Every customer wants a unique shopping experience, whether they are walking into a brick-and-mortar store, swiping on an app, or browsing through the website. Do you remember when you shopped last time? How did you end up buying from that particular brand? Did you see an ad? Received promotional mail? Or have you seen a banner on display?
The marketing strategy of the brand influences almost every purchase you make. Every interaction made by the brand plays an integral part in your path to making the purchase decision. So, if you are an Amazon seller and want to improve Amazon online purchase of your product, you need to ensure that your marketing strategy targets the potential buyers at every stage of the sales funnel?
The solution is to use an omnichannel strategy. The omnichannel marketing strategy can help Amazon sellers integrate all the channels and make various marketing strategies spread across different platforms work together to provide effective results. When businesses understand the customers' shopping behavior, they can use a customer-centric approach to connect with the target audience on various channels as they move ahead in the sales funnel. When you offer more technology-enabled touchpoints and a unique shopping experience, customers expect even more from businesses. This is why it is essential for every Amazon retail business to integrate an omnichannel strategy.
Before we proceed further, let's understand what omnichannel strategy is.
What is an omnichannel strategy?
Omnichannel strategy is a holistic approach of a brand to offer technology-enabled touchpoints to customers across various channels. With an omnichannel marketing strategy, businesses can provide customers with a consistent experience across offline and digital touchpoints. It is an integrated, cross-channel marketing strategy to align all the channels creating a better customer experience.
With an omnichannel presence, your customers don't have to rely on a single channel to shop from your business. Your potential customers may be using different channels when buying a product, so with omnichannel marketing, you can make a better reach to these customers and improve your brand sales.
Furthermore, omni sales channel strategy will cover the entire sales process, from the beginning of the funnel where your target audience discovers your brand to purchasing a product from your business, establishing loyalty, and even further. An effective omnichannel marketing strategy makes the whole buying process easier and smoother as your customers would have the same shopping experience across all the channels.
In simple words, omnichannel strategy means that your brand is present in several channels at the same time, similar to the multichannel strategy with the major difference that omnichannel retailing aims to integrate all channels for a better user experience.
Difference between omnichannel and multichannel eCommerce strategies
While both the strategies may sound similar, it is crucial for an Amazon retail business owner to understand key differences between the two strategies to make sure that they implement the best strategy for their business. Multichannel strategy is an umbrella term for any strategy that involves more than one channel. On the contrary, the omnichannel strategy would take all channels into account.
Omnichannel strategy is nonlinear and more complex compared to multichannel marketing strategy. The strategy matches the nonlinear nature of buyers' journeys. On the other hand, multichannel strategies are simple. Multichannel strategy is operational, whereas the omnichannel approach can act as a business model. In multichannel strategy, different channels are not integrated with each other, which means information related to audience engagement can't be transferred between various channels.
Channels in the omnichannel approach can share live updates between channels, such as sending email reminders to customers who showed their interest in purchasing your product. This will encourage your potential customers to complete their purchases and improve their shopping experience across channels.
As your customers would like to engage with their brand on different channels, you need to implement a smart marketing strategy that integrates all channels. Lastly, the multichannel strategy tends to focus more on brand, whereas omnichannel marketing will put customers at the center.
Why is omnichannel strategy important for your business?
During the past few years, advertising and marketing have changed so does consumer behavior, so businesses need to change their marketing strategies accordingly. Creating an effective omnichannel strategy can help businesses efficiently target their potential customers throughout the sales funnel. The omnichannel marketing strategy also helps businesses ensure that their online presence as well as messaging is consistent across all channels.
Omnichannel retailing is also important because when you interact consistently with your customer, it can provide a better customer experience and better engagement opportunities across all channels, resulting in a higher conversion rate. Also, this strategy allows businesses to reach the right audience at the right time. Here are five reasons why eCommerce businesses are adopting omnichannel marketing:
1. Improves customer value
Omnichannel strategies put customers at the center, and your potential customers would love it when they are in the driver's seat. According to the Coresight report, 53% of leading retailers state that the most important reason to implement omnichannel support is to improve customer value. When Amazon retail business owners implement an omnichannel strategy, they provide more value to the customer and improve the user shopping experience.
2. Targets new segment of customers
With omnichannel, businesses can target a new segment of customers. This can be beneficial for leading retailers as well as new or small-sized businesses. As reaching new customers is a key to business growth, an omnichannel strategy can help businesses improve their sales and revenue.
3. Increases your business's operational efficiency
Another benefit that businesses can observe by implementing an omnichannel strategy is reduced cost with improved operational efficiency. By adding omnichannel marketing into their strategy, businesses will only have two collect customer data once compared to other strategies where data is collected at every touchpoint. This also means that businesses don’t need to create and implement different strategies for different channels.
4. Boosts your sales numbers
A review study by Harvard Business showed that customers who prefer omnichannel spend at least 10% more than customers preferring a single channel. This study also shows that omnichannel customers are about 30% more valuable. Hence, businesses can target more customers and improve their sales numbers with an omnichannel strategy.
5. Increases inventory turnover
Businesses do not want to lose business because the product has gone out of stock. With an omnichannel strategy in place, businesses can have a better inventory overview and can fulfill customer orders from anywhere. Your inventory data will be shared across the channel, reducing the risk of a product getting out of stock.
6. Higher customer retention
Customers prefer buying products from a brand that they trust. Omnichannel marketing strategy provides a consistent customer experience across different channels, helping you build trust and loyalty. When you build trust with your customers, there is an increased chance that they will prefer buying from your brand in the future.
How to create an omnichannel strategy?
Here are five steps you can follow to start off your omnichannel strategy that benefits your business:
- Know your customer: Understand the interest, needs, and behavior of your target audience. Ask them to share their feedback and engage with them on social media to understand.
- Choose the right channels: Find out what channels your customers prefer and what they do on these channels.
- Find a clear purpose for each selected channel: You can use one channel to share product updates and the latest industry news while the other channel for engaging with your target audience and so on.
- Connect all channels: This can be the hardest part of your omnichannel strategy and should be executed perfectly for efficient results. You need the right tools to follow your audience across different touchpoints.
- Maintain all channels: After you have implemented your strategy, analyze and improve it for better results.
Conclusion
Your potential customers engage with your brand every day through different channels. You can use an omnichannel strategy to enhance these touchpoints for a better customer experience. The omnichannel marketing strategy should be an essential part of your business plan and for the long-term growth of your business. With the omnichannel approach, you can see a positive impact on customer experience, customer value, retention, engagement, and conversion rate across all channels.
Now that you understand the meaning of omnichannel, its importance for every business, and how it differs from multichannel strategy, it is time to use this knowledge to implement an effective omnichannel strategy into your business plan for long-term growth. Now when your potential customers are combining multiple channels to purchase a product, it is important for you to reduce friction between these channels to ensure that they get a smooth shopping experience across all channels.
Want to create an effective omnichannel marketing strategy for your business that works? Get in touch with VServe Solutions' Amazon listing services experts who can help you create an omnichannel eCommerce strategy to give your business a competitive edge in the online marketplace.