Monday, September 22, 2014

Omni-Channel Is Everything


Content strategy is important. Email marketing is important. So is your social media strategy. Your web & mobile strategy is too. BUT the newest and most important one is going to be your omni-channel marketing and strategy.

Omni-channel is important because the customer's experience needs to be seamless no matter what channel they're on, and it needs to make sense on various channels as well, whether their journey starts with a TV ad, a tweet, walking into your store or downloading your app. Customers are exploring multiple channels when they make decisions, I find this is extremely apparent when they're booking a vacation or searching something travel-related and it makes sense. 

Say you want to book a vacation, you don't know where. As a woman, I may start by searching on Pinterest for gorgeous vacation locations, where I find myself inspired by some photos, which I click on. I then travel to a blog talking about their favorite destinations, perhaps offering tips on which hotels to book, what restaurants to try. As a millennial, I then turn to twitter, where I tweet said vacation destination asking for tips and I also search those talking about it as well as hotel twitters and social media accounts to browse their photos... If those photos aren't engaging enough I may move on to the next hotel, if they are, I'll be clicking to their hotel website next - and if I don't find an engaging website on my tablet, it's over. 


Bottom line, there is a plethora of ways your potential customer can get to you, and you need to be prepared on all fronts, with a strategy on each channel that offers a similar experience that's going to make a positive influence on them.