We know that ‘omnichannel marketing’ has become more of a buzzword these days, but it’s important to understand what it is, how it can benefit your business, and why you’d be naive to ignore it.
We will be talking about the strategy behind omnichannel marketing, and some of the best examples of its use, to help you understand why it’s one of the most effective marketing strategies out there today.
What does Omni Channel Mean?
In short, the words ‘omni channel’ mean ‘more than one different channel’. Obvious as this is, it forces you as a business owner to really think about where and how you want to engage those potential customers.
For example, do you want to do an email campaign? Do you want to integrate Facebook Ads? Do you want to attract people using PPC? Or do you want to hand out leaflets in the street?
All of these are great ways to engage potential customers, but will not work together unless you consider the most important meaning behind omni channel marketing…
The Omni Channel Strategy
Omni channel marketing puts the customer at the core of your offering.
It aims to create a seamless customer experience, through integrating each different marketing channel together and looking at them as one single entity.
For example, your audience might engage with a Facebook ad on their phone, and then complete their sign-up on a computer 3 days later.
If we’re being honest with ourselves, we all know that potential customers will always switch channels.
Your omni channel strategy needs to focus on creating the best possible experience for them when they do.
Omni Channel Examples
One of the best omni channel examples we’ve found is from Starbucks.
Imagine, you’re ordering your coffee at the counter and you see a leaflet for a customer loyalty programme.
You pick it up and scan the QR code with your smartphone, which then takes you to the app download page. You download the app, fill in your details and you’re good to go!
One of the best integrations of omni channel strategy here is that you can ‘top up’ your card within the app (or online), which then means that you don’t have to use your bank card at the till.
Starbucks have made it possible to pay for your coffee in a minimum of 3 different ways, basically so that you don’t have an excuse to not buy one!
The loyalty card programme also integrates email campaigns, updating you whenever there’s a new offer; you can get an in-app notification when you’re running low on points; and you can get an SMS/push notification when there’s a store near you.
The whole process is designed to keep you engaged and ready to buy.
That’s what you need to create for your customers. Now, we know that we don’t all have Starbucks-level money to create omni channel strategies like this, but implementing 2 or 3 of these channels is possible with the right Software.
Omni Channel Software Solutions
Some of the best omni channel solutions are available for free or (relatively) cheap online. Here are some of the best ones we’ve found and why we like them.
All of these solutions use email software tools and techniques to automate responses to customers.
They are no longer just a simple sales funnel builder – they can do it all!
Please note that all of these solutions offer a 14-day free trial, so you can try before you buy.
1: HighLevel (aka GoHighlevel)
*For this article, we may interchange the names, but please note that Highlevel and GoHighlevel are the same product.*
Obviously we’re going to say that this software is one of the best omni channel solutions out there because PowLeads is built using GoHighlevel!
Pros
- The level of automation within your marketing campaigns really is staggering; one of the key features of the software is Workflows and Trigger Links, which make it a hell of a lot easier to automate the marketing and retargeting processes. They’ve done extremely well to make a product that is accessible but also has complex functionality. We would say that it’s not for novices, but if you’re wanting to expand your business, and save a huge amount of time after building, the automation process really is priceless.
- You can scale up your business without incurring a cost. Highlevel has 2 pricing options: $97/£70 for ‘beginners’, and the agency plan costs $297/£215 per month and gives you unlimited everything.
- It consolidates around 15 different services and provides them all under one umbrella product. Check out this graphic below to see just how much you save compared to buying these services individually
- Updated ALL THE TIME. Seriously they never stop adding serious value and they listen to their users to make it better and better!
Cons
- You may still need more integrated software to complete the more complex funnels (services such as Zapier, mailgun and Twilio), so set up can be a little difficult if you are not techy! but we solve this with PowLeads (same software remember!)
2: Salesforce – Pardot
Pardot is the brainchild of Salesforce, so you know it’s going to be good! This software has been tipped to be one of the leading Marketing Automation tools within the next year.
Pros
- It’s powered using AI technology. Salesforce can afford to create the best technology for their products and it definitely looks like they’ve put a lot of time and money into Pardot.
- You can create social media campaigns as well as email marketing campaigns within Pardot. Depending on the plan you’re on, Pardot allows you to simultaneously post on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin in real time, and you can also create scheduled posts within the app.
- Support is incredibly consultative; if you’ve used other Salesforce products, you’ll know that this is one of their most valuable offerings. Their phone support is offered around the clock, and you even get an ‘implementation manager’ when you first sign-up to personally help you through the process. Customer service really is second-to-none.
Cons
- Salesforce Pardot is an eye-watering $1250/£902 per month for the basic package. Just for context, that means you can buy Highlevel. Four times. And still have some change. This means that it’s out of many solo entrepreneurs’ budget, at least until they have the sales and incoming leads to be able to expand.
- The A/B testing has an issue with automation-based emails; quite a number of customers have stated that their test accounts have been at risk of being blocked or suspended for spam, and have had to contact their account manager to rectify this each time. This can become a major issue, especially if your main marketing efforts include email.
- Not necessarily a negative, but Pardot was obviously created as part of Salesforce’s ecosystem. This may mean that it’s slightly more difficult to integrate other software or CRM systems with Pardot, but if you’re already with Salesforce it’ll be a seamless integration between the CRM and marketing automation.
3: HubSpot Marketing Hub
Many people know HubSpot, and for good reason. They’re pioneers in the CRM and marketing space, but is their Marketing Hub living up to the hype?
Pros
- Customer service has always been a huge selling point for HubSpot, and they don’t disappoint here either. Combine this with their HubSpot Academy, where customers can learn about the marketing automation process, you’ve got a winning combination.
- The dashboard is very simple and streamlined, so should be fairly straightforward for first-timers and smaller companies to use. If you’re not interested in integrating other software into your marketing automation, this might be the best service for you. You can do a range of things, from: social media, ads, email marketing, lading page builds, and more from one dashboard.
- If you love data-driven marketing strategies (surely most of us do?!), then HubSpot is a very useful tool. They provide extensive data collection on things like lead source, web traffic, and email tracking that some of the other platforms don’t do as well. It’s always helpful to see the data laid out in a manageable way, and the Marketing Hub definitely provides that.
Cons
- If you thought Pardot was expensive, then strap in… Because while it looks a lot less, the pricing increases when your contacts do. Which can make for a very costly product. The basic plan, at £38/month allows you 1,000 contacts to market to. Any more than that and you’re on the hook for an extra £615/month. That’s a bit steep, especially when you only get an extra 1,000 contacts for that price. Any more and the price jumps again to £2.5k. Oh, and billing might be monthly, but you’re tied into a year-long contract.
- Migrating from old systems to HubSpot’s is so difficult and time-consuming. A number of customers have reported leaving the product because it’s so difficult to migrate, or integrate other software with HubSpot.
- Updates can cause a major headache for users, especially when they’re out of the blue. Looking a handful of their reviews online and talking to customers, this has caused a number of errors, data losses, and downtime for clients. When you’re spending that much money, it’s unacceptable for any service to not be available when required.
4: Click Funnels
This was one of the first software solutions for building landing pages, and has been a great solution for many businesses, as their selling point is providing software that turns browsers into customers.
Pros
- As Click Funnels’ main goal is to help you make more money, the setup is extremely easy. You can log in, create your landing page, drop in your content, and start taking payments within a couple of hours.
- Drag-and-drop builder: If you’re not familiar with building funnels and websites, this is a great option for you. You might need to take an hour or 2 to get the hang of creating your first landing page, but after that it’s a piece of cake.
- WordPress integration: If you have an existing WordPress site, you can download the Click Funnels plugin and go between the two software apps without much hassle at all, and zero coding.
Cons
- The pricing system for Click Funnels is the same as Highlevel, but compare them and you find that Click Funnels’ service is just based in website and funnel building. There’s nothing in terms of actual marketing automation, and isn’t therefore as ‘omni channel’ as it claims to be.
- We’ve briefly used Click Funnels before and their customer service is not great. Any issue that you have that will take more than 10 minutes is very difficult to get solved by their team.
- Downtime has been talked about by quite a few Clickfunnels clients. While these outages are quite rare by all accounts, there is nothing you can do about them. It’s also very difficult to see whether your site is down, unless you’re constantly refreshing the pages.
- You know when a product becomes less about the product and more about the bloke who owns the product? Yeah, Clickfunnels is a bit like that. Their founder’s personal brand seems a lot more important than the investment into the software, and the Facebook group seems like an echo chamber of the same kinds of guys flashing their sports cars. It’s less ‘let’s make and market a great product’, and more like ‘let’s get rich quick by flogging Vialife’.
SO …Why use marketing automation software?
More and more we’re seeing new digital products and services cropping up that have their own omni channel marketing strategy.
It’s not enough anymore to just throw a product on your site and pay for Facebook Ads. There needs to be a full strategy behind everything you’re doing.
The automation process of digital marketing removes the need for at least 3 members of full-time staff. It also allows staff who would otherwise have to focus on manual marketing efforts, to focus their new found time on improving their offering or client acquisition. Or being creative.
This technology is a godsend for solo entrepreneurs and small businesses, as long as you use it properly.
Each of the omni channel solutions we’ve talked about will one day become a member of your team; they will become invaluable.
If you would like to learn how to build your own Omni funnels we have a one of a kind course called PowAcademy that might be the exact thing you need!
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