Today’s high-tech, multichannel environment means that there’s never been a better time to be a customer making a purchasing decision. Many years ago, things were very different and these decisions were often made via two, or possibly three marketing channels. The traditional marketing bread and butter of the TV, print media and radio might once have been enough for brands to inform and educate prospective customers as to the virtues of their product or service. But today, the e-commerce driven world we live in makes this antiquated way of operating seem almost quaint by comparison – and it’s put the customer in the driving seat as a result.
Not only do today’s e-commerce consumers have access to these traditional tools, but they now also have access to vast array of powerful, high-speed alternatives. Websites, smartphones and social media are just a few of a seemingly endless number of channels, which can inform, persuade, educate and advise customers as to whether or not they are making the right decision in parting with their hard-earned cash. Perhaps the biggest paradigm of living in this new, connected world, is that although you might expect all of these additional channels to play into the hands of marketers, the reality is that, instead, it’s the customers themselves who are calling the shots.
Think about it. Customers have, necessarily, become more technologically savvy than ever before. What this means is that that they are not only well versed in controlling how and where they receive the information they need in order to make a purchasing decision, but that they are also, perhaps more importantly, extremely adept at filtering out channels which they deem to be irrelevant.
For this precise reason, today’s customers have become more difficult to reach than ever before. Advances in technology mean that they can be making purchasing decisions at home, at work, in store and on the move. Modern customers can also switch channels in the buying process from the website, to mobile, to the store and in-store kiosks, making them difficult to pin down and categorise as part of a single channel strategy. So what’s the answer? How can modern organisations maximise their reach in the new multichannel world?
The answer, of course, is to embrace an effective multichannel strategy that is designed to work, not just across one or two channel, but across the ‘omnichannel’. The key to this, and, as a result, the key to success for many modern day commerce organisations, is to formulate and execute a consistent message and experience that works across a number of different channels. If customers are proving difficult to reach, then it’s important to remember the age-old saying – that content truly is king.
Too often commerce organisations sit in separate, individual siloes, all of which use different messages for different channels. Today’s customers are more difficult to segment and profile in this way, which inevitably means a degree of overlap across a number of different channels from the same brand. Imagine, for a moment, that you are a customer, and that you see one message on, let’s say, a corporate website, and another, conflicting message on social channels. You’d most likely end up so confused that you’d give up and turn immediately to a competitor.
For this reason, commerce teams and marketers must take the time to work together to manage, merge and deliver a consistent experience across all channels. The key to reaching your customers and engaging with them in a meaningful way is to identify and use commerce systems that go beyond provide basic content management capabilities. Some of these systems are restricted in their ability to publish content to channels both inside and outside of the online shop it’s never been more important to make use of a system that ties all of your messages together and ensures consistency.
The ability to share content in multiple languages, and to provide support for managing dynamic, personalised content either for campaigns or content targeting can play a key role, here. Although it may well be true that there’s never been a better time to be a customer, there’s no reason why, with a little effort, brands can’t use the same channels and the same technology to reach their customers as well!
By Tim Jenkins, UK Director at e-Spirit.
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