Mastering Omni-Channel Marketing: Key Steps for Seamless Customer Experiences (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: In today's digital first world, companies need to provide seamless customer experiences in order to survive. For marketers, this means fully embracing omni-channel as part of their current vision. 71% of customers are already using multiple channels to start and complete their transactions. And they expect a cohesive customer journey across both channels and devices. Each moment is critical to building trusted relationships and requires marketers to truly understand each customer, engage with intelligence, and optimize the impact of every campaign. But great omni-channel marketing doesn't just happen overnight. So we've broken it down into three key steps to help get you there. Step one, onboard your customers. We all know how important first impressions are. They set the tone for a relationship, greet someone inappropriately, and they're likely to be less interested in getting to know you. But welcome them with open arms, a friendly smile, and genuine interest, and you're likely off to a great start. For marketers, things are no different. We're in the relationship game, so treating customers like you treat new acquaintances is imperative. When a customer first comes to your business, the onboarding process is your first impression. So what do you need to be thinking about? Well, first and foremost, it's the greeting. A warm welcome makes individuals feel comfortable. Marketers should focus on this for every customer they engage with. Fortunately, they've come to you, so you already know their name and some other basic details. Use what you know to personalize that first encounter, such as a welcome email. Then use that as a launchpad for getting to know them better. As time goes on, to learn more about your customer. This is comparable to asking new acquaintances questions. And as you learn more, you can then tailor the engagements so that they resonate more deeply with each individual. Step 2. Activate your first party data. Okay, so you've passed the acquaintance phase. Your new friends, your customers, have been embraced with open arms and they've been interacting with your business for a few months now. With any relationship, as you move through different phases, you learn more about the other person, which enables you to bring more value to the friendship. For marketers, it's no different. Every customer engagement provides us with insights we can then use to enhance future interactions. This could be the types of content they click on, the channels they engage with, or their buying habits. In person-to-person relationships, we call these behaviors. In marketer-to-customer relationships, behaviors are showcased in the form of first party data. This information can be used to personalize every interaction. For example, if a customer doesn't open an email, you can advertise to them or engage via mobile instead. If a customer responds best to what's new, you can optimize engagements around new releases. By putting your first party data to work, you can make experiences less generic and more human. Step 3. Measure your marketing. Marketers are all about growth, learning, understanding, and evolving. In marketing, learning comes through measurement. As individuals, we measure how people respond to things all the time, and we consider those responses in deciding how we behave day-to-day. This is the same process that occurs between brands and customers. Marketers need to constantly measure what works and what doesn't in order to grow their business and drive customer lifetime value. And this can be done through both individual and aggregate insights. Individual insights, where a single person tells you something, such as they dislike the color red, is the equivalent of receiving a review from a customer about a recent product they've purchased. It's specific to them. Aggregate insights, on the other hand, like when you get a bad haircut and everyone agrees, is the equivalent to a poor open rate on a batch and blast email. Both of these measurements are valuable to marketers as they teach you specifics about your audience, such as personal preferences, but also general information that can be applicable to all. To ensure customers are receiving the best possible experience, marketers must pay attention to both types of measurements. To do this at scale is where great analytics tools and AI can help. That's all we have for you today. To learn more, head over to Trailhead and check out this mix.