Speaker 1: Welcome to the next episode of Inside Copy and Art, the podcast. I'm Christina Reyes, the VP Career Director with Copy and Art, and I'm here with Max Bixby.

Speaker 2: I am the Senior Graphic Designer at Copy and Art, and I handle everything from social media to websites to videos. Our department does a lot of things, so.

Speaker 1: Does a lot of things well.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you. That means a lot.

Speaker 1: And here today, we're going to talk about omni-channel marketing. So I think for our audience, it might be a good idea for us to level set on what omni-channel marketing is.

Speaker 2: Sure. Omni-channel marketing is when you take a client persona and you sort of develop an entire content strategy around them. So what you do is the same creative and the same approach and language will be used from everything from, again, things like social media, but also the print ads, the email marketing that you might send out to your prospective clients. And what it means is that you're targeting a specific kind of person no matter where they see you. So even if they're not really big on the email marketing, they might see your ad in a subway or something like that, and they'll be drawn to you because of that language.

Speaker 1: That's a great point because I know recent Google research shows that 98% of Americans switch between devices in the same day. And as we're moving out of this COVID phase, more people are going out. So they have options of walking into a retail store or restaurant, into a place of business, looking on their phone, vice versa.

Speaker 2: Especially with younger consumers, they tend to not use email and be more attuned to social media. So it's very important to be consistent across everything you're doing. So sometimes people will refer to multichannel marketing and omni-channel marketing and kind of talk about them as the same thing. Multichannel marketing means that you're targeting your marketing to each specific channel. So researching how Twitter users talk and trying to talk as Twitter users talk versus what is the proper way to phrase a print ad. Now multichannel marketing and omni-channel marketing can be used together, but they're not really the same thing. Omni-channel marketing is about that persona, that ideal customer. And multichannel is just about changing your approach based on the different platforms.

Speaker 1: That's a great point of distinction. I'm glad you brought that up. And that actually, I think to help drive that point home and that difference, I'm thinking back to the webinar that we did recently where we referred to this quote from the VP GM of Adobe where, and I'm just going to read it because I thought it was a great quote. That's omni-channel advertising at its best, creating connected experiences across every channel, every device, and every location where a consumer happens to be. And when you get it right, much like a lasting friendship, you've gained a valuable customer for years to come.

Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a really human-centered approach, which is kind of what we like here at Copy and Art. We tend to think more about how people will respond to things emotionally, not just aiming for the sell, sell, sell mindset that a lot of people associate with advertising. But we really kind of take a more humanistic perspective and are trying to solve our clients' problems and really communicate how they can do that.

Speaker 1: It's true. And we're big believers in this because it's not only that we recommend these to our clients, it's what we actually live and breathe ourselves as an organization. So the experience that someone, when they meet us on a website, when they meet us on social, when they meet us in person or even over the phone, we're consistent in how we're representing the brand. And I think that's so important and that really does stand out to people because I've had people come into the office and say like, you know, the vibe here is exactly what I expected when I was looking through your website.

Speaker 2: Another thing we do really well, I feel, when it comes to Omnichannel is convincing the client to take a step forward, maybe try something they haven't tried before. I think something that's really important, especially for Omnichannel marketing, is getting the client to be on board with your strategy and follow through with it because it's all about that consistency. It's all about that focus on the customer. And if you're engaging with a client who's not really interested in making that connection, it can be really hard to connect with them via that marketing. So it's good to meet the client halfway and kind of hear them out, but also keep the focus on what you think the customer will respond to. And when possible, try to run tests, user testing, feedback sessions, A-B testing, focus

Speaker 1: groups. Absolutely. And now in the digital space, it's so much easier to be able to do that. And I think that's so important because we do talk about, oftentimes with clients, it's not about falling in love with your product or your service. It's falling in love with your customer, your consumer, and what's their need and how can you address it. How do you evolve as an organization or a company over time, right? Like a product is always going to be a product, but if you're helping serve, if you're in service of customers, then you'll really be able to effectively meet that need and be successful. And you know, Copy and Art, if you've listened to our previous podcast, you know we're big believers in service and understanding the best way to serve for us, our clients, the best way for them to be able to serve their consumers. And having that focus, that customer-centric focus is really important.

Speaker 2: Yeah, a big part of service, I think, is learning. Also, a big part of omni-channel marketing, just getting that feedback, getting that analytics, knowing what people are actually thinking, you know, even if you don't like to hear it. It's true.

Speaker 1: It's true. And it's such great feedback. And I think, you know, people might do it at the beginning of a project or the start of a business, but don't always carry it through. But to your point, there's different ways to be able to continually check in with your consumer. A-B testing, you know, social media even, engaging with the audience, getting some interactions in terms of, are you a subject matter expert and you can host a webinar and you'll be able to draw feedback kind of passively and actively that way. Most certainly market research, and it's key. So I think, you know, having a schedule and we help our clients figure out like when's the right time to do these different types of tests, but there are certainly ones that should be carried through, planned for during the year, planned for at key points.

Speaker 2: Right. And as much as we do believe in that human-centered approach, we also like to look at numbers, at analytics to see like who's really responding, who's really coming to it. I can think of an example from our internal marketing, if it's fine to share. So we recently started republishing some of our great content on YouTube as shorts. And the feedback has been like incredibly explosive. We got a lot of views. Now that's partly due to the content being bite-sized and easy to consume. But I think also it speaks to how YouTube is becoming slightly older in terms of the audience, or rather the audience is growing with YouTube, you know, thinking about people my age, my recommendations have certainly moved from like gaming videos to, you know, it's the new feature at Microsoft Teams. So I guess we're growing with that audience. It's starting to become a better place for B2B because of that. And we wouldn't have known that if we hadn't started publishing the shorts and really looking at who's watching it, what the data is on that.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Great point about, you know, evidence-based decision-making because it's not to say, you know, numbers are the only thing, but they give you such a great insight into thinking outside of your own opinion or a small pool of the internal team's opinions and really tapping into your customers, but using that as an unbiased resource to make decisions on how you want to drive your marketing. That's great. So in terms of on-the-time marketing, like let's think about, I'd love to share with the audience a case study example of what this means, what we've been able to do for some of our customers.

Speaker 2: One example I can think of is we really helped one of our clients rebuild their brand from the ground up. And part of that was redeveloping not just their website, but also their social media and starting a print campaign. And this is a lot, especially for, you know, a small business that's fairly new. But what we were able to do is once we had kind of tested their brand and given them, you know, our ideas for the website and how we were going to make that especially easy to engage with, it kind of opened the door to, well, what can we do with social to carry that through? What can we do with the print marketing? And I think it was really effective, you know, the direct mail was able to reach people who might not even be using a website quite honestly, you know, who don't have time because they're business owners and that's important for a B2B business to consider.

Speaker 1: But at the same point, if they were to go onto the website, what they'd be seeing there, the information, the tone, imagery, all of that would be consistent across the board.

Speaker 2: Right. And it's the same for the social media where, again, it has that B2B focus. So people are coming in through LinkedIn, they're coming in through the website and maybe they're seeing the direct mail piece. And they do say that you have to engage with someone's content five times before you make a purchase decision. So by exploring those avenues, we're really maximizing how many times someone's going to want to engage with the brand.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's funny, I've also heard that the number of touch points you have to make with a consumer just to drive awareness, sometimes it's like 16 different touch points. So being able to meet them on the web, meet them on social, meet them in email, meet them in direct mails, meet them in posters, billboards, digital ads is a really big part of getting your message out there, getting your brand out there, being consistent and being able to reach the people that you want to reach. So going back to that ideal customer.

Speaker 2: And I think sometimes businesses will focus so much on one strategy and then not really consider other areas of their business. We've had clients who started off with very rudimentary or very not engaging social. And by working with us, even though we weren't the people who designed their website, we were able to carry through what was good about their website, what was good about their brand, what their mission was. And especially in the healthcare space, which a lot of our clients are, it's so important to make people feel cared for at every step of the process. And by taking a look at what's good about their brand, we can then carry that through their social media or their commercials. And every time the consumer sees that commercial, they're like, wow, these people actually care.

Speaker 1: It's true. It's true. And it feels authentic. And I hear a lot, how do I stand out in marketing? How do I differentiate myself? Well, one of the first and foremost ways to differentiate yourself is to understand who you are, who's your brand, what's your organization truly about? And then to build upon that, not try to be anybody else. And I think once you've cracked that, and we do have workshops that we do with our clients to help them truly identify this, because there's sometimes who we think we are, who we want to be, and who we truly are, and then you have to decide which of those is going to be the right space. Which one do you really want to build upon? Understanding that is really what helps be able to drive through an omni-channel marketing or be able to demonstrate a great way to be able to stand out in the market, because you're truly being who you are and how you best serve your customers.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think the strength of omni-channel marketing is once they start doing that kind of exploration, they realize, oh, we might be lacking in something that we didn't even realize our consumers were looking at very closely. So there's an opportunity to improve the experience and really make people feel a lot better about your brand.

Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. And I think that's a great point in knowing your brand, knowing what your consumers are looking for, and then finding that Venn diagram overlap of, okay, the thing that you thought was important, maybe it's not so important, but there's this other area where it's a really easy win where you're able to meet them.

Speaker 2: Exactly.

Speaker 1: When we talk about omni-channel marketing, I know for a lot of different organizations, it can feel like something that's overwhelming. It's a mouthful to say. It's fairly easy to understand. I think you had a great definition of it upfront, but understanding the impact of how it can affect a business is huge. I read this great stat that said that companies with extremely strong omni-channel customer engagement retain on average 89% of their customers compared to 33% of companies with weak omni-channel engagement. And to me, being able to retain a loyal customer, not just bring in new customers, but have people that are dedicated to your brand, that's critical, and to be able to find this strategy that really is about authenticity and customer centricity is a really great way to build a strong, like a foothold in your market and build a strong future for the brand or the

Speaker 2: organization. Yeah. And it's so easy to let things either fall by the wayside or have ideas that might not work. We've had clients in the past who have tried marketing that was a little bit off base. And when we came in, we kind of helped them steer it more towards what their customers were actually responding to versus something that may not work for them, but might've worked for an organization that they liked, which is not a problem. Obviously you want to bring in elements of work you like into your advertising or into your business, but sometimes it's better to keep certain things away from your specific brand. The most notable example I can think of is, if your brand is supposed to be warm and comforting and homey, and then you do a hard pivot to super sarcastic, edgy messaging, like something you would see on Doritos Twitter, which I love by the way, I am absolutely not hating on Doritos Twitter.

Speaker 1: But they've got a brand. They've got a personality. They own it.

Speaker 2: Yeah. They've got a brand and that brand may not be your brand.

Speaker 1: So true. So true. When you think about marketing in general, omni-channel marketing is a big part of that. When you think about marketing, one of the numbers, kind of quotes that sticks out to us is 20% of consumers can generate 80% of your revenue. Right? So it's about going back to what we said earlier, targeting that right group and focusing your attention there. And we also speak about being able to focus how you're using your marketing budget, knowing the right channels to go through and the right media to be able to use and to implement. People often struggle with that because they fall in love with one type of marketing or they think somebody else is doing this. This is what I should really do. But it's about understanding, you know, your ideal customer, what's working best for you and some like those hotspots that we had talked about as well.

Speaker 2: Right. And what helps a lot is creating, you know, a client persona. If it's okay to share this, a previous client of mine had a persona that was a high-achieving student. So someone who would want, you know, out of their blog articles, they would want something super actionable and super proven to help them get ahead and be successful. So what they did was they would develop content based around that persona and it would be things like tips on how to organize your time, tips on how to study better, things like that. And that really made a difference. They got a lot of those kinds of students like writing in asking even if they could contribute user-generated content, which was big for them.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great. And there's so much opportunity to be able to tap into that. Just as much as we want to communicate or brands want to communicate to their consumers, consumers want to communicate back and, you know, better market research than the one that's coming organically.

Speaker 2: Right. A lot of organizations will have multiple personas. So, for example, a hospital, they might have the young mother who wants to come in and check out their maternity services. They might have an elderly person who's interested in care for orthopedic care, things like that. They might even have parents who are looking for pediatric care, maybe even rare pediatric specialties. Considering all of those people as personas and really taking the time to find out, you know, what groups they're in on Facebook, what magazines they read, that can make all the difference in developing your omni-channel strategy because then you know where to put your marketing efforts.

Speaker 1: Great point. And, you know, we're big believers, you know, as any good agency or any good organization is for that matter, in starting with the right strategy, setting that first, understanding where you want to go, and then devising the plan for how you want to get there. You know, I don't think it can be said enough that it makes sense to refresh them, not stick with the same one because it's been tried and true and it won't always last. So knowing when to pivot, knowing what are like the right signs to pick up to be able to pivot, and then what are the different strategies or ways that you can then effectively change course.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been interesting being here and seeing how often something as simple as creating like promotion for one thing will turn into an entire like brand direction because they realize how successful it is. Things like a website becoming an app and further from that, you know, a database. It's really interesting how just one little project can suddenly transform your whole omni-channel approach.

Speaker 1: That's a great point because I'm sure, you know, in some of the cases that we've seen, it's that one little project, there was really some insight that went into it or some big thinking that helped power it.

Speaker 2: Segmentation is another aspect of omni-channel strategy that can really make or break your success. You know, having those personas and then segmenting your marketing. So when you send out an email, you're not just sending it to everyone. You're sending a specific email to maybe in the hospital example, you send a specific email to parents, you send a specific email to expecting mothers and so on and so forth. That allows you to craft your messaging across platforms from there. Obviously your social is going to be a mix of all those different kinds of platforms because it would be kind of silly to create a different social platform for each audience. Not unheard of, but a lot of brands can't really manage that. Having several different personas and creating marketing towards each of them allows you to really speak to people and really speak to specific things that they're concerned about. And it's been shown that segmentation, especially when it comes to email marketing, increases click through rate. And the more channels you're on, the better. I read somewhere that three or more channels increases your ROI 287% compared to just using a single marketing channel.

Speaker 1: That's significant. And I think that really speaks to what I'm hoping we'll cover in a later podcast, personalization and the importance of that and what does it mean. And when you think about how all of these different elements work together, omnichannel, personalization, authenticity, they're all speaking the same language about knowing who you are as a brand and knowing your consumer.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaking as someone who gets a lot of emails, personalization really, really works. It definitely gets me to click when the email says, Hey Max, what's going on? It feels conversational.

Speaker 1: Right. And it's targeted to your needs. Right. So I'm sure the email is coming to you because there was something that you had clicked on in a website or on social and that's related to a topic that you want to learn more about. So it's personalized in content. It's personalized in literal reference to you. So I know it makes such a difference because we're all inundated with emails and seeing something that's not personalized, there's no thought put into it, that's a blanket, that's not effective at all. And we tell our clients, you really do want to be thoughtful about what you're putting out there, who you're putting it out there to, what's your key message, what's your objective. A big part of that really, like driving down to the personalization and the person, personas,

Speaker 2: is key. We're all social creatures and we all want to be spoken to and I think that's the bottom line here.

Speaker 1: Brilliant. I couldn't have said it better myself.