OMNI CHANNELS

"Moving beyond pure Multi-channel strategy"

Few years back there was a frenzy for multichannel enablement of every business and now the emphasis has shifted to Omnichannel.

Definition according to Nick Winkler:

Multichannel retail (i.e., “many” channels), revolves around your product and lets customers engage and purchase natively wherever they shop but often treats channels as silos independent from one another. Each channel in a multichannel strategy exists as a separate purchase opportunity.

Omnichannel retail (meaning “all” channels) revolves around your customer and creates a single customer experience across your brand by unifying sales and marketing experience even if the user moves from one to another

What is multichannel retail?

Multichannel blends the customer experience and gives consumers multiple choices to engage with the brand in the channel they prefer – whether it is physical or online. It’s flexible but user and brand are confined to that channel.

Let us look at the Banking example. Most banks of repute till recently had a multichannel offering i.e. a customer could transact at their Branch or go to an ATM or perform transaction over Internet Banking or Mobile App. Each channel has it is own existence and are separate from one another although you can perform may overlap – for example, you could withdraw cash at either a Branch or an ATM.

Social Media like Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram have also become popular channels for many leading Banks.

Courtesy: https://catchpr.co.uk/omnichannel/

What is omnichannel retail?

Omnichannel retail provides a more immersive. It is centred around the customer and not the brand. Brand tracks individual stage in the customer lifecycle across channels. Customers can purchase wherever they are—since channels are not independent silos, omnichannel caters to the spill-over between channels and offers customer experiences within and between channels.

Omnichannel blurs the boundaries between different sales and marketing channels to create a unified, integrated experience. All channels—web, social, mobile, email, physical, and instant messaging—provide a single view of the customer as well as offer a single experience to the customer for all types of commerce.

In contrast to multichannel approach, omnichannel strategy merges the channels i.e websites, emails, retargeted ads, social media marketing, and physical locations to show personalized offers, products, and messages based on consumer’s behaviour at each step.

How does omnichannel retail work ( adapted from Omnichannel vs Multichannel: What is the Difference and Why Does It Matter? by Nick Winkler )

  1. A customer goes through the onsite process, adds a queen mattress to their cart, but leaves without purchasing
  2. The first email she receives contains the “$100 off” incentive but she ignores the same
  3. Simultaneously, she is served a series of ads for the same queen mattress and “$100 off” coupon on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube, staggered over a week to ensure they are not bothersome.
  4. After a week of non-engagement, the brand switches its approach and features ads highlighting its social responsibility efforts with calls to action (CTAs) to check out its Giving Back page.
  5. A pre-roll YouTube ad highlighting brand’s support of the Phoenix, Arizona Dream Center, a non-profit helping to reunite families. This finally prompts the customer to engage.
  6. The customer returns to the website, watches another video, and visits the king mattress product page instead of the queen.
  7. In response, a new round of social ads appear, as does an email with two adjustments—a king mattress is featured and the incentive is raised to “$150 off.”
  8. The customer clicks through Facebook, fills out their shipping information, but decides a mattress needs to be experienced before purchase and abandons cart again.
  9. The brand anticipates this objection and detects that the customer’s address is near its New York showroom.
  10. Two days later, the customer gets a personalized invitation in their physical mailbox to test the king mattress for themselves at their Dream Gallery.
  11. The customer finally bites. They stop by, purchase the mattress, and uses credit card to pay via the POS channel at the counter during check-out which automatically updates their account.
  12. When the customer arrives home, there’s a “Thank You” email waiting for them and a week later, another email arrives asking the customer to review the mattress.
  13. Both emails are ignored. Since the brand values social proof, the customer gets a Facebook Messenger invitation to submit a review.
  14. The customer agrees and gives the brand 4.5 out of 5 stars, interacting exclusively through Facebook Messenger.
  15. Given the customer’s satisfaction with the new mattress and the customer’s last two points of contact, the following week the brand sends both a physical mailer as well as a Messenger message outlining their “Refer a Friend” program.
  16. In the meantime, all of the Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube mattress ads have stopped. In their place—staged over time—ads appear for their range of Blankets.
  17. To brand’s surprise, the customer purchases three blankets. This automatically triggers a new series of mattress ads on social and via email.
  18. The customer clicks through one of the emails but—rather than making a purchase—spends time on brand’s financing page.
  19. This likely means the customer is contemplating additional mattresses but are price-conscious.
  20. The next email and Facebook ad which is received by the customer speaks directly to that need.

With an omni-channel strategy, customer behavior dictates the tactics used next. Each interaction attempts to alter the experience. The brand’s behavior is insight-driven and therefore is successful as it is derived from the customer’s behavior as observed within channels and also between channels.

References:

Omnichannel vs Multichannel: What is the Difference and Why Does It Matter? by Nick Winkler
https://www.shopify.in/enterprise/omni-channel-vs-multi-channel

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