With online shopping and digital experiences so ingrained in our day to day living it’s hard to imagine anything other than a quick and easy service that nurtures to the point of purchase. Which is precisely what consumers are demanding. Gone are the days of dial up internet, and phone book shopping. The modern customer expects a seamless user journey, open communication and a positive experience – and brands that fail to deliver risk losing their customers for good.
As marketers we should be listening to our customers, using their demands and behavior to stoke our strategic outputs. In short, what the customer wants, the customer should get.
Since the pandemic, interest in omni-channel journeys – where each brand touchpoint is connected with one another – has risen four-fold. And we see no sign of this slowing down. With worldwide ecommerce sales set to exceed $5 trillion and physical retail set to exceed $27 trillion in 2022, both channels are invaluable to marketers, and marrying the two, along with each touchpoint in the customer journey, is almost a necessity rather than a choice.
With omni-channel fast becoming a standard, all retailers need to have it on their radar, and in doing so, create a strategy that sets them apart in an ‘era of stiff competition’.
An omni-channel strategy is the integration and relationship between physical and digital commerce; linking together each owned channel to provide customers with a seamless shopping experience. A multi-channel approach.
While many might question the reputation and role that physical retail will play post-pandemic, commerce will always exist with human needs and requirements at its heart. And that means there will always be a level of demand for bricks-and-mortar. Despite the drastic uplift in ecommerce and digital experiences.
Shopping will always go beyond simply purchasing products – it’s about the experience and the complete customer journey. Linking touchpoints will allow you to nurture a customer from their initial engagement with your brand, down the path to purchase.
By opting for an omni-channel strategy brands can increase their sales, improve customer satisfaction, reach new customers, increase their operational efficiencies and make their channels work harder. Your customers can be shopping from a mobile, computer, over the phone, or in a brick and mortar store, and the experience can be matched across each platform, device and channel
Take a look at beauty brand Sephora as an example. Their omni-channel experience connects online purchases to in-store visits by offering beauty workshops, complimentary makeovers, and in-store tablets where customers can access their online account while shopping in-store. Via their account, customers can also look up item details and virtually try on products using digital software.
Want to learn how to build a foolproof ecommerce and omni-channel strategy? Access the recording for our most recent event ‘Successful Strategies for a New Era of Ecommerce’.
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You don’t need to be everywhere at once, especially when it comes to omni-channel optimization. Align all your channels and focus on the key business drivers; such as your physical store and ecommerce site before moving onto your alternate channels.
Speak to your audience – identify their likes and dislikes, their needs and wishes. Putting your customer at the center of your omni-channel strategy is the key to success. There’s no point wasting investment on a strategy that isn’t grounded in customer expectation. Start with the consumer and end with the consumer.
Be sure to combine your physical and digital data to nurture new business opportunities. Combining data across all channels will give you access to rich customer insights that’ll help inform your strategy and build upon your first-party data.
Consider adopting new technologies and platforms to support your strategy; such as Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence or ChatBots – using them to enhance your relationship between physical and digital. Depending on your business model it could also be beneficial to consider creating and launching an app.
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Access the recording for our most recent event ‘Successful Strategies for a New Era of Ecommerce’ where we took a deep dive into the ecommerce landscape, identifying what global shoppers really want from online merchants, how brands can build a winning ecommerce strategy, and how to make the most of Incubeta’s extensive digital commerce offering
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9th September 2024 – 1 Minute 49 Seconds read.
Marking our second acquisition of the year (following the acquisition of Persuasion Technologies in June), we’re thrilled to announce that Incubeta has acquired organic content marketing partner, Shout Bravo.
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