Chart of the Day: A shockingly low rate of personalization of the customer journey is revealed
The growth in use of mobile devices and increasingly complex customer journeys means that multichannel retailers need to deliver customer experiences that that integrate across customer journeys as consumers increasingly use multiple channels on the path to purchase.
Given the growing importance of omnichannel marketing, UX consultancy Practicology has teamed up with Google in a recent benchmark report, to review omnichannel experiences across Europe. Retailers are strongest in providing integration with store information, for example through store locators and also returns.
Integrating personalization across channels performs has the lowest score with using in-store technology also scoring relatively low.
Although this report focuses on retail, you can use our popular free multichannel marketing benchmark templates to review your performance across different digital marketing channels and customer experience.
Research source
Source: Download…
Should you be using omnichannel marketing to boost customer experience?
It has now become vital for brands to inject their unique voice in every communications channel that they make use of, be consistent with pricing policies and promotional offers to avoid any confusions for potential buyers. More and more brands are wanting to move towards an omnichannel experience, integrating the offline with the online.
As Christina Dam, Product Marketing Lead of Square suggests, “A great omnichannel experience feels familiar to the customer, regardless of the channel.” Hubspot defines the omnichannel experience as, “the ability to deliver a seamless and consistent experience across channels, while factoring in the different devices that consumers are using to interact with your business.”
A 2017 ecommerce survey of 1,164 U.S. small and medium retail business owners, conducted by Square and Mercury Analytics, found that:
56% have a physical store
21% have a pop-up store, or pop-up at events
34% sell…
4 examples of omnichannel changing the retail experience
The numbers don’t lie: the days of consumers visiting their local general store to satisfy every shopping need are long gone.
It’s no secret that there has been a shift in shopping preferences moving to the online world, with 67% of millennials preferring to shop online. But in recent years, even the meaning of “online shopping” has evolved. A once-simple buying journey on a retailer’s website has rapidly evolved to a complex situation, for shoppers and retailers alike.
With so many shopping options, today’s consumers are often loyal to a variety of retailers and websites, including online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, large retailers like Target, and category-specific stores like REI and Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. And it only gets more segmented from there.
Consumer touchpoints are increasing with astounding velocity — and…
By
16 Jun, 2017
Exploring the difference between Omnichannel and Multichannel and the implications for designing effective User Experiences
We've all been hearing and reading quite a bit about Omnichannel Marketing of late. It’s great that companies and brands are embracing the ethos behind the term to make their products and services more connected, open and oriented towards the individual. For this reason I feel it must then share and indeed integrate with many aspects of user experience online. This article aims to summarise my thoughts on how UX approaches and the principles of UX contribute to effective omnichannel Marketing.
What is Omnichannel Marketing?
Okay, so we have to say Omnichannel is simply buzzword or phrase to describe something not new in real terms along with the related but similar multichannel marketing term. Omnichannel marketing is as a strategic marketing activity helps to define the marketing decisions that are driven by the choices that consumers have in how they engage a brand. It…
Google starts tracking credit card transactions to assess online ads effect on online and offline sales.
Every marketing manager has always sympathized with John Wanamaker's famous phrase "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." Digital marketing has helped alleviate some of the problems of attribution, by tracking of digital media. But unless someone is clicking through to purchase on your site or tracked by call they make via the site, it's very hard to attribute offline store sales to a particular online ad campaign.
But this limitation is now reduced which is BIG news for multichannel retailers. Yesterday Google announced it is now tracking consumers card transactions both online and in-store. The ability to track in-store sales is a real breakthrough in attribution, as since 92% of all US retail sales still take place in-store. Without it marketers are limited to focusing all…
The growth of omni-channel marketing will only make personalisation more important
It probably won’t come as huge surprise that many organisations whether B2C or B2B still don’t engage in even the most basic levels of personalisation in their engagement marketing activities. But as we move (some faster than others) from a multi-channel to an omni-channel ecommerce experience, personalisation triggered by the behaviour of the customer and not just their name has in many respects become the most important element in the optimisation of the customer journey.
How many emails do your receive claiming to be private and confidential but are addressed ‘Dear Occupier’ or ‘Dear Customer’. It does nothing to trigger the desire to act, other than to hit delete, as I know that the content is likely to be neither private confidential nor indeed…
Wearable technology trends and the future of digital selling
Until what seems like very recently, wearable technology has remained on the fringes of consumer consciousness, with most people unsure what to make of it. 'What’s the point in moving the user interface two inches from my pocket to my wrist?' people rightly ask. 'But I’m terrible at multitasking, those glasses will just be another distraction…' Although wearables still have yet to gain widespread popularity, interest is stirring and 2015 may just be the year it turns a corner.
According to a recent report from Juniper Research, wearable advertising spend is estimated to reach just $1.5 million this year, but by 2019 is expected to hit a slightly more impressive $68.7 million. That’s a huge new market, and one that online marketers would do well to embrace.
Source: …
Optimising and connecting customer touch points
Marketing expert Dr. Jeffrey Lant, says that in order to penetrate a consumer’s consciousness with your brand, and to make significant penetration in a given market, you have to make contact with the prospect a minimum of seven times. These seven “touch points” don’t have to be dedicated sales outreach, but refer to the different ways consumers interact with your brand: browsing your mobile site, for example is a touch point, as is receiving a flyer or trawling through your social channels.
Although this “Rule of Seven” is not absolute, it gives marketers an idea of the kind of effort and variety it takes to make an impression on a potential customer.
With the dawn of the digital age, the numerous channels and devices available for interaction mean that optimising each consumer touch point is more important than ever. It has…
