
Omnichannel, the buzzword that seems more confusing the more it's used. We know that as marketers our goal is to expand the number of channels that we have permission to communicate on but just how do we connect all those channels for our customers?
Join us as Rytis Lauris demystifies omnichannel marketing and illustrates how our marketing efforts can be more effective by enhancing our omnichannel strategy through SMS, MMS and web push notifications.
Rytis Lauris is the co-founder and CEO of Omnisend, an ecommerce-tailored email & SMS marketing automation platform built to help nimble teams drive more revenue without increasing their workload. Rytis is a successful entrepreneur who has spent more than 10 years building and bootstrapping startups and working in the digital marketing and ecommerce field.
Omnichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing is about communicating with your customers in a channel (or channels) that they prefer - be it email, SMS, web push notifications. The customers should always be given the freedom to choose what channels they prefer for a brand to communicate with them.
Email Channel
Contrary to popular belief, email is not dead. It is still a very powerful tool to reach prospects and customers and to create repeat customers.
Email automation is a growing trend which is proving to generate more and more revenue. Rytis believes that this trend will continue and become increasingly more effective as marketers set up more automations to generate revenue.
We throw a lot of money into customer acquisition but retention marketing matters equally and sometimes even more. COVID demonstrated that in times of crisis customers are more likely to buy from the brands and stores they already know and have experienced. People tend to be more aware of where their hard earned money is going and they aren’t eager to risk purchasing from brands they don’t know.
Rytis strongly suggests that all eCommerce businesses that do email marketing should absolutely consider utilising automations as they are very very effective:
Automation are trigger based campaigns where content and the time of sending and the audience is being selected by a set of rules. When a customer triggers a set they begin to receive a predefined sequence of emails based on their behaviour and interaction with the brand.
SMS Channel
SMS marketing is a very effective medium but still under utilised across the market in general. People don't receive as many text messages as they do emails. The great thing about SMS marketing is that the messages are immediate and it's almost impossible for the customer to to avoid opening or seeing its content.
SMS marketing used to be very spammy and intrusive but customers are more likely to now allow brands to communicate with them via SMS because they are given the opportunity to unsubscribe at any time.
Rytis strongly suggests that marketers make a shift in their understanding of their subscribers and request multiple permissions form the same customer:
Omnichannel is all about the customers ability to choose which is the best channel for the brand to communicate with them.
Rytis recommends that marketers use SMS for automations too as they can prove effective when running campaigns with limited time offers. It’s a great way to incentivise customers and it is immediate in comparison to emails which are much easier to ignore.
Further, SMS offers an extremely high return on investment, especially right now as it is an under utilised channel.
Web Push Notifications Channel
Web push notifications are pop ups that we request permission to send push notifications to your desktop browsers as well as in your mobile browsers.
Push notifications are more or less for free and so have the ability to create an extremely good return on your investment.
How to Source Subscribers for Omnichannel Marketing
Just ask for permission.
Be creative - use pop ups that are less disruptive and intrusive. You could consider using them after a user has been on a particular page for 10-20 seconds or when they click through to a third page. Waiting to use pop-ups shows the customers level of engagement and so their likelihood of interacting with the pop up. You can use specific pop ups for specific pages on your site or take a one-size-fits-all approach.
The main thing to remember is that the pop ups need to be contextual. The more contextualised they are the more willing users will be to exchange their information.
Incentives also work as long as they are related to what you sell. Rytis gives the example, if you sell shoes you can incentivise with a discount on a product, or a free pair of shoes or a free consultation.
Conclusion
Email is highly effective and even more so when augmented with SMS, MMS and push notifications. It can massively increase your revenue, which is the main goal of any business.
The full show transcript is available for download here.
Show Links
2020 Ecommerce Statistics Report: Email, SMS & Push Messaging Insights For 2021:
https://www.omnisend.com/resources/reports/ecommerce-statistics-report-2021/