The term omnichannel is probably one of the most frequently used buzzwords in marketing over the last five to ten years. It is usually seen as the ultimate solution, but due to its challenges and complexity, it is usually replaced by a simpler multichannel approach. At this point, it is important to make a clear distinction between the two.
Multichannel versus omnichannel
In a multichannel approach, more than one media channel is used to reach customers and prospects. The combination of several channels (e.g. social media, email, SMS, TV, print, etc.) does not necessarily mean that these channels are integrated. Each channel can have its own reporting structure, sales targets or even an overall strategy. For example, email content and communication style can be very different from Facebook ads, as the target groups are defined differently.
An omnichannel approach, on the other hand, not only uses multiple channels to communicate with customers and prospects, but also links them together to create a unified experience. For example, a shopping experience could be that a customer receives app messages or a Facebook ad about their abandoned online shopping cart while shopping in-store, pointing out the forgotten promotional code that was sent by email days earlier.
Salesforce in B2C omnichannel marketing
Salesforce offers several solutions to support companies in the successful development of B2C omnichannel marketing. At the heart of this is the Marketing Cloud, which manages and monitors the necessary channels and processes. In addition to functions such as segmentation, data processing and email tracking, the focus is on delivering personalized communication across a variety of channels.
Viewed in isolation, the various functions and channels of the Marketing Cloud do not constitute an omnichannel strategy. The system is designed to bring them together and enable marketers to create content for multiple channels within one platform. The centerpiece is the Journey Builder.
The Journey Builder provides insights into customer interactions across all marketing channels. By accessing data from various sources, data such as customer behavior, browsing patterns or purchase history can serve as a starting point for a variety of interactions. Furthermore, it is possible to create personalized experiences and messages based on a wide range of data, such as demographics (e.g. age, gender, interests, language) or real-time events (e.g. opening emails, downloading mobile apps, viewing pages in the online store). This makes it easier to reach the customer at the right time with the right message via the right channel.
These functions enable use cases for communicating with a customer during their shopping experience.For example, if a customer is browsing the online store and is identified by Marketing Cloud Personalization, it is now possible to actively influence their shopping experience. For example, the website can now use Marketing Cloud Personalization to change the standard size and color displayed on the product detail pages for this customer to the appropriate color (e.g. red) and size (e.g. M) that correspond to the identified browsing behaviour. In addition, the colors used for the products on the category overview and category pages can be changed to the most frequently displayed color and its complementary colors available in the online store.While this pays into the immediate shopping experience in the online store, the Journey Builder could support by sending personalized product recommendations or abandoned visit messages via email.
Marketing Cloud and the Salesforce ecosystem
Although the Salesforce Marketing Cloud combines a wide range of functions to improve B2C marketing communication, it cannot cover everything and therefore requires support in implementing an omnichannel strategy.Salesforce can be used to support this with the solutions in its ecosystem.
To set up an omnichannel journey, the Salesforce Data Cloud can be used to create a unified profile that represents a single person and brings together multiple unique identifiers and data sets from different touchpoints, such as the company's online store and website. In a further step, the unified profile can be used to predict behavior and segment customers and prospects. These segments can then be sent to the Journey Builder or the Interaction Studio of the Marketing Cloud, enabling customized communication.
In this way, marketers can identify a customer as open to the next product purchase, send them a coupon with the highest response type (monetary, percentage or added value) via their preferred channel (e.g. SMS) and follow up with information on the product category most frequently purchased by the customer via Facebook ads and a section in the company's next email newsletter.
These integrations of different systems and processes require continuous monitoring and constant further development and therefore special expertise within the organization. For a company striving to implement a holistic omnichannel marketing approach, this can be a major barrier to entry. It is therefore generally advisable to rely on supporting, external expertise for system setup, process optimization and the first half of the learning curve. However, the aim should always be to build up expertise within the company and use external know-how as an accelerator.Even with an omnichannel approach, it is not always possible to implement everything 100% as desired. Especially as marketers continue to use marketing automation systems, identify new use cases and marketing technology as a whole evolves, the definition of a fully integrated omnichannel approach for a company will constantly change.
In addition, it is advisable to take the path to the desired level of omnichannel coverage step by step.A high-quality omnichannel approach requires a strong marketing automation system, data diversity and high data quality.Therefore, not every company should go straight for omnichannel.Laying the groundwork and taking a well-thought-out multichannel approach may prove to be the best strategy for the first step towards B2C omnichannel marketing in the future.
Simon Ehrl
