4 Omnichannel Marketing Campaigns That You Can Learn From
June 22, 2018 - 12 minutes readThese four campaigns prove the power of omnichannel marketing
“Stop thinking of your customers in terms of “X” number of leads down the funnel. Treat them as real people and focus on personalizing each of their interactions and experiences with your brand.” – Daniel Newman
As the contemporary consumer becomes more empowered, switched on and tuned in, it’s the responsibility of today’s brands and business to offer a seamless user experience across every marketing channel and touchpoint.
At present, 72% of adults prefer communication with companies in a digital context. Moreover, 60% of millennials expect a consistent brand experience across all consumer touchpoints, whether in-store, online, or by phone.
That said, to engage your prospects on every level and at every stage of their journey, developing a cutting-edge omnichannel marketing campaign or initiative is vital. It’s the way to survive, and indeed thrive, in a hyper-connected, highly competitive digital world.
To help you understand omnichannel marketing in a practical sense so that you can use these core principles to your advantage, we’re going to explore four truly innovative campaigns and what makes them so effective.
But before that, let’s consider what this ever-evolving marketing discipline is and what it means.
What is omnichannel marketing?
Fundamentally, omnichannel marketing is an extension or evolution of the multichannel marketing approach. While multichannel marketing is the implementation of a single strategy across a range of touchpoints from customized landing pages to social media, omnichannel marketing uses these various mediums to focus on a fully-integrated consumer experience.
As it’s now possible for consumers to engage with a company in a brick-and-mortar store, via a website, on a mobile application, through social media, or by using online chat services, brands must develop digital marketing campaigns that address their pain points and offer a consistent level of customer experience across the spectrum. To sum up, they need omnichannel marketing.
A particularly astute definition of the omnichannel marketing experience comes from John Bowden of Time Warner:
“Multichannel is an operational view – how you allow the customer to complete transactions in each channel. Omnichannel, however, is viewing this experience through the eyes of your customer, orchestrating the customer experience across all channels so that it is seamless, integrated, and consistent. Omnichannel anticipates that customers may start at one channel and move to another as they progress to a resolution. Making these complex hand-offs between channels must be fluid for the customer. Simply put, omnichannel is multichannel done right.”
Innovative omnichannel marketing campaigns
It’s clear that to engage your target audience in a way that will yield valuable long lasting relationships, taking an omnichannel approach is essential.
To put this notion into a more practical perspective, here are four innovative brands that are currently leading the way with their cohesive, forward-thinking, and evenly developed omnichannel marketing campaigns.
Disney
Media mogul Disney needs little introduction. With a successful career spanning decades, Walt Disney’s motion pictures continue to dazzle audiences today – and one of the biggest drivers of the brand’s success is its ability to adapt to change, remaining relevant and even innovative as a result. It’s tourism-based omnichannel marketing experience is no exception.
As the anchor or lynchpin of its consumer offerings, Disney’s mobile-optimized site is responsive, intuitive, and performs just as efficiently as its desktop site with functionality that is specific to smartphone or tablet use. Along with this, Disney’s trip planning website also works seamlessly in smartphones, making it simple to conduct research and book tailored excursions while on the move.
What’s particularly unique about Disney Park’s omnichannel experience is that upon booking, it’s possible to use the My Disney desktop or mobile application to pre-plan the itinerary of your entire trip, from dining to queue jumper passes, with stats on each attraction from peak visiting periods to average wait times.
Taking this concept into the physical realm, Disney’s Magic Band sits on a visitor’s wrist, acting as a customized room key, fast-track ride pass activation device, food ordering tool, photo storage facility, and more. A testament to the integrated possibilities of omnichannel marketing and how it’s possible to seamlessly bridge the gap between the digital and physical world.
Chipotle
An early adopter of the omnichannel experience, established restaurant franchise Chipotle has taken decisive measures to enter the arena, inspired by a desire to eliminate a common issue present in the fast food industry: placing an order online, only to discover that the restaurant hadn’t received the instructions of your purchase by the time you arrive at the store.
By adopting an integrated approach to this age-old solution, Chipotle has developed a platform that makes it simple to place food orders, big or small, from a number of locations at your convenience.
After identifying that the brand was suffering from dwindling sales, Chipotle optimized its in-house ordering systems and desktop-based menus and also launched a cutting-edge mobile ordering application with a flawless level of user experience (UX) that makes the processes of choosing, placing, and receiving an order an intuitive experience, boasting simplicity from start to finish.
As a result of this initiative, the company saw a 40% boost in sales around one year after the launch. Since this triumph, the brand has continued to evolve its omnichannel experience with improved consumer content and enhanced functionality across all primary touchpoints.
Glade
As one of the world’s most renowned air fragrance brands, Glade has become somewhat of a household name over the years.
Based on the understanding that the scent has a direct impact on human emotion, sparking feelings of nostalgia, the innovative brand set up a pop-up installation, housed within a portable 5,300-square-foot building in Manhattan’s Financial District. This physical display featured a multitude of rooms that leveraged the power of touch, sound, visuals, and smell to spark strong emotions in its various visitors.
To accompany its ‘Museum of Feelings’ experience, Glade launched a dedicated microsite explaining the concept while helping to immerse the consumer in the campaign, and promoted the initiative across its social media platforms with the #MusuemofFeelings hashtag.
Within the exhibition itself, visitors were immersed in a kaleidoscopic sensory experience based on Glade’s new range of fragrances, passing through a multitude of themed rooms that changed colour to reflect the mood of the city based on a host of real-time trends, statistics, and digital data.
A true testament to the potential of omnichannel marketing, this mind blowing campaign won a host of industry awards while propelling the brand into the new age, securing its place in tomorrow’s fragrance sector as a result.
Crate & Barrel
Trendy homewares chain Crate & Barrel turned heads with its omnichannel marketing program, developed in conjunction with CloudTags. Since its launch, the campaign has been referred to as the ‘Connected Store and Mobile Totes experience’.
At its core, the brand’s omnichannel development utilized mobile tablets throughout its various homeware stores, each of which acts as a mobile tote bag, hence the name.
These mobile tote bags offer customers the ability to scan product barcodes and learn more about them before making an informed purchasing decision. This information can include anything from the colors a product is available in to its consumer reviews and testimonials.
As these in-store assistants also offer a wishlist-making facility, should a visitor not make a physical purchase, by entering their email address they can access the said list from their mobile or desktop and continue their buyer journey elsewhere. Moreover, the cookie-based model also allows Crate & Barrel to offer their store visitors a superior level of personalization across all its channels and touchpoints.
This tech-driven omnichannel approach earned the brand a 10% sales increase within two months of testing Mobile Totes in their Skokie, Illinois store.
There’s no denying it: omnichannel marketing is the way forward for today’s brands and business. Regardless of your product, service, industry or sector, you have to create an experience that not only stands out from the crowd, but is so seamless, little thought or effort is required to navigate the buying processes. It doesn’t matter if a consumer starts in-store, in app, on social media, or on a desktop, every one of your digital assets must mesh seamlessly – and these four examples will help you in your quest for omnichannel domination.
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