Digital ubiquity and consumers’ ability to seamlessly shift between the offline and online retail worlds has rapidly transformed e-commerce. Today’s “connected” consumers have become channel agnostic with regard to how they engage with a brand or retailer – from their desktops, mobile phones, and tablets, to bricks-and-mortar interactions.
Wherever and however consumers are interacting with brands, they’re providing critical insights that can be mined, examined, and ultimately activated by retailers in service of their omni-channel strategy – purchase patterns, social network affinities, website visits, coupon redemption rates, and loyalty programs. These insights can then be used to create and target custom messages that more effectively speak to consumers as they move fluidly across digital environments by highlighting the brand experience – not the channel.
As omni-channel retail moves quickly from being marketing lingo to the de facto application of a cross-platform strategy focused on the needs, wants, and behaviors of connected consumers, retailers are up against formidable competition with an increasing number of powerhouse brands adopting their own version of omni retail strategies.
Macy’s recently referred to itself as an omni-channel organization by no longer differentiating sales by channel and instead focusing on a blended retail experience through its stores, mobile, and internet presence. The heritage brand is also using its app to interact with in-store consumers, along with providing touchscreen self-checkout options. Many more retail giants are following in those footsteps, like Best Buy, which has created a more streamlined online/offline retail experience that caters to people who want to price and buy their products online, but pick them up in a bricks-and-mortar retail location.
Here are tips for retailers to get ahead in an omni-channel world:
• Align messaging. Capture consumer behavioral data across media and marketing tactics, purchase and brand engagement channels, and house it all in a single technology platform for a holistic, single view of the consumer. Then activate those learnings through a multi-level marketing program that aligns messaging to consumers for a more personalized and relevant experience by channel.
• Internal reorientation. Successful execution depends on executive buy-in, technology infrastructure investment to support omni-channel fulfillment, sales training, and a reorientation of a retail brand’s goals and strategy for meeting the needs of their customers.
• Minimize friction. As the consumer moves between online and offline access points, retail personnel should be armed with a solid understanding of the organization’s omni-channel strategy so that they can provide a seamless, interconnected brand experience. This might mean ensuring that compensation and performance measurement align with driving customer engagement and sales, regardless of channel, i.e. an in-store employee is educated on inventory and assortment options by channel and rewarded for enabling customers to explore (and hopefully purchase!) items online that are not available in-store.
• Leverage data. Third-party data companies can offer tremendous insights by collecting and normalizing information about past purchase behavior (in most cases down to the brand level), current intent to purchase a specific product, and general interests and passions. As you examine this data across the various consumer segments and profiles, you can see the similarities and differences between each segment and then target/message appropriately based on the unique characteristics/attributes of each profile.
• Create “yes, and” partnerships. In collaboration with ad tech and agency partners, omni-channel retailers can be better prepared to not only engage consumers, but reach them when they’re most receptive. Ad tech partners can construct and analyze a single view of the consumer for the planning, execution, measurement, and optimization of marketing programs. Simultaneously, agency partners can offer strategic insight into best practices, media buying, data co-ops, and creative scalability that will push a retail brand front and center in the consumers’ minds.
• Bring a platform in-house. Even if a brand never plans to bring the execution of a programmatic strategy in-house, owning the right ad tech platform can help a retail brand understand what media works and what doesn’t with regard to reaching and attracting consumers and prospects. The applications and utility of the data housed in a platform like MediaMath, for example, can expand far behind targeted media. Retailers can leverage this data to determine in-store vs. online product assortment, design fulfillment strategies, adjust creative messages based on a deeper understanding of their customers by and across channels, or determine ideal shopper marketing partners.
Learn more about MediaMath Retail here.