With the increasing appeal of social media platforms and affordable smartphones, marketers have gained an unprecedented level of access to their customer bases across the globe. Whether you operate your own eCommerce platform or serve as a content marketer for a large international enterprise, omnichannel marketing efforts can indeed bring new leads to your doorstep. Learn how content can power omnichannel marketing efforts.
According to Harvard Business Review, 73% of questioned customers used multiple digital channels to inform themselves of brands and sales offers which lead to 13% more spending as opposed to customers who use only one source of information. This proves that customers want omnichannel marketing and multiple sources of advertisement in regards to the brands they follow.
However, creating content that will successfully bring new leads and nurture existing ones through omnichannel marketing can be tricky. With that in mind, let’s take a look at how exactly you can retrofit your content for omnichannel marketing efforts for better traffic and revenue down the road.
Benefits Of Omnichannel Marketing
Before we get into the “how” it’s worth noting “why” omnichannel marketing is such an important part of modern advertisement. In short, it involves pushing advertisement content to your customer base through different channels at once. These channels typically include email, messaging app popups, social media ads, banner ads, YouTube ads, etc.
Diana Adjadj, marketer and copywriter at Subjecto spoke on the matter recently:
“Breaching a new customer base is far easier if you opt to advertise through multiple channels. It’s easy to eliminate ineffective channels once you find the formula that works for your brand without leaving any option unexplored.”
Finding the right combination of channels for your specific customer base will yield a plethora of benefits for your company compared to single-channel marketing, including but not limited to:
- Higher industry authority and brand awareness.
- Higher engagement and conversion rates.
- Easier lead nurturing and recurrent revenue.
- High return on investment in terms of produced content.
Crafting Effective Content For Omnichannel Marketing
1. A Customer-Centric Approach
One of the biggest advantages of omnichannel marketing compared to a single-channel advertisement is that it allows you to craft personalized content. Your potential customers will always engage in omnichannel marketing in their “personal” messaging spaces such as email inboxes or messaging apps. This allows for a different, more personal approach to the way you create content.
However, it also raises the need to segment your audience as best as you can before launching a marketing campaign. Millennials and tech-savvy youth will use their smartphones and browse the internet in a different way as opposed to employed parents or elderly stay-at-home customers. Rethink the way you create content if you plan on using an omnichannel marketing approach to sell your products or services going forward.
2. Platform-Specific Content
Even though omnichannel marketing efforts allow you to launch a campaign through different platforms simultaneously, you will still need to retrofit your content to fit each platform’s standards. For example, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram rely on short-form content that can be delivered to customers through News Feed posts or paid advertisement.
Email, on the other hand, allows for long-form content which can be used to write a more comprehensive sales pitch with attached multimedia files and hyperlinks. Using a professional omnichannel marketing platform to streamline your advertisement and delivery processes can make it easier and quicker for you to repurpose content. Make sure that whatever content you produce for omnichannel marketing can be used in a multitude of platforms and delivery methods.
3. Channel-Wide Consistency
It is important for your content to be on-brand no matter what platform you target at that moment so that people can identify an ad with your brand instantaneously. The last thing you want is for someone to mistake your ad for another company and purchase products from their storefront instead. In order to avoid that, you need to use the same wording, multimedia, and phrases in each channel.
Another factor that adds to the difficulty of omnichannel marketing is the fact that these ads are typically seen for a few seconds at a time. Your prospects will rarely stop and take in minute details or complicated marketing messages during their everyday internet browsing. Make sure that your company’s links, logo and products or services are clearly visible and understandable at a glance. Consistent omnichannel content quality will ensure that you stand out from the competition and attract more customers as a result.
4. Emphasis On Calls To Action
Lastly, omnichannel marketing efforts should be centered on calls to action before anything else. Calls to action can be focused on different aspects of your sales effort such as inviting users to visit your online store or to contact you for further information.
CTAs should be as clear as possible to avoid mixed signals or confusion, especially if you target cold customers who don’t know about your brand apart from the basic information. Whether for better or worse, CTAs allow very little freedom in terms of creativity and it is suggested that you aim for generalized and expected wording and messages. Your customers will spend only seconds looking at your ad before they move on with their browsing – make sure to use that to your advantage.
Mistakes To Avoid
Now that we have a clearer idea of how content can be used to improve your omnichannel marketing efforts, let’s take a look at several mistakes worth keeping in mind. These can dampen the effects of your marketing campaigns and result in unnecessary losses of brand reputation and resources.
Lack of Segmentation
As we’ve previously mentioned, different customers will react to different products in varying ways. Segment your audience into different categories and profiles before launching your omnichannel campaign to avoid confusion.
Too Many Channels
A single customer should never receive the same advertisement content in three or more channels of communication. This will be considered spam by most and intrusive by some, so make sure to double-check who you are about to send marketing content to.
Lack of Data Analysis
Lastly, omnichannel marketing efforts are ripe for ongoing analysis and data extrapolation. You can gather useful data and analyze your marketing efficiency in order to upgrade your content and approach in the future. Failure to track content once it is launched is a wasted opportunity for free feedback.
In Summary
Omnichannel marketing offers a diverse set of options in terms of ways and channels through which you can approach new and existing customers. However, this is only an approach vector that is highly dependent on the quality of content you are able to produce. Producing quality content can power omnichannel marketing efforts.
Research your audience and make sure that you understand their wants and expectations in terms of advertisement before launching an omnichannel campaign. This will maximize your advertisement’s effect and ensure that your brand reputation grows in its wake.
Guest Post Author
Kristin Savage nourishes, sparks and empowers using the magic of a word. Along with pursuing her degree in Creative Writing, Kristin was gaining experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in marketing strategy for publishers and authors. Now she works as a freelance writer at TopEssayWriting and ClassyEssay. Kristin runs her own FlyWriting blog. We thank Kristin for writing this article about how content can power omnichannel marketing efforts.
