An enterprise marketing technology company, Terragon, has tasked brands with more investments in omnichannel marketing strategy, saying it is a sure way to hold their customers in today’s dynamic market.
Chief Executive Officer of the company, Elo Umeh, in a chat with newsmen recently, advised brands to adopt an omnichannel strategy if they must continue to deliver top-notch customer experience.
Terragon employs the use of data and analytics to help companies connect at scale to their customers.
Omni-channel marketing strategy is a customer service approach that offers integrated engagement to a customer’s multi-channel activities.
The approach, according to Umeh, becomes necessary now that technology advances, and appears to have integrated more into people’s daily lives.
His opinion is that as the lines between what people do online and in real life begin to blur, and as people change their behaviors, businesses will need to react accordingly.
He said: “In the past, brands could easily define the message and pre-determine the pathway of the customer’s journey. However, with consumers’ embrace of multiple devices like mobile, email, web, POS, among others, as interaction points, the journey is now multi-dimensional, across multiple platforms. This means that customers can appear at any time online or offline. The reality is that the path to conversion is now completely owned by the customer.”
Umeh further explained that amidst the multiplicity of devices and platforms, the consumer also wants a seamless personalized experience across all platforms and devices.
For him, today’s consumer doesn’t want to interact with an Advert through SMS and still gets bombarded with that same Advert when he logs into his Facebook account on the web.
This is where Omnichannel Marketing becomes important. Omnichannel marketing pulls the customer into the centre of the strategy, and the channels that the customer uses to engage with the brand not only have a unified message, but that message adapts to each touchpoint a customer has with the brand. This means that the messages the customer sees, regardless of the channel, will update once the customer has taken the desired action.
“For instance, with omnichannel marketing, a bank customer who starts an account opening session on his mobile, but drops off and later logs into his Facebook account, should see an ad reminding him to continue with the account opening, from where he stopped rather than being targeted as a new lead. This will guarantee a top-notch customer experience and reduce cost on ad spend”.
He however noted that some forward-looking brands are already investing in omnichannel marketing and delivering top-notch experiences to their customers, noting that these are the brands that will continue to lead the market.
Umeh’s views are corroborated by a Forbes report which states that brands with superior customer experience bring in 5.7 times more revenue than competitors that lag in customer experience.
Forbes said that 86 per cent of buyers will pay more for a great customer experience. Also, a recent PwC report, highlighted that the number of companies that invest in omnichannel marketing has jumped from 20 per cent to more than 80 per cent since 2020.
