Omni-channel is a huge buzzword in today’s marketing world — and for good reason.
Consumers now engage with businesses across multiple channels (e.g., direct mail, website, social, email, search, paid advertising, mobile, etc.) and devices during the entire purchase process.
“At its core, omni-channel is defined as a multichannel sales approach that provides the customer with an integrated shopping experience. The customer can be shopping online from a desktop or mobile device, or by telephone, or in a bricks and mortar store and the experience would be seamless.”
Marketers can measure and control the experience at each touchpoint to drive and optimize conversions and customer acquisition.
Here’s a look at 6 omni-channel marketing pitfalls to avoid in your next marketing campaign.
Mistake #1 – Inconsistent messages
Many marketers have been improving their level of consistency in messaging across channels. And with every ad campaign and initiative you plan, it’s important to evaluate how the message could be conveyed to the right audience and device. Even if it’s shared in different ways, true omni-channel marketing can be achieved when the message is consistent.
Mistake #2 – Not making data-driven decisions
Marketing campaigns are highly measurable with online analytics. The right data will also tell you what marketing tactics work and which ones fall flat. Never run marketing campaigns based on your gut instinct again. Data never lies.
Mistake #3 – Publishing crap content
It’s no secret that creating unique high-quality content is the key to your brand’s digital marketing success. Keep in mind that content marketing has many moving parts, so focus on one strategy at a time unless you have a large team to crank out consistently compelling content.
Mistake #4 – Creating printed brochures
Hear me out. Printed brochures is a marketing tactic of the past (unless you’re at a trade show and you still have to wonder how effective that is, really). In short, it can lead to a sale with the right incentives. For example, prompt action by asking recipients to register online for an exclusive offer. Then track their behavior (e.g., sign-ups, phone calls, etc.) and see if it’s really worth the design, printing and postage.
Mistake #5 – Not understanding how these channels work
In the omni-channel world, marketing channels work in harmony to move customers down the path of purchase. You can never evaluate any one channels success in a vacuum.
For example, “Mobile-heavy Facebook campaigns made mobile search work harder – 6.3% harder, in fact. The results are further proof of how mobile continues to create an omni-channel marketplace […] “The study measures how mobile-heavy Facebook campaigns increase visits to mobile landing pages (from paid search clicks).”
Mistake #6 – Going social without anything to say
Each and every one of us knows that social media is big. But ask yourself: what you we going to post and how is it useful to our audience. You cannot spend all of your time curating other people’s content.
Think of social media as an activity that will help you push sales-ready leads through your sales funnel. A good social media strategy must have strong back-end support with plans to nurture leads along the customer journey.
This article has been edited and condensed.
Jenni Wrights is VP of Sales and Marketing at Ampliz, a contact data hygiene platform that helps companies append data, email list cleaning and verification. She writes about current marketing trends and helps entrepreneurs to manage their sales and marketing through email verification services.
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