You were convinced to take your business into the world of Social Marketing and have now invested energy, effort, time, and money in creating an online presence. The talk amongst those involved has now switched from start-up to doing more: more channels, more activities, more advertising, and more money. The people you rely on, tell you it is going well, and you must do more but your concern is that it might be efficient but is it effective?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first topic I will tackle to assist with answering this question is reviewing the concept of Multichannel and Omni channel strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMulti-channel\u201d is an operational view \u2013 how you allow the customer to complete transactions in each channel. \u201cOmni-channel\u201d, however, is viewing the experience through the eyes of your customer, orchestrating the customer experience across all channels so that it is seamless, integrated, and consistent.<\/em> <\/em>-channel anticipates that customers may <\/em>start in one channel and move to another as they progress to a resolution. Making these complex \u2018hand-offs\u2019 between channels must be fluid for the customer. Simply put,\u201domni-channel is multi-channel done right!\u201d – John Bowden, Senior VP of Customer Care at Time Warner Cable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The difference between the two requires further investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every business deals with multiple communication channels and must react to the challenges each individual channel presents:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You face this kind of \u201cdifferent channel, different question\u201d every day. The reason your business does well is because you handle those questions extremely well. Your multi-channel understanding runs well, and you extended this thinking to your social marketing activities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every channel is well managed. You are satisfied with the work that is being done. The individual managers do talk to each other. They are also competitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In reality, all people – customers, consumers, and prospects, pick up little bits of information: here, there and everywhere. And then compile those small images into the bigger picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider a typical situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A female shopper combines a Facebook view with a view of a gondola display and combined with her Instagram activity, she picks up information about your company. Her husband only uses LinkedIn in his daily work. That creates the impression he brings home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He arrives home after work and talks about his activity. He knows his wife follows your business and he mentions the LinkedIn post he read earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And she is confused. Her interpretation of the messages she received is different to what he talks of. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Neither understands your position. You are confusing them, and they will discard the information you are trying to get to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wouldn’t it be better if they held that conversation and both received the same simple message? A message they can add to the memory banks with a simple \u201cthese guys know what they are doing”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The term omni-channel reflects a subtle but important shift towards a consumer or user focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe term \u201comni-channel\u201d may be a marketing buzzword, but it refers to a significant shift: marketers now need to provide a seamless experience, regardless of channel or device. Consumers can now engage with a company in a physical store, on an online website or mobile app, through a catalogue, or through social media. They can access products and services by calling a company on the phone, by using an app on their mobile smartphone, or with a tablet, a laptop, or a desktop computer. Each piece of the consumer\u2019s experience should be consistent and complementary\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Simply stated the core message must communicated consistently across every channel and thus allow the user and consumer a uniform, singular experience of your brand or company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now is the time to manage all those channels as one, and you must look at that through the eyes of the prospect, the user or consumer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Often, simplifying the message makes that easier to attain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are obviously a number of issues one must consider when faced with this kind of concern. Those will include platform selection, content, research, measurement of performance and others. Often an independent review is the quickest and best way of resolving these kinds of concerns. Please feel free to call me or email any questions to garthsu@gmail.com<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n M. Stocker, “Modern Marketing,” April 2014. [Online]. Available: https:\/\/blog.marketo.com\/2014\/04\/the-definition-of-omni-channel-marketing-plus-7-tips.html [Accessed 15 June 2018].<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garth Sutherland has an extensive multicultural understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He has worked with local brands (creating independent strategic positions) and international brands (integrating the international brand vision with the local demand to optimize the \u201con the ground\u201d brand presence). His strengths include bringing a strong strategic focus into all aspects of marketing delivery, working with multi-agency perspectives, independent thinking & implementing with a consistent and practical interdependent teamwork focused delivery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He is currently heading up www.smallbusinessmarketing.co.za<\/a>, a fractional marketing consultancy that specialises in the SME sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And writing on modern marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are looking to maximize the strategic value of your brand opportunity, Garth is the ideal resource to task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contact him at garth@smallbusinessmarketing.co.za<\/a> or +27 (0) 81 265 5803<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other posts in this series can be read at https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/garthrsutherland\/<\/a> or on http:\/\/www.smallbusinessmarketing.co.za<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You were convinced to take your business into the world of Social Marketing and have now invested energy, effort, time, and money in creating an online presence. The talk amongst those involved has now switched from start-up to doing more: more channels, more activities, more advertising, and more money. 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The talk amongst those involved has now switched from start-up to doing more: more channels, more activities, more advertising, and more money. The people you rely on, tell…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1405,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions\/1405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbusinessmarketing.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Multichannel Strategies<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Omnichannel strategies<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
References:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
About Garth Sutherland<\/h3>\n\n\n\n