Podcast episode 16 | October 3 - 2023

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:09:23

Bowie Fan

How can you help that client go above and beyond? So they’re being your advocate, right, pushing them towards that angle of really bringing more business to your organization.

00:00:13:23 – 00:00:20:11

Michael Cardoso

Hello and welcome to Brews and Buzzwords. My name is Michael Cardoso, and I am the Lead Content Producer here at NVISION.

00:00:20:11 – 00:00:33:05

Michael Cardoso

Today, we’re going to be talking about the omnichannel marketing approach. What is it? What does it look like? How can it benefit your business? And what are some pitfalls to avoid if you are considering this approach yourself?

00:00:33:05 – 00:00:45:06

Michael Cardoso

Today I am joined by our incredibly talented Bowie Fan, who is the Digital Marketing Strategist here at NVISION. Thank you so much for joining me today. And also, I believe we have another guest here if you wanna introduce him. 

00:00:45:06 – 00:00:53:15

Bowie Fan

Yeah, he’ll be sniffing around. Hopefully, the mics won’t pick up too much, but Koko’s here with us. He’s my little buddy, let’s call it.

00:00:53:15 – 00:01:02:15

Michael Cardoso

Amazing. Well, thanks again for joining us today and let’s get right into it. What is the omnichannel approach, and what does it look like?

00:01:02:15 – 00:01:18:08

Bowie Fan

Yeah, that’s a great place to start. I think when we talk omnichannel approach, it’s something that a lot of people tend to confuse. But in short, when it comes to omnichannel, it’s stringing along all the different major touchpoints of your customers journey for a seamless experience.

00:01:18:08 – 00:01:55:08

Bowie Fan

And what I mean by that is your marketing effectively acts like an orchestra where each different part, whether it’s the winds, the percussion, is playing and perfect symphony. In short, that might be your email marketing, aligning with what’s happening on site and what’s happening on Facebook, Instagram. I think a lot of the times when we think about how can we approach our marketing, people tend to confuse multichannel marketing for omnichannel and effectively when we’re talking about multichannel marketing, the difference is everything happens unattached to anything else.

00:01:55:08 – 00:02:28:12

Bowie Fan

For example, you might have a bakery that’s having a sale, a new product launch, and instead of customizing that message for the channel, it’s the same photo, image, copy that gets published to Facebook, your email, your website. But there’s so much more we can do if we’re talking about this bakery example, again, you can custom it, customize it with a welcome offer for new users or for returning loyal users to let them know that they can get first dibs or something like that.

00:02:28:12 – 00:02:40:17

Bowie Fan

So there’s a lot of nuance that can happen with omni channel, and we’ve seen the results of a proper omni channel approach and how we can increase sales, revenue, leads, and just overall customer satisfaction.

00:02:40:17 – 00:02:53:00

Michael Cardoso

Why doesn’t the more siloed approach work in the same way? Obviously use the symphony example you want to make sure everything is working in conjunction with each other, all the different channels and ways that you market to your clients.

00:02:53:00 – 00:02:59:06

Michael Cardoso

But why can’t you just do it in the siloed approach? What’s the what’s the big disadvantage to that?

00:02:59:06 – 00:03:09:06

Bowie Fan

So when we’re talking about the silo approach for a lot of businesses, that’s kind of where they start because that’s where it’s easy and scalable for that type of business, you know?

00:03:09:06 – 00:03:16:18

Bowie Fan

But the problem is you’re not taking consideration where your customer is. You’re not thinking about what are the actual channels are using.

00:03:16:18 – 00:03:38:08

Bowie Fan

I believe it was Google, 90% of consumers in general will require multiple devices to complete a single task. This could be research. This could be even just purchasing an item, right? So maybe you start looking at your phone, you find it on Instagram, and then you think back to a product you were looking for and you want to look it up and see if you can see it in store.

00:03:38:08 – 00:03:48:17

Bowie Fan

So you’re on Google looking it up on your computer right before you make your final purchase. Some people prefer to do it on mobile, some people prefer to do it on desktop because it feels more secure.

00:03:48:17 – 00:04:10:05

Bowie Fan

So the problem is when this experience isn’t seamless, and what I mean by that is, is your marketing put together in a way that the same person who already knows about you, who already understands your product, isn’t getting the same. By the way, this is who we are. Have you met us? It doesn’t feel personal, right? It doesn’t feel aligned with where they are in their journey.

00:04:10:05 – 00:04:28:13

Bowie Fan

They might have already started that relationship with you. I like thinking about existing customers. Right? Existing customers, for those who don’t know, are in a really, really important segment because existing customers are more likely to return and give you more money at higher rates or bring in new business by referrals.

00:04:28:13 – 00:04:37:19

Bowie Fan

So it’s so important that we are retaining those customers for long term growth, increasing that lifetime value right. That retention and satisfaction goes so far.

00:04:37:19 – 00:04:46:07

Bowie Fan

If I have an existing customer base, why would I use the same message, the same one on ones that they already know about my business?

00:04:46:07 –  00:05:17:01

Bowie Fan

They’ve gone through the purchasing cycle, they’ve gone through onboarding, right. Whatever that may be, whether it’s e-commerce or B2B, they don’t want to be bombarded with that same message. Instead, if we can tailor that messaging, maybe they’re on your email list, right? And they’re already using a particular product, you know, for a fact, Oh, this person, they love croissants right? You can further that messaging by letting them know, hey, if you love croissants, today’s croissant day, we’re celebrating with this. Would you like to come in and check it out by customer?

00:05:17:01 – 00:05:19:19

Michael Cardoso

Yes, I would like croissants please.

00:05:19:19 – 00:05:26:12

Bowie Fan

Yeah it’s amazing. But you want a more tailored experience because that personalization goes a lot further.

00:05:26:12 – 00:05:33:05

Bowie Fan

Another fantastic example that I like to reference that we do here at NVISION all the time is something like remarketing ads.

00:05:33:05 – 00:05:56:23

Bowie Fan

This is somebody who’s already in your lead funnel. They already know your name, they’ve already been on your website. They may be they follow you on social media and it’s just a matter of pushing them a little bit further down that customer journey to make the jump, to make the final leap of that conversion. So things like remarketing ads where they’re more tailored to what that specific person was looking at can provide fantastic results.

00:05:56:23 – 00:06:17:04

Michael Cardoso

So we already went over a lot of the benefits of the omnichannel approach, customer retention, building a consistent brand across all different platforms and in person. But I was wondering what does the omnichannel approach look like in terms of efforts and how does it differ depending on type and size of business? 

00:06:17:04 – 00:06:33:15

Bowie Fan

Yeah, that’s a great question. I think that’s why we see this divide between multichannel and omnichannel. When it comes to efforts, omnichannel does require a little bit more attention because you need someone or some visibility on what’s happening at the major touchpoints for your clients.

00:06:33:15 – 00:06:42:01

Bowie Fan

So in general, when it comes to the efforts, it does mean a lot more attention. But that attention does come back in terms of your ROI.

00:06:42:01 – 00:06:58:21

Bowie Fan

Based on the anecdotal stories of other organizations and hearing from large scale an omnichannel approach, which is just a little bit of extra attention, can increase your return on investment by over 10%, which it can be major, right? Depending on how much of a multimillion-dollar organization you are.

00:06:58:21 – 00:07:26:01

Bowie Fan

When it comes to the size of the business, however, the differences in short, could be now negligible. Depends on how complicated of a journey your customers are going through. Or we’re talking about local, small, B2B. It could be that extra hour every week to make sure everything’s seamless. And once it’s set up, you’re good to go right? But as we go to more complex journeys, so longer tail journeys, especially in the B2B sphere, that’s where that extra little attention goes a long way.

00:07:26:01 –  00:07:54:06

Bowie Fan

If your sales cycle is over a year, you can expect to have a lot more attention driven towards. Is your SEO messaging aligned with email marketing? Is your different channels, your Facebook, your LinkedIn, your Instagram, Twitter, what have you? Are they aligned with the users you want to push forward? Right? So it all does come together and it does require more attention the larger, more complicated that buyer process is, as well as the organization.

00:07:54:06 – 00:08:13:03

Michael Cardoso

We spoke about the benefits of the omnichannel approach, as well as what that might look like for different sizes of businesses. But I was wondering if you could dive a little bit more into the complexities and potential challenges of taking this approach versus other more typical marketing approaches?

00:08:13:03 – 00:08:26:09

Bowie Fan

I think when I talk, when we go into the complexities of it and how much more effort it takes, honestly, it does not have to be super complicated. I think that’s something a lot of people get intimidated by because it sounds like a lot.

00:08:26:09 – 00:08:38:23

Bowie Fan

What it really requires is sitting down and starting to ask what are the major touchpoints that are important to my customer in their journey? Where are they coming from? Where can I have those high peaks and the low lows?

00:08:38:23 – 00:09:03:09

Bowie Fan

And how can I make that journey better for them so they can have that strong experience? At the end of the day, omnichannel marketing needs two main factors, right? First, we need to be able to have that consistency so that customer can have a good relationship with the organization. Second, we have to be pushing the customer towards a certain action, a certain goal, right?

00:09:03:09 – 00:09:26:05

Bowie Fan

It could be retention, it could be overall satisfaction, it could be making that transaction. Once you have those two identified, you can figure out where are the next steps, right? Where is it worth putting your dollars, putting that investment? Right. All those efforts, right. Email marketing, LinkedIn verses Google My Business are all going to vary depending on that particular business.

00:09:26:05 – 00:09:32:17

Bowie Fan

If you’re a local, it’s going to look very different than if you’re a global multibillion dollar B2B business.

00:09:32:17 – 00:09:38:19

Michael Cardoso

Why might some brands fail with this approach? Like what are some common areas where companies get it wrong? 

00:09:38:19 – 00:09:51:11

Bowie Fan

I think when companies get it wrong, it’s usually because they don’t understand their customer. They don’t understand the major touchpoints that their customer needs to make that decision, or after they make that decision and make a purchase with you.

00:09:51:11 – 00:10:07:16

Bowie Fan

What’s most important thing for that customer to then come back to give you a review to become an advocate? So it’s all a matter of understanding what is a value and how can you make those particular highlights mean so much more to that person.

00:10:07:16 – 00:10:15:02

Michael Cardoso

Amazing. So knowing your customers, meeting them where they’re at and giving them high value content to keep them interested in the brand.

00:10:15:02 – 00:10:27:23

Bowie Fan

Not just high value content, but content that aligns with where they are in their journey. So it could be if they’re new to your business, they have never heard of you and they just happened to be on an email list, right with your material.

00:10:27:23 – 00:10:37:06

Bowie Fan

How do you make that first introduction? Or if they already happen with your business and they’ve been following you for a while, how do you get them to actually reach out to you?

00:10:37:06 – 00:10:55:08

Bowie Fan

Right. So understanding where they are in terms of their level of expertise, if they’re emotionally ready to make that jump. Right. And it might be or if there’s other stakeholders that they have to get involved, how do you make it easier for them to send out that information and get that approval, get that sign off and make that transaction.

00:10:55:08 – 00:11:13:11

Michael Cardoso

I wanted to highlight a success story, a brand that has done it right and has had a lot of success as a result of taking this omnichannel approach. One brand that comes to mind is Sephora. Can you tell us a little bit about how they took the approach and what success it generated for them?

00:11:13:11 – 00:11:34:09

Bowie Fan

Yeah, for sure. Sephora has always been leading when it comes to digital marketing and adopting digital strategies. In general, what Sephora has done is they’ve unified their customer experience, so it’s very seamless. You get your updates, they know exactly what products you’ve bought in the past. They even know what type of skin you have if you did one of their questionnaires, right.

00:11:34:09 – 00:11:53:00

Bowie Fan

So when it comes to Sephora for those who don’t know, it’s a major beauty company. They sell a lot of products, a lot of skin care, a lot of makeup, all those great things. And effectively what they’ve done is created a system where once you start engaging with Sephora, whether you decide to sign up for their beauty insider membership, right.

00:11:53:00 – 00:12:17:15

Bowie Fan

Which is in fact customer relationship management system, or you have bought something once from them or visited their website once, they’ve created a system where they already know, okay, this person is interested in these particular products, what we’re going to do is have something like a remarketing campaign for them. It might mean an email get sent out to say, Hey, by the way, we saw you’re interested in this product.

00:12:17:15 – 00:12:39:13

Bowie Fan

Here’s three other things that you might enjoy. Check them out right. They’re great for your dry skin. At the same time, they might show you those products again because you didn’t finish making that transaction as you’re surfing the Web. So maybe I started on my computer. I was looking up a new face cleanser, right. And I found $3 thinking about but didn’t really want to buy so I close that tab. 

00:12:39:13 – 00:13:01:19

Bowie Fan

And three days later I’m on my phone, I’m scrolling Instagram. I might see an ad for those exact products I was shopping for and go, Oh yeah, I wanted to actually buy one of those things and I’ll follow up, go through Sephora’s channels and of course be in their system by making that purchase. Once I have that purchase, Sephora’s able to better project and understand what my needs are, right?

00:13:01:19 – 00:13:15:12

Bowie Fan

So they may understand, okay, this person is really into skin care. So we’re going to give them more information that they might be interested in. Let them know about new product launches, let them know about things that are really important to them when it comes to their beauty.

00:13:15:12 – 00:13:33:00

Bowie Fan

So, Sephora’s been great in that they’ve launched a lot of apps as well. So there’s a seamless experience as you go from in-store to online to website to app to in-person. Again, when you’re talking to any of their their advisors in store, there’s a lot of opportunity there as a result.

00:13:33:00 – 00:13:38:23

Michael Cardoso

It’s great to see how these strategies work, especially when it’s a company of that scale.

00:13:38:23 – 00:14:04:00

Michael Cardoso

You can really see clearly how big an impact it has on their consumers and on the business itself. But let’s say I’m a small to medium sized business, not quite at the scale of Sephora yet, and I’m coming to you as a marketing strategist and asking for your tips on where do I even start with the omnichannel approach. What are some of the key takeaways that you want them to have if they’re just getting started with this?

00:14:04:00 – 00:14:19:14

Bowie Fan

The first thing you always have to identify is what are the important channels for my audience? You have to know who you’re talking to, right? I’m going to use the website Internet world very different than someone twice my age.

00:14:19:14 – 00:14:46:21

Bowie Fan

So when I navigate the world, I’m looking for different solutions, I’m looking for different things. I’m on different platforms, right? So I might be on TikTok, right? But my parents aren’t. As a result, it might be I need to engage with my businesses in social the way I need it, or email, right, or a website. As a result, once you identify your customer base, you understand them, highlight what are the key points in their journey that are really important.

00:14:46:21 – 00:15:00:00

Bowie Fan

Think about when do they first hear about you right? Or in general, when they’re looking for a solution, Where do they go? Do they come across in the world like just magically? Or is this a situation where they will seek you out as a solution.

00:15:00:00 – 00:15:08:15

Bowie Fan

As we get more and more complicated buying processes, it’s really important that businesses understand what are the key moments in their consumer journey.

00:15:08:15 – 00:15:34:22

Bowie Fan

What are people looking at? What are they researching before they even engage with you? So understanding when they become a client, how can you push them towards that decision? It might be the timeline, it might be the platforms. Right? And lastly, how can you help that client go above and beyond? So their being your advocate, right, pushing them towards that angle of really bringing more business to your organization.

 00:15:34:22 – 00:15:45:00

Bowie Fan

Once you have that settled, it’s a matter of analyzing your own marketing channels and seeing where are you missing the ball and working to improve that messaging to be more tailored.

00:15:45:00 – 00:15:51:05

Bowie Fan

Another wonderful thing about omnichannel is the fact that you diversify your marketing portfolio.

00:15:51:05 – 00:16:11:21

Bowie Fan

What I mean by that is you’re not relying on a particular system, a particular platform. You’re building also your own audiences with that. In short, we all know about social media algorithm changes, it messes everything up. So by having your own ownership of omni channel, you’re dispersing that risk instead of relying on only Facebook to drive your sales.

00:16:11:21 – 00:16:25:03

Bowie Fan

So with all that insight, look at your marketing. Try to understand where you might be missing the ball, where can customize our relationship a little bit further for that particular person where they are in their buyer journey.

00:16:25:03 – 00:16:43:02

Michael Cardoso

I think that’s great advice for anyone that’s looking into getting into this approach or at least exploring it. I see a ton of benefits and I think if it’s executed right, which from the sounds of it doesn’t have to be as complicated as it might seem, they can do a lot of good for a lot of businesses at any size.

00:16:43:02 – 00:16:58:21

Michael Cardoso

So I think that’s a great place to end it off. Thank you very much, Bowie, for joining us. This has been Brews and Buzzwords. If you enjoyed the video, please leave a like, comment and hit subscribe if you want to see more. Thanks again. Have a good one everyone.