Omnichannel Marketing for Ecommerce Best Strategies

Nowadays, most e-commerce businesses are multichannel – they communicate and sell to their customers using multiple channels, such as e-commerce website, email marketing, Facebook shop, and Instagram account.

Omnichannel marketing is a massive power-up: it’s not only about using different channels of communication but integrating them into a positive and seamless customer journey by tracking individual interactions of a customer with each channel.

Omnichannel marketing is based on a deep understanding of the customers – knowing which platforms and devices they use to interact with the brand, purchasing behavior, and all the challenges they face while shopping. 

Using omnichannel marketing, e-commerce businesses can identify and strengthen crucial touchpoints between their brand and the customers to create a positive customer experience, build a reputation for their brand, and improve customer retention.

Read on for the five best strategies to create a perfect omnichannel experience for your customers.

Mobile First

With 79% of smartphone users purchasing via their phones in the last six months, the share of mobile commerce in all e-commerce will rise to 72.9% by 2021.

Still, when it comes to the user experience they’re providing, most mobile e-commerce stores are far behind their desktop versions – much slower and poorly designed, leading to an increase in the bounce rate, equal to thousands of dollars of revenue lost. 

To maximize the power of omnichannel marketing, delivering an excellent mobile experience has to come first by:

• Optimizing your web page titles and descriptions for mobile search,
• Improving your product pages for mobile browsing,
• Personalizing your content with recommendations based on the browsing history and shopping behavior of your customers,
• Speed is crucial – 40% of customers will abandon the website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. 

Tailor Your Marketing Messages

Using the best e-commerce development approaches will allow you to tailor and personalize your marketing messages to each of your customers, no matter where they are in their customer journey.

Data you have on your customers can help you segment your customers and develop content that will drive more customers to your store and increase the chances of their conversion. You can tailor your marketing messages according to:

• Past-purchase history. Segment your customers based on their previous interaction with your store.
• Interests. Group your customers according to their interests and their purchasing behavior.
• Geo-location. You can group your customers based on where they’re coming from and send them location-specific content. 
• Brand loyalty. You can send discounts to your most loyal shoppers or incentivize your customers with your offers and gain their loyalty.

The greatest e-commerce brands use mobile phones as a hub that redirects customers to other channels. Amazon cashier-less stores are a great example, as customers can locate the products they’re searching for and pay for them, using nothing but their smartphones. 

3. Map Out Your Customer Journey

To craft an efficient omnichannel marketing strategy, you need to map out your customer journey for each channel you use and find ways to connect them.  Every channel that you adopt should seamlessly lead your customer to another one, supporting them in their purchasing decision each step of the way.

This way, you can focus on the customer that has shown an interest in your product, ensuring that there are no gaps in their buyer journey that could prevent them from buying. Including abandoned cart follow-up emails in your strategy, retargeting ads, or SMS marketing are just some of the examples you should consider.

Leverage Social Shopping

Social media platforms are an essential part of any omnichannel e-commerce strategy. Not only are they have abundant customer-related data, but they are also an excellent tool for advertising your products, as you can use the data to narrow down and target your ideal customer base.

Furthermore, social media can be used to curate shoppable, user-generated content. This kind of content can bring e-commerce businesses some new, high-quality traffic, leading to the increased sales. E-commerce companies can create shoppable galleries with browsable photos uploaded by different users and capitalize on the fact that  UGC significantly influences purchasing decisions of 79% of social media users.

Proactive Omnichannel Customer Support

E-commerce businesses can hardly boost the experience of their customers without adopting a proactive omnichannel customer support strategy.

Redirecting your customers to another channel when they require support is not recommended. Your customer support should be available through each of the channels you use to communicate with your audience – your social media accounts, app, website, or a phone call. Using chatbots can be an efficient way to upscale your customer support staff and provide your customers with 24/7 service.

By taking your e-commerce marketing to the omnichannel level, you can develop a long-standing relationship with your customers, address the rising competition, increase customer engagement and ensure higher revenues.