experiment with different channels, content types, messaging, and frequencies to determine what combination has the best results.
For example, consider introducing WhatsApp into your channel mix instead of just using SMS and email to increase your reach. Or, instead of using plain text, experiment with rich media — such as images, videos, and GIFs — to boost customer engagement.
It's important to note that every campaign will have a ramping-up period as it gains traction, so be measured in your response to a campaign that doesn't immediately take off. The ramping-up period depends on the platform and type of campaign, so do your research before shutting down or changing a campaign.
Centralize your omnichannel campaign management with Bird
Bird is your virtual command center for omnichannel campaigns. Our cloud communication platform enables you to seamlessly integrate your communication channels into a single tool with templates and automation to streamline workflows and distribution. You can store customer data right in the platform for comprehensive and personalized user journeys, and easy reporting and analytics enable you to optimize your campaigns quickly.
Find out how Bird can increase customer loyalty and ultimately increase revenue for your company — sign up for free today!
