OMNI-VABLE!

Chapter 10: Omnichannel Marketing for Brand Commitment Integrating Traditional and Digital Media and Experiences

I just came across a new word which is OMNICHANNEL Marketing. The book defines this as the practice of integrating multiple channels to create a seamless and consistent experience. My only recollection of OMNI was that of a computer game which I purchased before called OMNI SPORTS Basketball. This was a definitely ahead of its time as it you were able to act as a General Manager and control your own team.

You could experience the whole basketball experience as if you were living the game since you controlled your players and season. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute till my players turned 42 (which was the age limit).

Relating this to marketing, OMNI sports ventured into various sports games such as Football and baseball. This was way before EA Sports dominated the gaming market. This was done to create interest with various sports enthusiasts. The chapter explained the trends that todays' generation is looking for now.

TREND 1: Focusing on Mobile commerce in the "Now" Economy.

Time is so important for the millennials. This is their "me" time and their solution to connect sellers and buyers. Marketers nowadays are looking for solutions to connect to their customers with the use of wearables or real time marketplaces. People who rely on Netflix or Ubers rely on connectivity.

TREND 2: Bringing "Webrooming" into Offline channels

Here the internet of things is discussed in detail. Sensor technologies play a major role in providing solutions to their customers. By providing beacons, information can be transformed from the retailers to the smartphones of the customers. This can improve sales as well.

TREND 3: Bringing "Showrooming" into Online Channels

Human-to-human interaction is critical here. Virtual shopping is put to another level in the example in the book. Tesco creates this avenue of shopping while still riding the station. Being able to connect the physical location to the virtual location is such a challenge for online shopping.

For marketers to be able to create that Omnichannel experience, they need to view the customer path on a more granular level. You need to integrate the physical and digital channel through 3 steps.

Step 1: Mapping all Touch Points and Channels Across the Customer Path. By answering the 5 A’s

By learning which touchpoints is proper, marketers would be able to determine the right channel on how to promote the idea (such as social media, Banner ads or showroom). This can be either offline or online. Don't expand the coverage too much but find the right balance. This is very difficult to accomplish if you do not know your customers.

Step 2: Identify the Most Critical Touch Points and Channels

This can lead into various customer path scenarios of marketing execution. It may lead to the same result but the conversion rate may differ per each path taken. By analyzing the various paths you would be able to determine the most popular path.

Step 3: Improve and Integrate the Most Critical Touch points and Channels

Once the path has been identified, you need to operationalize the technology in the most seamless way. Additional financial resources might be needed to attain such customer experience. At the end of the day you need to make everyone on board of your new touchpoint on how you want to reach out to your customers.

We need to combine the immediacy of online channels and intimacy of offline channels, wearable or not this is the way of the future.

In a blog posted by blog.thinque.com.au, they explain that more and more interesting trends continue to develop in the digital age. These business trends definitely show how ominchannel marketing is shaping up. As early as 2015, these business trends have been shaping the futurists perspective.

https://blog.thinque.com.au/top-10-business-trends-of-2015-from-a-futurists-perspective

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:

A. What are the most important customer touch points and channels for your business?

Our customers definitely learn about our product, right within our city. Practically every major street corner would have our company logo since we are an energy company and everyone make use of our product. Banner ads are quite prevalent in our stations.

We still continue to use TV commercials to inform our customers on the latest developments but I still believe that our social media should be improved.

B. Have you aligned the channels to support a seamless and consistent experience?

Our social media app still needs fixing as it doesn't fully complete the whole experience. A lot of our experience only begins on the human-to-human aspect at the station level. Hopefully our social media app can be improved to further provide a more seamless experience on the online channel aspect.