Omnichannel Marketing to Support Sales
Omnichannelality is a must for companies. It is the natural evolution of a system with countless communication channels and sales solutions. But what does Omnichannel Marketing mean? And what does it mean, in concrete terms, to be an Omnichannel company?
We asked Antonio Ferrandina, co-author, together with Silvia Vianello, of the first Italian publication that deals with the topic in depth and professionally:
Il Marketing Omnicanale | Tecnologia e marketing a supporto delle vendite (Ed. Franco Angeli, 2017).
Lecturer at the University of Molise and Senior Lecturer Marketing Area at LUISS Business School, in this book Antonio Ferrandina offers a valuable insight to all professional marketers and entrepreneurs who wish to understand what it means to plan, manage, control and analyse results within an omnichannel marketing strategy.
An approach that, like the delta of a river, weaves together and mixes all the tools available to companies to optimise sales processes, make customer care efficient, and offer customers a strong and consistent brand identity.
What does it mean to be an ‘Omnichannel’ company?
By Omnichannel Marketing we mean a particular strategic approach that includes the use of different channels and alternatives for sales, communication and caring.
Indeed, the wealth of channels offered by technology and marketing today gives rise to a formidable mix of opportunities to meet customers, who can contact the company in a variety of ways, from the point of sale to the website or the smartphone App. An Omnichannel Company inserts itself into these processes to manage them in a profitable and optimised manner, so that all channels and touchpoints speak the same language, relate to the customer in the same tone of voice and lead him to purchase at any time and in any form. An Omnichannel Company is, therefore, a synthesis of the customer’s perception of the corporate brand.
Is omnichannelality a requirement for all companies?
Generally speaking, it concerns all companies, although it is an approach that is more fluid in B2C due to the lesser commitment required in the purchasing effort.
What is the first step a company should take to start planning an omnichannel marketing strategy?
The planning should include the following steps:
1_ANALYSIS OF THE SITUATION
A comprehensive analysis of the company and the broader environment (sector, extended competition, political, economic, social and especially technological environment) must be carried out. The Situation Analysis is the information fuel that can guide the company in the subsequent definition of marketing strategies.
The choice of the omnichannel approach should be clear, the reasons that led to this decision, and the main results that are expected to be achieved compared to other competitors.
2_ OMNICHANNEL MARKETING STRATEGY
It is necessary to carefully define the products/services to be sold, to whom, how, with which distribution channels (off-line, on-line), with which communication strategy and by which means.
3_ECONOMIC RESULTS
The expected turnover and margins per product, per market and per segment should be broken down according to the sales channel used.
4_IMPLEMENTATION AND CONTROL
Finally, the plan must conclude with a section in which all the operational programmes necessary for the implementation of the omnichannel strategies – technical, economic, financial and human resources, phases, timeframes – must be indicated, as well as the control methods deemed most appropriate for monitoring the processes activated.
Therefore, the commercial organisational structure, responsibilities, and ways of coordination will have to be outlined. The Internet and, more generally, digital have the greatest measurement potential in the history of marketing.
Omnichannelality and E-commerce: many entrepreneurs fear that online sales will inexorably eat into the profits of physical shops. Is this really the case?
It did not turn out as feared: the ability to exploit digital tools provided the opportunity to reverse the trend, resulting in a significant increase in the opposite phenomenon.
It is therefore possible that a strategy focused on computerising the purchasing process rewards more. The world’s largest digital and E-commerce giants are embracing the policy of offline sales with great success. Google opened its first physical shop inside an electronics department store in London to ‘showcase’ its products and its world.
Amazon has opened a shop in New York and meanwhile is launching Lockers around the world, dedicated pick-up corners in major US and London chains and now widespread in Italy as well.
eBay is experimenting with other forms of ‘materialisation’: you go into the shop, frame the object with your smartphone camera and buy it online. Can it still be said that there are two different worlds and ways of selling?
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Having reached this point, the dialogue with Prof. Ferrandina turned to the topic of analysis and control of results.
fact, it is easy to see how such an integrated system leads to an exponential increase in measurable data for understanding the goodness of communication strategies. But the real need is to move from BIG DATA to SMALL DATA: selecting measurable metrics and, above all, understanding them (SMART DATA).
It is therefore crucial to understand the right approach to measuring the results of the communication and marketing actions undertaken.
We asked Prof. Ferrandina to suggest to our readers some examples of strategic KPIs. Key metrics for measuring performance, therefore, that enable a reading of results focused on specific channels and actions.
The topic is articulated and we focused on the case of a web-based strategy. The following diagram summarises the reasoning.
Introduction
- Contextualisation of Web Metrics
- Online and Offline Metrics Integration
- Web Metrics: answers to complex management questions
- Two approaches to Web Marketing Metrics
- Top Providers of Web Analytics
Phase I: Strategic objectives for the definition of KPIs
Control process for online mktg planning, consisting of:
- Defining strategic objectives achievable by multichanneling
- Performance Measurement
- Analysis of Statistics
- Corrective Actions
Phase II: From defining strategic objectives to outlining the funnel
- Definition of a set of steps that visitors are expected to follow on their way to achieving the objectives defined by the company in phase I
- Conversion from visitors to consumers
- Funnel Report in Google Analytics
Phase III: Traffic Source Metrics
Metrics for identifying how the site is
discovered by visitors:
- Metrics: Direct Traffic (Url, Bookmarks)
- Metrica: Referring Traffic
- Traffic from Search Engines (SEO, SEM, ..)
Phase IV: User Profiling
- Metrics for identifying the characteristics of site visitors:
- Unique Visitors Metric
- New vs. Returning Visitor Metric
- Other User Profiling metrics (language, geographical location)
Phase V: Site Navigation
Metrics for identifying how users navigate the site:
- Visits or Sessions
- Bounce Rate vs. Exit Rate
- Pageviews
- Unique Pageview
- Visitors vs. UniquePageviews vs. Pageviews
- Pageviews Media
- Time at the site
- Index Metric
Phase VI: E-Commerce Metrics
- Integration of sales performance metrics into the various channels, and making strictly channel-related metrics explicit.
- An application in Google Analytics
Phase VII: Evolution of Online Metrics
How virtual channel metrics evolve following new logic and technological innovations
Phase VIII: A Synthesis of Advanced Metrics
- Metrics for measuring advertising campaigns
Phase IX: From business objectives to KPI definition
Definition of KPIs: key metrics to be monitored, based on the business objectives the company intends to achieve through the virtual channel. Examples of KPIs if the key objective is:
- E-commerce
- Customer Service
- Brand Strengthening
