Do you find yourself switching between different devices and platforms as you go about your day? Just like navigating between Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, your online shopping habits are also sprawled across various touchpoints: browsing ads on your smart TV, shopping Amazon on your laptop, scrolling Etsy on your phone, and so on. This may sound fragmented in theory, but in today’s digital age, consumers are constantly connected and can move seamlessly between different devices and channels. As such, to effectively reach and engage this audience, businesses need to adopt an omni channel advertising strategy and ensure they have a strong brand presence across all platforms. In today’s guide, we take a close look at what is omni channel advertising and how it can benefit your business.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. What is Omni Channel Advertising?
2. Benefits of Omni Channel Advertising
3. 4 Elements of a Great Omni Channel Advertising Strategy
4. Channel Combinations for eCommerce Businesses
5. Platforms for eCommerce Omni Channel Advertising
6. Challenges and Considerations
What is Omni Channel Advertising?
Omni channel advertising is a marketing approach that provides a consistent and seamless experience across all customer touchpoints, regardless of the device or channel used. It ensures that a customer’s journey is cohesive and personalized, regardless of whether they are interacting with a brand through a website, mobile app, social media, email, or in-store. This back-and-forth switch between multiple channels can be very disruptive and interrupt the flow of the user, but done correctly, provides a smooth transition between devices and platforms that allows the user to research and consider your products on all fronts before making that informed purchase decision.
Benefits of Omni Channel Advertising
Here’s where you ask: what do I get back from this massive time and effort investment? There are many benefits to running a well-oiled omni channel advertising machine, mostly involving a more engaged customer base and increased brand loyalty and recognition.
- Enhanced Customer Experience: Omni channel advertising creates a personalized and consistent experience for customers, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty.
- Increased Brand Visibility: By reaching customers across multiple channels, you can increase awareness and visibility for your brand in the eCommerce sphere.
- Improved Conversion Rates: Omni channel campaigns can drive higher conversion rates by providing customers with multiple opportunities to engage with the brand and make a purchase.
- Better Data Collection: Omni channel advertising allows you to collect valuable data about customer behavior across different channels, which help to refine your marketing efforts and engage with your audience in more effective ways.
4 Elements of a Great Omni Channel Advertising Strategy
In omni channel advertising, the most important thing to focus on is your messaging. Sure, its presentations can differ wildly from platform to platform, but they all need to convey the same brand ideas and values. For example, you cannot have a product on Amazon being advertised as multi-functional, and on another platform promoted as a niche specialty tool. These inconsistencies will have your audience doubting your credibility as a seller, leading to damaged brand reputation and loyalty. On the other hand, each platform or channel has its own guidelines and success strategies, so it’s essential to cater your creatives to each.
As such, having a great omni channel strategy means you need to strike a delicate balance between consistency and variety. To find this sweet spot, focus on these elements:
- Brand Voice: You speak the same way, no matter the setting. Do the same for your brand. Having a consistent tone and style makes your brand more recognizable and memorable.
- Visual Elements: People usually catch patterns and colors first before reading your text. As such, remember to always incorporate your brand colors and graphics into your product and brand content.
- Personalized Experiences: Analyze customer data to see if you can personalize content and products to their needs. The strong brand presence coupled with personalized content ensures that you will position your brand in the right place at the right time.
- Integration of Online and Offline Channels: If you have both an eCommerce and brick-and-mortar business, think of ways to reduce interruptions in your customer’s journey across your different touchpoints. This could be anything from app check-in for curb pick-up, email reminders of orders, or allowing online pick-up orders. A cohesive customer experience is one that customers will remember.
Channel Combinations for eCommerce Businesses
With their online niche, eCommerce businesses need to think about different digital platforms they can promote on. For brands with an existing Amazon presence (you’re selling through a 3P or 1P account and have an Amazon Brand Store), it’s very beneficial to drive traffic from your other sources to Amazon to keep your sales unified in one spot. Here are a few combinations we think would benefit your Amazon business:
- Website and Social Media
With a dedicated branded website, you have your own playground to push bold creatives and visuals that Amazon’s Brand Store builder might not offer. In addition, social media makes it easy to promote your products in bite-sized content chunks. You can also provide a link to your Amazon store so your customers can easily find your advertised products.
- Email Marketing and Social Media
Email marketing is a robust marketing solution, and when paired with social media, can work wonders. With email marketing, you have a chance to send personalized promotions, product recommendations, and customer newsletters. This is a great way to encourage brand loyalty and repeat purchases. In this case, your social media will act as your upper-funnel channel, acquiring new traffic and driving awareness as well as urging customers to sign up for your newsletter.
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Social Media
Paid and organic advertising are always complementary to each other. Using relevant keywords in your social media content and keeping up with trends ensure that you’re always in the For You section of your audience. Adding the paid visibility boost from SEM gives you that necessary edge over competitors.
- Display Advertising and Retargeting
Display advertising is a very interesting tool in that it can bring your Amazon products to off-Amazon sites. This means driving off-Amazon traffic (which includes people further away from their purchases) straight to a product detail page to help customers quickly check out and place the order. And what if they don’t convert the first time? Employ remarketing ads to users who have previously interacted with your ad to see if you can nudge them more towards that purchase.
- Content Marketing and Social Media
Content marketing, which involves creating a blog or other knowledge base on your own hosted website, is a great way to establish your brand credibility as a seller and an authority figure in your industry. With social media, you can promote your blog posts and knowledge pieces to bring them to a wider audience and expand your subscriber base.
- Influencer Marketing and Social Media
On top of growing your brand reputation through your own organic channels, you can also rely on the existing customer bases of influencers on social media. Influencers can tap into demographics that you have not targeted, and overall increase your brand awareness and recognition. Furthermore, when you have a social media account, influencers can direct their followers to your page and encourage them to follow your brand.
Platforms for eCommerce Omni Channel Advertising
With an omni channel advertising campaign, eCommerce businesses should focus on platforms that offer a wide reach, effective targeting capabilities, and seamless integration with other digital channels. Here are some key platforms to consider:
- Social Media Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest
- Search Engines: Google, Bing
- Email Marketing Tools: Mailchimp, HubSpot
- Display Advertising Networks: Amazon DSP, Google Display Network, Facebook Audience Network
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Platforms: Salesforce, HubSpot
- Analytics Tools: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Amazon Attribution
Challenges and Considerations
When building out your omni channel advertising strategy and campaigns, keep in mind some challenges that might cause complications in your setup and analytics later on:
- Technical Complexity: Implementing an omni channel advertising strategy can be technically complex, requiring integration of different systems and platforms. Carefully read the compliance and success guidelines for each platform so you know your content won’t be flagged and will be favored by the algorithm.
- Data Privacy: Businesses must comply with data privacy regulations and ensure that customer data is handled securely. Remember to comply with any platform’s data privacy and implement your own data privacy practices on your website.
- Budget Constraints: Omni channel advertising can be resource-intensive. It’s important to allocate sufficient budget and resources to effectively execute your strategy. Weigh the cost of a platform against how much revenue it’s going to generate for you to make an informed decision.
VASO Group Can Help You Create an Engaging, Frictionless Omni Channel Advertising Experience
We’re experienced with managing our clients’ expansive omni channel networks. From Amazon, Shopify, Google, to incorporating influencer marketing and organic marketing into your advertising strategy, we’ve got it. Reach out and let’s build your brand presence together.
Let’s grow your business together.