Omni-Channel is a term you’ve probably heard a lot over the past few years. It may sound like the buzz word du jour, but it’s changing the way companies work whether they’re selling pucks, trucks, or ducks. It’s kind of a big deal, really.
But what does it mean for your business? In a nutshell, it’s reaching your customers on their terms. You need to anticipate buying behavior and being ready… and you can bet your competition is already doing it! This infographic courtesy of One to One media shows where the Omni-Channel experience will be heading:
How do you get started?
Implementing an Omni-Channel experience can seem like a lofty challenge, never mind how overwhelming it can be just trying to figure out where to start! The best bet is baby steps, so let’s start with figuring out who your customers are.
A little research can go a long way
Collecting data is as easy as just asking your customers. Find out:
- What are their buying habits?
- What social media tools are they utilizing for their shopping experience?
- Are they using both online and in-store tools to make their decisions? This is important as these shoppers have a 30% higher lifetime value for your business. <Source>
Make sure you have the right customer details
While you have them, it helps to update your customers’ information as well. Having proper email addresses and job titles will enable you to send information and valuable content to the people you’re targeting, and of course prevents you from having a high bounce rate on your email communications. Emails, jobs and locations change so this information is constantly updating.
Organize
Now that you’ve found out how your customers act during the buying process, you can adjust your company structure to meet those behaviors. By building an online and in-store marketing presence, you’ll be able to meet your customers’ requirements no matter what avenue they are heading down.
Some things to consider:
- Who is handling your social media? This is a job unto itself, and having the ability to answer your customers’ questions in-the-moment will help create a positive experience.
- Do you have a solution to create consistency across all channels? You may need to invest in a system that can enable all areas of your business to communicate with each other.
- Are you using data to start implementing awareness within the areas your customers tend to have high interactions? This goes back to the research you did earlier.
Getting started on an Omni-Channel solution now will help you keep up with the future of your industry.
Need help? Reach out to us and we can chat about it. We’re here to help you make informed business solutions.