Companies like Good Pair Days and Selfwealth are using omnichannel marketing to drive highly personalised customer experiences with the brand. The challenges to omnichannel success are many but so are the potential rewards.
Omnichannel marketing is a customer-centric approach that aims to deliver a unified and consistent brand experience across all touchpoints. David Lambert, General Manager, Asia Pacific, Iterable, highlights, “Rather than putting the product (or the channel) at the centre of your strategy, the customer is the priority—and every marketing message is tailored to meet them where they are on their specific journey. It’s a holistic approach that seamlessly integrates both online and offline channels to deliver a unified, consistent brand experience across all customer touchpoints. Omnichannel marketing goes beyond multi-channel marketing by ensuring smooth integration across each customer’s journey”.
Unlike multi-channel marketing, which focuses on promoting products across various channels, omnichannel prioritises the customer’s journey. It strives for consistency in messaging, tone, and overall brand image across all channels, where data and information about customer interactions across different channels are integrated to create a holistic view of their preferences and behaviour. This allows for personalised marketing messages and offers that resonate with individual customers.
Good Pair Days, a personalised wine subscription service for Australian consumers, credits its growth and success to its omnichannel marketing approach. CEO and founder, Tom Walenkamp, highlights, “At Good Pair Days, we believe that every interaction with our customers is an opportunity to enhance their wine journey. Communicating across various channels isn’t just a strategy; it’s a way to meet our customers wherever they are—be it on social media, via email, or through our app. This accessibility helps us foster a deeper connection and ensures that the joy and discovery of wine is always just a click or tap away”.
Benefits of the omnichannel symphony
There are a number of advantages to a well-orchestrated omnichannel strategy. When customers encounter a consistent brand image across all channels, they develop a sense of trust and familiarity, leading to increased loyalty and advocacy. Lambert comments, “The benefits of omnichannel marketing are clear: it fosters brand loyalty, increases customer engagement, and boosts sales conversions by providing an integrated, seamless experience across all touchpoints. The importance of delivering this unified experience cannot be overstated, as more than 80% of customers are more likely to become loyal to brands that offer a cohesive experience across all channels”.
Omnichannel campaigns deliver relevant and personalised messages across channels, keeping customers engaged and interested in the brand story. “The impact of omnichannel marketing on customer retention is significant. Brands that employ multi-channel and omnichannel marketing strategies achieve an impressive 91% higher year-over-year customer retention compared to those that don’t. This highlights the critical role that a well-orchestrated, customer-centric approach plays in building a highly loyal and valuable customer base”, says Lambert.
Brands seeking to cultivate stronger customer loyalty, boost engagement, and drive sales conversions must prioritise a harmonious omnichannel approach. Seamlessly integrating online and offline touchpoints creates a unified, frictionless experience that meets customers wherever they are in their buying journey.
Building the omnichannel orchestra
Crafting a successful omnichannel strategy requires meticulous planning and execution. Alex Clarke-Groom, the former CMO of Selfwealth, comments, “The beginning of a great omnichannel marketing strategy is found at the end, with the consumer. By putting them front and centre of our plans we ensure that they are at the heart of our strategy. We then build our marketing and product strategy around what they need versus what we want to give them”.
It also requires developing a consistent brand voice and messaging that resonates across all channels, ensuring a unified brand image. Walenkamp, advises, “Maintaining a consistent brand voice across all channels is like conducting an orchestra—every section needs to play in harmony. We achieve this through a well-defined brand voice that echoes our core values: joy, inclusivity, and adventure. Our content team works closely together to ensure that every message, whether written, visual, or digital, resonates with our brand’s tone of friendly expertise and approachable elegance”.
Clarke-Groom adds, “One of the key skills of a senior marketeer is creating a brand voice with enough flex to be used across a broad range of touchpoints but that isn’t so broad it quickly becomes generic. you need to ensure you have the appropriate processes in place to monitor its usage as it’s easy for a brand voice to become diluted over time as it mingles with whoever is currently expressing it”.
Mapping the customer journey
Mapping and understanding the customer’s journey is critical. This involves identifying every touchpoint, from online interactions like social media and website visits to offline experiences like physical stores and customer service calls. Lambert says, “The foundation of a seamless omnichannel experience lies in thoroughly understanding the customer journey and the moments that matter within it. Each customer who starts a journey with your brand has a specific context and intent. Marketers need to understand that to personalise that journey as it happens across channels”.
“Additionally”, adds Lambert, “understanding and delivering “the journey” is not enough. The best marketers go deeper than journeys to understand what specific moments within a journey matter most, both to the customer and the brand. Once they know these moments, they focus their efforts on personalising the experience at each moment to ensure each customer achieves that moment’s goal”.
Tuning the orchestra with data
Data is the lifeblood of an omnichannel marketing strategy, according to Clarke-Groom, “If an omnichannel marketing strategy is a human body then the customer data is the blood that runs throughout it, nourishing it and bringing the essential building blocks of life. Without it, your strategy is dull, lifeless and dead on arrival”.
Gathering data from websites, apps, emails, and purchases into a central profile helps marketers understand individual behaviours, preferences, and journey stages. Clarke-Groom elaborates, “High-quality data, especially first-party data, acts as a secret weapon for crafting a powerful brand voice. It empowers you to speak directly to your audience, using the language they understand and resonate with”.
“Data goes beyond demographics; it helps paint a complete picture of your audience’s emotions, values, and how they think. Remember, consumers are not just data points, but individuals with feelings and preferences. We naturally gravitate towards those who speak our language and share our values. This applies to brands as well. Once you have a clear understanding of your audience and your brand’s core DNA, the brand voice emerges naturally”.
Imagine a brand that analyses website interactions and learns that their audience prefers a casual, humorous tone. This insight translates into social media posts and marketing materials that resonate with their audience, fostering a deeper connection and ultimately driving loyalty.
Personalisation at scale
To deliver personalised experiences, brands must gather and integrate customer data from various sources, such as website interactions, mobile app usage, email engagement, and purchase history. Lambert highlights, “With a unified customer profile, brands can leverage the collected data to create targeted, personalised experiences across all marketing channels. This may involve sending triggered emails based on specific actions, recommending products based on browsing history, or delivering tailored content that matches the customer’s current journey stage. The key is to use the data subtly and respectfully, avoiding any creepy or intrusive tactics that may alienate customers”.
Good Pair Days provides a great example of using data to deliver personalisation at scale. The company aims to bridge the gap between wine enthusiasts and the often-intimidating world of wine selection. They leverage technology and personalised recommendations to deliver a convenient and enjoyable wine discovery journey for their customers.
Walenkamp comments, “One achievement that stands out is our development of a ‘Taste Profile’ for each customer, which evolves with their feedback and interactions. This tool has not only enabled us to fine-tune our wine recommendations but also to curate educational content suited to their growing knowledge and confidence in wine. It’s a dynamic testament to how personal and responsive our service can be, helping each customer feel like they have a personal sommelier in their pocket”.
Delivering personalised experiences across multiple channels is a significant challenge for most brands. It requires robust data analysis and automation capabilities, as Walenkamp points out, “Personalising at scale had its challenges, particularly around maintaining the authenticity of our recommendations while reaching a broad audience. We’ve leveraged advanced data analytics and machine learning to understand individual preferences and drinking habits. This technology, combined with a touch of human intuition from our wine experts, allows us to craft personalised wine matches that truly resonate with each customer’s palate and preferences”.
Challenges and solutions: maintaining the harmony
The biggest challenge to achieving omnichannel success, according to Lambert is what he refers to as the “data activation gap” – a disconnect between a company’s data stack and how it gets activated for personalisation. “This gap is caused by data silos that detach critical business inputs from customer experience touchstones. While organisations may have the necessary data captured in various tools and technologies, they often lack the core activation technology that transforms that data into meaningful customer action”.
To address issues related to data and functional silos Lambert recommends a holistic, customer-centric approach to data management and activation, which includes:
- Unifying data across the organisation to create a single, comprehensive view of each customer.
- Implementing advanced segmentation and personalisation tools that enable targeted, relevant messaging at scale.
- Automating data-driven campaigns across channels to deliver consistent, timely experiences.
- Continuously measuring and optimising performance to maximise ROI and minimise wasted spend.
The importance of maintaining consistency across all channels not just marketing is emphasised by Clarke-Groom, “Marketing often gets lost in theory, forgetting the crucial test: does the message actually resonate with the audience? If it falls flat across channels, it’s time for a revision”.
“Thorough testing of your brand messaging before launch is critical. Once live, unwavering consistency across all touchpoints (marketing, operations, customer service, internal comms, investor relations, etc.) is paramount. Resist the urge to change it frequently, even under pressure. Frequent messaging shifts, unless driven by dramatic company or industry changes, are the fastest path to brand irrelevance”. Tracking and attributing conversions across various touchpoints can be a complex challenge. Lambert advises, “Creating a successful omnichannel marketing strategy is an ongoing process that requires continuous measurement and optimisation. Brands should track key performance indicators (KPIs) across all channels, such as engagement rates, conversion rates, and customer lifetime value. By analysing this data and gathering customer feedback, marketers can identify areas for improvement and fine-tune their strategies to better meet customer needs and preferences”.