[#2_Eng] Omnichannel - One Of The Most Popular Multiple Channels Sales Solutions Nowadays

Omnichannel is a common term in business and marketing. This is also one of the most effective tools for sales support methods that most businesses are aiming for. What is Omnichannel? Let's learn more about this interesting business media model.

1. What is Multichannel Marketing?

Multichannel marketing can be interpreted as the implementation of business marketing campaigns on a variety of platforms aimed at a wide variety of customers. Marketing platforms include online marketing (social networks, email, SMS...) and Direct (stores, events, banners, posters...)

After a period of execution of multichannel sales deployments, businesses realize some problems arise such as:

● Managing customer information data becomes troublesome.

● Each marketing channel has a different customer list, resulting in duplicate customer files across multiple marketing channels of the business.

● Each marketing channel has a different advertising campaign, which consumes time, money and effort when deploying each channel manually.

● Unable to control and monitor the effectiveness of each campaign one by one.

From these issues, businesses have started implementing Multichannel and Omnichannel models.

Learn about multi-channel marketing

2. What is Omnichannel?

Omnichannel is a multi-channel communication model known to many in today's technological age. This is a broad communication method that helps business people or business owners reach customers across a variety of platforms and they work consistently across the same business system.

What is Omnichannel Marketing? In a word, we do marketing activities on the Omnichannel platform including running ads, interacting and creating user experiences on online platforms (website, social network, email...) and also offline (events, shops, flyers, posters...) and these activities must be in a unified and closely linked form.

In fact, Omnichannel sales is an effective solution that most businesses are aiming for. However, this is not simple because businesses need to connect and monitor customer engagement at all channels in their Omnichannel system. Therefore, Omnichannel makes the brand identity more widely covered and gets closer to the future potential customers.

What is the Omnichannel model?

3. What factors form the Omnichannel model?

Here are some factors that help form the Omnichannel multichannel sales model:

● Multi-channel sales

Multichannel sales solutions are one of the key factors contributing to the Omnichannel model. Because Omnichannel is a collection of multimedia channels both online and offline, and between them, there is a close connection with each other. This makes it possible for businesses to connect with a huge number of customers, increase brand awareness and increase sales revenue.

● Multi-point marketing

The method of Marketing through Omnichannel is appreciated by most experts in the field of brand advertising by multi-point marketing. According to a survey, customers will intend to make purchases if brand names and ads appear on the devices or channels they are interacting with more than 20 times. The advantage of Omnichannel will help sellers increase brand name impressions with potential customers across various channels, helping them remember your name forever.

● Centralized data management

Managing multi-channel marketing with multiple Marketing strategies will be a challenge for businesses. This will make the business overloaded, discrete and out of control. Omnichannel's strong point is that the set of all channels of information must be synchronized and unified to help sellers easily manage on the same interface.

Some elements that form the Omnichannel model

3. Differences between Omnichannel and Multichannel

Nowadays, some businesses also have virtual access to Multichannel and Omnichannel methods. It sounds like these two terms are quite similar but there are some differences between them that you need to keep in mind:

• Omnichannel provides sellers with a system of channels of information that seamlessly and consistently reach potential customers. This method is personalized across all devices, creating an easy experience for a consistently large number of customers.

• Multichannel on the other hand is just stretching across all the different communication channels which operate independently and are managed separately. Hence, customers’ experiences with Multichannel will not be seamless and consistent.

Some researches on the Multichannel operations of some businesses show that:

• About 90% of customers expect a consistent experience across all channels they use. (Source: sdl.com)

• 89% of customers expressed frustration at repeating their problems in each channel they interact with. (Source: accenture.com)

• 61% of customers say they have difficulty switching between channels, making the process of purchasing and using services more difficult. (Source: blogs.aspect.com)

• About 87% of customers believe that businesses need more effort in brand development and provide a more seamless and unified user experience. (Source: iqmetrix.com)

Differences between Omnichannel and Multichannel

4. Advantages and disadvantages of Omnichannel

4.1. What are the benefits Omnichannel brings to your business?

Here are some of the benefits that the Omnichannel model brings to businesses:

● Increase revenue effectively:

When applying sales deployments on Omnichannel, businesses will have the ability to increase their brand's awareness across a variety of platforms. From there, you will reach many potential customers. No matter what channel customers choose to shop through, they still get the most complete and consistent experience from the business. This helps them increase their shopping behavior and the decision to press the purchase button which helps to increase sales efficiency.

● Best customer support:

Surely your customers don't want to be forced to buy with one or two complex methods of purchase, there are even faulty methods that prevent them from operating. So Omnichannel will be a suitable option for businesses to interact directly with customers, understand and solve the problems that customers are facing more quickly.

● Increase customer loyalty:

Using Omnichannel's intelligent data collection and analysis methods, businesses can fully learn the behavior and preferences of each group of customers on each channel. Eventually, you will know customer tastes to plan marketing strategies in the most appropriate way to capture customer psychology, improve the quality of service and handle issues that customers are facing. This will help loyal customers return to purchase more and more.

● Easy internal control:

Omnichannel's advantage is a seamless and unified distribution channel system, so businesses can completely control all pages at once, how to implement Marketing campaigns easier and faster.

4.2. What are the drawbacks of Omnichannel??

Besides the advantages that the Omnichannel model offers, this method also has limitations that businesses should note before kicking off:

● Must renew the structure

To effectively apply the Omnichannel model in the business, it requires sellers to implement processes that change the appropriate organizational structure and ensure multi-channel sales results according to the model. Most businesses have their own marketing departments (both online and offline) but it is important to unify the marketing departments together, developing customer support groups to gain greater efficiency. However, in today's economic era, this problem is still a challenge for businesses.

● Financial risk

Omnichannel is a communication model that makes it possible for businesses to reach multiple potential customers across multiple channels. This will cause some businesses to invest heavily in personnel, sales productivity and resource risks from channels.

● The model is new

Omnichannel is quite new to some small and medium-sized businesses or stores. So they are considering whether to risk investing in a high budget to implement advertising campaigns using this model. In addition, with today's technological development, this model requires the quality of customer service which depends on each type of business.

Omnichannel has pros and cons

5. Some tips to start building an Omnichannel model to grow your business

To contribute to promoting sales strategies on Omnichannel, here are some tips you should know:

● Find out the suitable audience

This is the very important first step in setting up a marketing plan on the Omnichannel system. First of all, the business needs to determine who are the ideal customers. What are their needs? And what will we do to meet their needs? Specifically, you will need to define clearly your customers ' demographics, interests, and behaviors by setting up survey questionnaires, interviews, and collecting data from the customers you want to target.

● Selecting the right sales channels

Nowadays, Omnichannel systems have many types of channels used for sales, but businesses will have to choose which is the most suitable. You will have to study where your customers are interacting or accessing, at what time, with what technology devices... from which, you need to research and choose the appropriate channels and long-term development potential for the business.

● Set specific goals

Before you do anything, you will need to have a goal, otherwise you will easily get lost in the middle of the field. Therefore, identifying sales targets on Omnichannel is extremely necessary. This is because you will have to regularly check the route of development of the channel, the circulation of the customer journey on the channels is proportional to the stated goal or not. From there, you will need to come up with the next accurate steps.

For example, your business is targeting sales of cosmetics or clothing for 18-30-year-old customers, who love content about shopping, beauty or entertainment. Media channels like TikTok or Facebook will be the right platform for you to promote content to attract more people.

● Connection between channels 

This is a crucial step when your business wants to develop sales on the Omnichannel model. To be able to link sales channels together, you will need appropriate technology and software support, from manipulations such as customer management, content management, products, messages…

Moreover, this will help businesses manage their platforms better. Especially, the mindset of customers changes frequently so the measurement and study of customer procurement behavior is more easily intervened if the channels are connected.

● Monitor channels regularly

After successfully performing the above steps, you need to spend time checking the Omnichannel model regularly. Therefore, you will need to check the effectiveness of measuring in stages and different types of channels. In case there are problems in the customer journey or technological difficulties, they should be solved quickly.

Some tips to help businesses successfully deploy Omnichannel Marketing

6. Some mistakes when selling on Omnichannel

Omnichannel is a fairly new business term, but most businesses are geared towards this model to develop multichannel communications. However, some businesses seem to fail to operate Omnichannel without understanding the following mistakes:

• Spread out too many sales channels

Many businesses think that the more channels distribute brand images, the higher the revenue efficiency comes from customers. However, following the trend without careful consideration of the size of business, human resources and investment, many businesses are prone to drowning from the sales channels they create. Even some channels are left without customer services, causing a growing number of potential customers.

• Slow to change or too Global

According to some surveys, about 40% of businesses in Vietnam own 2 or more sales channels. At the same time, the shopping behavior of customers also changes and tends to experience more channels. Therefore, some businesses focus on one or too few sales channels, and it will be difficult to improve revenue sources, while competitors have gone a step further.

● Orders are not managed thoroughly

Companies need to hire additional inspectors and processing teams concentrated in different sales channels to ensure Omnichannel's systemicity. Otherwise, independent processing will become fragmented and heterogeneous, which will take many businesses quite a bit of processing time.

Business Mistakes When Doing Omnichannel Marketing

7. Some case studies relating to Omnichannel Marketing

It can be said that Omnichannel is considered a method to make Marketing more effective. Here are some successful Omnichannel campaigns coming from famous businesses around the world:

7.1. Disney- Large-scale Omnichannel Marketing campaign

Disney can be said to be one of the brands associated with childhood for generations. Wherever you are, you can connect with the Disney brand like in the park, store or their own website without interruption. Disney's content is consistent on every platform.

In addition, Disney creates a good combination of channels such as Disney helps you find the path to the park in the nearest way, check waiting times at games, and queue online via Fast Pass - a digital ticket system that helps control people when queuing long and completely free.

Not only that, Disney also invented the Mickey Mouse bracelet - which allows users to shop for goods, which makes the camera take pictures throughout the day or helps you return to the hotel room safely.

It can be said that Disney has had great success by adopting the Omnichannel model to make the customer experience richer and more convenient.

Disney's Mickey Mouse electronic bracelet helps users enhance the experience

7.2. Netflix- Consistently personalize users

Netflix is a multi-platform entertainment brand that is trusted by many people today. Netflix has personalized and created a different experience journey for each user. For example, when a user logs into a Netflix account from a Laptop or phone, they are welcomed with a TV program or a movie depending on their preferences.

Netflix is also advanced in adopting the Omnichannel model by suggesting the best and most unique content in each account's private messages. Here, customers can easily click to view, share with friends or download immediately.

Netflix has successfully adopted Omnichannel Marketing

7.3. Hootsuite - Personal connection at every action

Hootsuite is a well-known software company, intending to provide media channel management services to other businesses, helping them to effectively measure their Omnichannel model. Hootsuite itself succeeds in the Omnichannel model that it builds with the message: of connecting individuals in every action.

Just having someone connect with Hootsuite, whether they are right on their channel or at an event or another media channel, they are welcomed by Hootsuite's branded hilarious visuals.

Hootsuite - Personal connection at every action

8. Some support tools for Omnichannel

To help businesses operate effectively on Omnichannel, here are some tools to help with Omnichannel Marketing:

• Digital Asset Management (DAM): The software provides a library of images, videos or other digital assets of the brand. The software enables the design of advertising assets suitable for each customer, with each different type of channel that creates general consistency. At the same time, this tool helps automate outdated assets, no longer following trends, helping businesses catch up with the times more.

Digital Asset Management (DAM)

• Product Information Management (PIM): This is software that aggregates and manages all information about the products of the enterprise. For example, information about product descriptions, colors, prices, features... you can manage and update a variety of information to other platforms easily and accurately.

Product Information Management (PIM)

• Customer Relation Management (CRM): This is the software that helps stores to collect all the information about customers so that the business can track the most potential customers. Not only that, CRM is a tool to help businesses discover the customer experience journey and the problems that arise in the journey so that there is timely intervention.

Customer Relation Management (CRM)

Hopefully, the above article will answer your questions about Omnichannel, The Difference Between Omnichannel and Multichannel, successful case studies, and some tips to help you execute a successful Omnichannel Marketing campaign.