Does your organization promote an Omni-channel marketing experience for your customers or constituents?

Let’s start with what exactly an Omni-channel marketing experience is. Sometimes referred to as Multi-channel, an Omni-channel marketing experience stems from a communication or marketing strategy experienced from the viewpoint of the participant or end-user, whether it’s a customer you are attempting to sell goods to, an individual you are trying to convince to support a cause, or a news-hungry citizen who is seeking daily headlines or stock quotes. The concept is not new at all, and more importantly, not specific to any industry, be it retail, non-profit, philanthropic, media, educational or any other. The need for it has however, evolved greatly over the very recent past with increased use of social media and mobile devices contributing more and more to nearly every successful online presence. The ability for a user to view your website across multiple platforms [desktop, tablet or mobile phone] is more critical than ever if one wishes to survive the increasingly challenging days of the web.

But that’s not where it stops. Users are not only expecting this adaptability or responsiveness on websites, they are also demanding higher levels of engagement from companies. Yes, they want to be engaged (and that’s not new either), and if they don’t get it one place they’ll seek it elsewhere. So, what types of engagement are they [consumers, enthusiasts, etc.] seeking?

Web responsiveness & personalization? Emails? Text or push notifications? Snail mail postcards? Phone calls when appropriate? Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes.

Why doesn’t the end-user get this type of experience everywhere?

Unfortunately, most marketing & communications departments are still having trouble achieving consistent, positive, and seamless experiences for their customers, visitors or donors. Ironically, even though the Omni-channel experience is not a new concept, it still has its challenges being embraced due to several items including: internal productivity competitiveness (separate teams with separate goals), reporting difficulties (recent availability of dashboard reporting tools has assisted with this), challenges around a single-view of a given customer (matching anonymous engagement with known users once a conversion occurs), and the most unfortunate and greatest stranglehold being — challenges surrounding “who gets credit for the revenue?” Obviously, the last item should, in a perfect world, not be a concern. However, in reality a common scenario is something similar to the following:

• Email marketer sends out a killer email with open rates + click rates through the roof!
• Subscribers, arrive at the site via click and love what they see…
• However, do not make a purchase immediately in the here and now…
• They [subscribers] do browse a few web pages, thus increasing “web traffic…”
• The subscriber(s) reopen the email and are further enticed to click through to a social media page and subsequently become a “follower.”
• Eventually they [subscribers] make their way back to the website within a day, week, month or longer… And they make a purchase.
• Unfortunately, cookies or session ids have long since been deleted or expired from the initial email “sourcing,” thus not “crediting their conversion to email.”

Overall bottom line revenue is present, however email marketing managers feel increasing pressure to illustrate how their campaigns have contributed to that revenue.

While this seems elementary, it’s amazing just how many companies, simply don’t get it and find their channel managers essentially competing with each other for revenue “credit” and worse yet, reluctant to run campaigns that don’t go for the immediate “kill shot” or “hard ask” to achieve just that. Risking a subscriber’s conversion being “credited” to another traffic source could present challenges for channel managers, especially when executives don’t understand this Omni-channel approach.

Bottom line ~ The Omni-channel marketing experience, while not a new concept at all, is acutely at the forefront for marketers, and is being driven much more by what the customers and subscribers demand in their user experience, rather than how marketers wish to conduct business as usual. An example of how marketers must continue to pay attention to customer expectations in order to survive and thrive.

Take every opportunity to educate your executives about Omni-channel marketing. One way to accomplish this is by constantly reinforcing cross-channel successes & achievements with other department and channel managers. This could encourage them to be on board in adopting a more holistic view of performance and engagement metrics. If you are looking for additional opportunities for reinforcement, it wouldn't be unheard of for a channel manager to use a specific example from an outside organization to demonstrate or illustrate potential similar successes within.

"Here's what Company XYZ did to increase their revenue by 15%. As you can see from the metrics, their use of the Omni-channel approach had a direct impact on their customers' user experiences specifically at Point-C in their sales funnel. By adopting a similar strategy, we could..."

Cross Sell & Omni Channel Experience is definitely one of my favorite topics to discuss and explore, what are your thoughts and experiences?