It’s rare to meet a marketer today who isn’t striving to be customer-centric. You know your company is customer-centric when your repeat business from existing customers is sky-high and word-of-mouth is bringing new customers in the door in droves. If that’s not the case you, like many companies, haven’t yet learned to fully optimize your customer relationships. Continue reading

2019 UPDATE: According to Vesp, businesses with omnichannel customer involvement methods preserve 89% of their customers. This is compared to a 33% consumer retention rate for firms with weaker omnichannel techniques.

Exactly what Does it Mean to be Omnichannel?

Today’s customer’s shop and research across several channels and multiple devices. They might locate something online and then head into the store to make the purchase. Or on the other hand, they might be at a brick-and-mortar business, see an article of clothes they like but not in the correct size, and then pull out their phone to see if there is inventory somewhere else and make the purchase on their device. Any variety of situations like this exist, however, one of the most vital aspects of omnichannel is that each of these channels are orchestrated to supply a smooth and connected purchase experience.

In Omnichannel marketing, a business may utilize various channels of marketing to communicate with the client yet each channel is handled individually with a varying approach. Omnichannel is centered around the consumer ensuring customers can quickly and effortlessly navigate in between a companies touchpoints to make a purchase.

5 Effective Tips for Tracking Omnichannel Marketing Performance

Since you recognize the importance of omnichannel marketing, let’s have a look at some pointers on just how to track your success.

# 1– Measure More Than Channel Performance

Metrics like conversion rate and revenue are necessary, but they will not tell you all you need to know about your omnichannel marketing initiatives. Adding and evaluating data points like Return on Advertisement Spend (ROAS) and New Customer Acquisition Cost (NCAC) to your performance reporting will give you a much more thorough view of your marketing efficiency.

# 2– Use Customer Segmentation

When you have a better understanding of your customers and their shopping habits, you can start to slice down into targeted marketing approaches. Whether you use e-mail, social media sites, AdWords, or other techniques, you need to employee consumer or B2B segmentation to reach your target market. Segmentation allows you to deliver the individualized marketing that customers now expect.

# 3– Automate, Automate, Automate

Omnichannel marketing requires a lot of effort and time. Do not squander useful time and resources gathering and assembling information for your analytics reporting– utilize a marketing automation solution. Obtaining automated records allows you and your group to assign your time to where it’s needed most– developing and also implementing effective marketing methods that will potentially enhance your profits.

# 4– Know Your Customers

Comprehending your customers, really comprehending them, is necessary. The more you understand about them and their behavior, the better you are able to contextualize as well as customize the marketing you make use of. This indicates that tracking customer demographics, acquiring habits, rate level of sensitivity, and channel choice is crucial to your marketing success.

# 5– Use the Right Technology

Obviously, to accomplish every one of the above points and also to recognize just how to reach your customers best, you have to have the appropriate tools and platforms. Bear in mind that tracking omnichannel marketing techniques isn’t just for huge business stores; businesses of all sizes can capitalize on effective information analytics and reporting tools to improve their marketing efforts. Having the right platforms and channels will certainly make all the distinction to your business’ success.

Overall, your goal as a marketer is to influence and convince consumers to see the value of a product or service and accept your call to action. While radio, print, and TV campaigns are considered traditional ways to advertise, more and more marketers are realizing the importance of creating an integrated brand presence on multiple digital platforms. How about you?

25 significant statistics about the benefits of being an omnichannel brand:

  1. When a business integrates an omnichannel marketing method they achieve a 91% better year-over-year consumer retention rate versus a company that doesn’t, according to a study from Aspect Software.
  2. 55% of business have no cross-channel approach in place. (The CMO Club)
  3. 87% of customers think brand names need to place more effort into supplying a seamless experience. (Zendesk)
  4. Business with very strong omnichannel consumer engagement see a 9.5% year-over-year rise in annual profits, compared to 3.4% for weak omnichannel business. Strong omnichannel business see a 7.5% year-over-year reduction in cost per contact, contrasted with a 0.2% year-over-year reduction for weaker businesses. (Aberdeen Group)
  5. 98% of Americans will switch between devices. (Google Research)
  6. 15 years ago 2 touch-points per client on average is all it took when they made a purchase. Only 7% regularly utilized more than four. Today, consumers utilize an average of six touch-points with nearly 50% frequently utilizing more than four. (Marketing Week)
  7. 77% of effective omnichannel companies save client data across channels, compared to 48% for weaker omnichannel businesses. (Aberdeen Group)
  8. Over 35% of customers expect to call the same customer support representative on different marketing channels. (Zendesk)
  9. 64% of customers expect to get real-time support no matter the customer support channel they utilize. (Zendesk)
  10. Businesses with very strong omnichannel client interaction keep an average of 89% of their customers, compared to 33% for companies with weak omnichannel customer engagement. (Aberdeen Group)
  11. 89% of customers become frustrated having to repeat their troubles to multiple agents. (Accenture)
  12. 61% of customers have not been able to easily switch from one support channel to another when interacting with customer support. (Aspect)
  13. 64% of marketers mention their lack of resources and financial investment as their leading obstacle to omnichannel marketing. (The CMO Club)
  14. 90% of customers expect consistent communications across channels. (SDL)
  15. 71% of shoppers who use mobile phones for research in-store state that it is an important part of their experience. (Google)
  16. Omnichannel shoppers have a 30% higher lifetime value than those shopping with one marketing channel. (Google)
  17. Business identified by Aberdeen Group as being top-performers utilizing an omnichannel approach, 85% conduct regular training of their consumer care representatives in handling omnichannel interactions, while 77% store customer communications data across several channels. (Aberdeen Group)
  18. 45% of in-store customers expect sales associates to be well-informed about online-exclusive items. (Forrester)
  19. 71% of shoppers agree that it is essential or extremely vital to be able to view inventory information for in-store products. (Forrester)
  20. 50% of shoppers expect they will be able to buy online and pick up in-store.. (Forrester)
  21. 39% of consumers are unlikely or very unlikely to visit a business if the online store does not offer “brick-n-mortar” inventory information. (Forrester)
  22. 56% of customers have used their smartphone to research products at home with 38% actually using their mobile phone to inspect inventory while on their way to the store while 34% have utilized their mobile phone to research products while in a store. (Forrester)
  23. 69% of customers visiting a store will have a smartphone — in order to perform easy and immediate research. i.e. looking up item details and also examining supply.
  24. 27% of consumers would be most likely to leave and check out another store if an item runs out stock with 21% specifying they would purchase online from a different retailer.  21% would just resist purchasing the product.

If you are like many marketing leaders you’d say, “We have a ton of data, but it’s not clear what we really have or how to leverage it.” The truth is, customer data is one of the most important company assets you have, but like any other asset it needs to be managed and maintained. Data quality is key for senior marketing management to gain meaningful and productive insights. Continue reading