Omnichannel Marketing Is Now Imperative for B2B Success
Omnichannel marketing isn't new, but its role in B2B marketing has been expanding for years. Now, an omnichannel marketing strategy is no longer optional for B2B businesses; it's imperative.
According to a report by Harvard Business Review, the number of channels necessary for B2B companies to successfully market their goods and services has expanded organically year over year. Specifically, between 2016 and 2021, the number of channels B2B buyers use doubled.
An omnichannel approach enables B2B businesses to connect with a broader audience than possible with a single channel. Consistency across all channels simplifies the customer journey, facilitating smoother interactions.
In this article, we'll explore how omnichannel marketing has evolved for B2B businesses. We'll also touch on the most important aspects of an omnichannel strategy in 2024.
Expanding the Brand's Reach with Omnichannel Marketing
Amplifying Brand Presence through Omnichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing significantly amplifies a B2B brand's reach, enabling connectivity with a more extensive customer base. Rather than focusing on a single channel—be it email, social media, or an in-person sales call—an omnichannel approach involves synchronizing interactions across multiple channels to build a cohesive brand experience.
One of the defining strengths of omnichannel marketing is its ability to meet customers where they are. More accurately, it ensures that your brand maintains a strong presence across the most relevant customer platforms, be they social media, email, search, or even direct mail.
This diversified strategy significantly expands the potential reach of your brand, ensuring that no prospective customer falls through the cracks due to channel preference.
The expanded reach that comes with omnichannel marketing doesn't just mean more customers—it means a more diverse customer base. With a single-channel approach, you're limited to the audience that prefers that channel.
By reaching out over multiple channels, you open your brand up to a broader, more varied audience.
Key Benefits of Omnichannel Marketing:
- Improved Customer Experience: Omnichannel marketing creates a seamless customer experience across all touchpoints, boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Increased Sales: By giving customers more opportunities to engage with your brand, you increase the chances of conversions and sales.
- Better Customer Data: Interacting with customers across multiple channels provides valuable data, enabling more personalized and effective marketing strategies.
- Enhanced Brand Consistency: A well-executed omnichannel strategy ensures consistent brand messaging across all channels, earning customer trust and recognition.
In the next section, we will delve deeper into how omnichannel can simplify and streamline the customer journey.
Streamlining the Customer Journey with Omnichannel Strategies
According to Forrester, "Customer-obsessed leaders strive to see their company through their customers’ eyes and experience interactions as their customers do." In doing so, leaders can see how a seemingly simple task like filling out an online form can result in lost opportunities, especially if that potential customer already filled out that information elsewhere.
The omnichannel approach has the potential to streamline the customer experience across channels and platforms, ensuring they never experience interference in their buying journey. Here's how it works.
Simplifying and Streamlining the Customer Journey
One of the ways omnichannel simplifies the customer journey is through concepts like Single Sign-On (SSO). SSO allows users to log in once and gain access to the various platforms involved in their journey.
In addition to enhancing user convenience, SSO eliminates the friction caused by having to remember and enter different passwords for different channels, thereby facilitating a smoother interaction with the brand across multiple channels.
Recognizing Customers Across Channels
Another crucial aspect of a successful omnichannel strategy is recognizing customers across multiple channels. This means that regardless of the channel—be it a mobile app, a website, or a customer portal—the system must be able to identify the customer and personalize the experience accordingly.
This level of personalization can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and engagement, leading to improved conversion rates.
This strategy is also critical now that many B2B buyers use multiple channels throughout the buying journey. According to McKinsey & Company, the average B2B buyer now uses an average of 10 or more channels throughout the process.
Maintaining Customer Histories Across Internal Platforms
Maintaining customer identities and histories across internal platforms is also an essential part of streamlining the omnichannel journey. With this strategy, customers' interactions with the brand are tracked and stored on an ongoing basis.
This continuous data collection allows the brand to build individual customer profiles that reflect their preferences, purchase history, and behavior. Such comprehensive customer profiles then inform personalized marketing strategies, offering the customer an optimized and consistent experience across all channels.
Maintaining Brand Consistency in an Omnichannel Environment
Finally, it is crucial that B2B businesses maintain brand consistency across the channels they use to engage prospects and customers. While this concept sounds simple, in practice, it can be quite challenging.
Most modern B2B companies use tried-and-true channels like social media, email, and content to engage customers. Making changes across the brand is simple enough when you have all of your marketing assets housed under a single platform.
However, plenty of B2B businesses also partner with influencers, host events, speak on podcasts, launch press releases, and even build proprietary smartphone apps. Maintaining brand consistency across all these channels requires a systematic approach. Companies that are unsuccessful in doing so risk sending the wrong message to customers.
Here are a few ways to maintain brand consistency in an omnichannel marketing strategy:
- Unified Messaging: Ensure the core messaging is consistent across all channels. Whether it's social media, email, or in-person events, the brand story and value proposition should be uniform.
- Visual Consistency: Use the same logos, colors, fonts, imagery, and other brand elements across all channels to provide a consistent visual experience.
- Consistent Tone and Voice: Maintain the same tone and voice in all your communications, be it customer service interactions, sales calls, or social media posts. This consistency helps reinforce your brand identity.
- Centralized Asset Management: Implement a centralized asset management system where all brand and marketing assets can be stored and accessed by relevant parties. This ensures everyone uses the latest and most accurate brand assets.
- Training and Guidelines: Provide training to all employees on the importance of brand consistency. Develop detailed guidelines that outline how to represent the brand across different channels.
- Regular Audits: Conduct regular audits to ensure all channels are aligned with the brand. This includes checking social media profiles, email templates, event materials, and more.
- Responsive Design: Implement a responsive design for your digital assets to ensure they look and function well on any device. This enhances the user experience and provides consistent interaction with the brand.
It is crucial that all relevant parties within the organization, be they marketing, sales, or operations leaders, are on board with brand changes before they are launched.
Enhance Your Company's Omnichannel Marketing Strategy
Omnichannel isn't new, but it is changing, especially as more and more channels and platforms enter the B2B landscape. Companies that neglect to implement an omnichannel approach risk losing customers, falling behind competitors, and missing out on valuable opportunities.
To learn more, don’t miss B2B Online Chicago 2024. The event is happening from May 6th to May 8th, 2024, at the Chicago Marriott Downtown in Chicago, Illinois.