How to implement an omnichannel strategy?

On 12 March 1989, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web to break down geographical barriers in the exchange of information. Who could have predicted at the time that this would mark the beginning of the most profound transformation the business world has ever seen? Almost no one.

This innovation revolutionised the way consumers interact with brands. Yet many companies took years — even decades — to adopt digital business models, often due to a lack of understanding and a certain resistance to change.

Four decades later, that inertia has hardly shifted. Most businesses still struggle to embrace and leverage the latest technologies — even though these tools can unlock significant marketing and commercial opportunities.

👉🏼 What is omnichannel and what are its core objectives? How can you implement this strategy to fully unlock the opportunities of data activation can do.

Thanks to the internet, consumers now have as much knowledge about a company’s products as its own sales representatives. This level of access to information has intensified competition between brands and broken down many traditional barriers to entry across industries.

In response, marketers have no choice but to establish a strong digital presence to reach consumers — who now begin their research online rather than in physical stores.

👉🏼 Digital has disrupted traditional marketing operations by shifting the customer journey to well before any in-store visit. With the rise of digital, new communication channels have emerged, offering a wide range of touchpoints to engage potential customers at a much earlier stage.
In a world where people spend an average of seven hours a day online, this is nothing short of a revolution: businesses can now interact with their customers without interruption.

Being able to talk to your customers all the time is great, but you have to do it properly! Digital marketing opportunities are not just about targeting users in more varied places. Digital marketing has emerged as the main support to redefine and personalise the relationships between consumers and vendors.

This approach is called customer-centric marketing. In the digital era, it is not a product that is promoted anymore, but a personalised relationship between the brand and the consumer. And omnichannel marketing is the Holy Grail when it comes to implementing customer-centric marketing.

The majority of businesses today operate a traditional multichannel strategy. Multichannel marketing refers to the use of a multitude of different communication channels to interact with its customer base.

For instance, a retail business might have an e-commerce website, physical stores, pages on different social media platforms from where it can launch acquisition campaigns, and so on.

In multichannel marketing, the customer experience remains limited to a single communication channel. Someone may browse products on the company’s website, make an in-store purchase, then contact customer support via phone or email. All of these interactions are done separately.

But today, customers expect a unique and personalised experience. This is the context in which omnichannel marketing emerged. Omnichannel aims to unify all communication channels to create a single, cohesive customer experience. The channels are interconnected and information is exchanged seamlessly, using a phygital approach.

💡 Here's an example to illustrate the difference.

A completely different experience:

In the multichannel example, the customer interacts with various channels independently, and there may be gaps or inconsistencies in the overall experience.

In the omnichannel example, the customer journey is seamlessly connected, allowing for personalised and contextual interactions across channels, resulting in a more integrated and satisfying experience.

Moving from multichannel to omnichannel involves aligning marketing, sales, supply chain, and customer service functions across all channels to deliver a cohesive experience. This can be a major challenge: the transition may require significant investment in technology infrastructure, data management systems, and staff training to ensure a seamless transition.

Implementing an omnichannel strategy effectively involves seamlessly integrating multiple channels (like online, in-store, and mobile) to provide a cohesive customer experience. Here are some tools you may need in your Modern Data Stack to implement your strategy:

💡 If you already have a data warehouse, consider Composable CDP not to duplicate your single source of truth.

Set up these tools in a way that enables them to communicate and share data effectively. This ensures a unified approach to your omnichannel strategy.

Omnichannel marketing takes a customer-centric approach by seamlessly integrating all channels to provide a unified and consistent experience. It is fast becoming the new standard for maximising customer experience, loyalty, brand strength, and acquisition.

Brands increasingly recognise the need to adapt to ever-evolving technologies — particularly by embracing omnichannel strategies. The rise of Modern Data Stack solutions is now democratising the use of data across organisations.

If you want to learn how DinMo can help you implement an omnichannel strategy, contact us!