- Contest Factory
- September 8, 2021
Master Omnichannel Marketing with These Tactics
There are so many ways to reach your target audience these days that you need to be sure you have the optimal set of tactics aligned with your message. The entrance of omnichannel marketing tries to assimilate an order to your media strategy while maximizing impact and minimizing costs. Some media tactics are better than others depending on whether you are selling a product or service or selling to another business or consumer. We’ll be sure to call out the differences in the checklist to help you determine what’s best for your brand.
Omnichannel marketing is the practice of reaching your audience through multiple touch points where they typically go – this can be a physical, digital, televised, audio, and more pending your target’s job role and consumer behavior. From outdoor marketing you see at a bus stop or behind a plane at the beach to experiential trade shows and everything in between, we’ve got a comprehensive list of ways to reach your audience.
Omnichannel marketing became popular because of the many ways in which shoppers can now buy; you want to be sure to reach your audience where they are. Harvard Business Review found that 73% of all shoppers shop across channels. You don’t want to miss out on that market share!
Another key opportunity when testing media is to identify a geographical location where you will excel by building critical mass with flawless execution. It’s fantastic to hear from clients, “We see you everywhere.” This can be accomplished by targeting a region where timeliness and support are 100%; this will make all customers in the region satisfied and enable you to focus a smaller budget in a smaller region to reach critical mass to look much bigger than your brand may be. To determine your critical mass geolocation, you will want to consider where your service agents are or where your warehouse is. You want fast service with excellent satisfaction as this will also support word-of-mouth marketing and loyalty, which are just as important as the first sale.
Next, you’ll need to recognize the difference between where and with what. We can reach our audiences in different places which covers targeting. What we say to them and how we serve it to them is the creative, which is an entirely different discussion. Today we will focus on targeting your audience. Start by defining your audience.
- Is your audience a consumer audience or business audience?
- Who is your audience? What is their average age? Is it both men and women?
- Is your product category widely known or new? (hint: You may need to create a broader awareness campaign to identify who needs your product / service)
- Where do they go to find information on your product / service?
- Where does your audience spend time geographically?
Today you have so many ways to target your audience on so many different platforms. From broad (which works for many brands such as insurance and toothpaste) as you are looking for adults that use a product that has very broad demographics to insanely specific targeting to identify patients with a rare illness that your product helps. We’ll cover all of the targeting methods available and what they are good for.
Keyword Targeting
Keyword targeting enables you to create a list of keywords and upload them into your ad platform. This will target individuals searching on these keywords.
This is good for both broad and specific.
Keyword Retargeting
Keyword retargeting enables you to upload your list of keywords and have your ad served to individuals that have searched on these terms in the past 30 days.
This is good for both broad and specific.
Demographic Targeting
Demographic targeting enables you to select priority demographics such as age, income, home ownership, presence of children, luxury car driver, and much more.
This is good for both broad and specific.
Native Targeting
Native targeting is where your content is published among similar content on other websites. This is to make your content appear organic and appeal to the audience already reading similar content, while in fact, your content is paid. Your content will be labeled as a sponsorship yet typically gets more engagement since it is native content.
This is excellent for very specific targeting where you want to be among the content these readers are already consuming about your niche.
Geoframing
Geoframing is the ability to target folks that have been in a specific location at an earlier date with digital ads once they have left the location. An example of this may be the Chicago International Home Show is the world’s largest tradeshow attended by some of the most powerful buyers in the world. While they are far too busy at the show to be engaging with ads, you may serve these ads for the next couple of months to anyone that was at the show during the event timeframe.
This is very specific as you have identified the audience you know you want and now you are employing a unique tactic to reach these folks.
Geofencing
Geofencing is the practice of identifying locations and serving mobile ads to users at the location or within a specified number of miles from that location. An excellent example of this would be the coffee shop chain that advertises between 6-10 am when you are within 1 mile of one of the locations. The coffee shop owner may offer a BOGO coupon to persuade you to try their coffee shop.
This is less specific than geoframing but more specific than generic targeting – as folks that all go to the same location typically have some things in common but maybe not as much as those that go to the same convention.
Conquesting
Conquesting is the practice of stealing customers from your competition. You may simply provide a list of websites that you would like to advertise to their traffic and identify which sites may be available in your ad servers platform.
This is great for almost every product and service you may think of – get their attention and let them know how big the market is and what their options are.
Lookalike Modeling
This would include uploading your client list so that machine learning can identify more folks that look like this so you may grow your reach without wasting impressions on audience members that do not have similarities with who you know buys your products.
This is as targeted as your list is – if you have a list of realtors, this would be much more specific than folks looking to buy a home merely by nature of having the same career.
Retargeting
Retargeting in the general sense is serving ads to customers that have visited your site and not purchased. You will serve ads to these users reminding them of your product or service. Ladies, we’ve all had that shoe ad follow us around for days until we finally agree… we cannot live without these shoes. This is one of the most successful ad tactics around, delivering more conversions than most. Important to note that the cost to convert should include up-front advertising as omnichannel marketing must account for all expenses to convert a customer.
This is very specific as you are getting folks that already have shown interest in you to look at you again.
Cross-device
Cross-devise targeting ensures you get your customers not only on mobile but also on their desktop and connected TV where the display and engagement stand to tip the scales much more than the small screen of your phone.
This is another specific target as you are getting a second exposure from folks that saw your ad on their desktop and now will see it on their phone or vice versa.
Email Targeting / CRM
Reaching customers and prospects in email is another one of the tactics your brand cannot stand to miss out on. Adding a drip campaign may be decades old at this point, yet it’s surprising that over 50% of all brands do not employ this tactic. As simple as uploading your list and staying in regular communication can change your sales landscape drastically.
This is very specific as you already know who you are speaking to and at which stage in the marketing funnel they land.
Event Marketing
Does your product or service speak to a tradeshow like venue? This is typically a B2B product or service and has an entire industry dedicated to supporting the networking and sales opportunities of items you traditionally would not buy online. This includes multi-million dollar software applications, service providers, industry specific technology, mass purchasing opportunities, and a lot more.
This is another vertical that is very much like native advertising but in person at a convention; you are reaching your target buyer in a specific niche – they call this shooting fish in a barrel.
Outdoor Advertising
This world has definitely changed but outdoor advertising is as viable as ever – just ask Times Square. From digital billboards, cars wrapped in brands, bus stops, wrapped store fronts, sporting event venues, mobile billboards, benches, sponsored highways, and more, there is plenty of physical space to ensure your exposures are reinforcing your message in your target market so that your brand recall is high. High brand recall makes you the brand of choice when purchase time comes around.
This is a very low target – excellent for insurance, toothpaste, banking, got milk, movies, and more.
Direct Marketing
We have learned that history repeats itself and that plenty of tactics can get diminished when the tactic has become saturated. At one point in time we had more “junk mail” or highly targeted direct mail as we like to call it, than real mail and it became a blinder – we stopped reading it. Now that our email box has become overwhelmed, direct mail is coming back around to be a popular method of alerting folks to new products and services. The Direct Marketing Association found that oversized postcards have the highest response rate of all mediums available – that’s pretty impressive in this day.
Combine this with EDDM (every door direct mail) available by USPS or any print shop, will save you money by sending your postcard via carrier route without postage. Now you have the highest response rate with more affordable delivery rates – something to write home about.
This is a lower target based on the lack of information you have on mail carrier routes.
Print Publications
Another tactic that may seem dated and overpriced, but it’s not is print ads. Advertising in a relevant magazine with a product or service that resonates with that audience brings validity to certain audiences. You will also find that these publications typically have digital associations that will make your purchase more efficient by reaching the same audience on different platforms, giving you the multiple exposures you need to convert a customer.
And let’s not forget that the pandemic brought QR codes back to life in a more useful way – drive customers to meaningful and complimentary content from your print ad – offer surprise discount or free gift with purchase when the QR code is scanned.
This is another lower targeting opportunity as your demographics may be generic unless you are in a native publication and then you’re back to shooting fish in a barrel. An example of this would be selling your camera in a photography enthusiast magazine as opposed to selling it in People magazine.
Partner Opportunities
There are so many complimentary opportunities to products and services that we really need to think inclusively to identify complimentary opportunities; these may be reciprocal or may be self-serving. This only impacts price as you may find a brand where you can swap email ads and include each other in emails or inbox flyers as well as you may find a one-way opportunity to pay to be included in another brand’s marketing or charge to include others in yours. An example of this would be a meal subscription service where the subscription service includes an inbox flyer for a kitchen equipment supplier with a discount and the kitchen equipment supplier includes a value add coupon to the meal subscription service. Both brands come out looking great offering complimentary discounts and that’s the only cost associated with this program.
This can be as targeted as your partner is. If you have a very niche partner, chances are this will be excellent high quality and detailed targeting.
Public Relations
Let’s not forget the power of the pen and the media. All brands should be using press releases and media exposes to share product launches and big news with the industry of relevance. If you launch new products at a tradeshow, it most certainly is newsworthy and should be published over the wire. In addition, you should make industry relationships and send certain publications and influencers the release directly.
This is much more generic and should be hand distributed to journalists in your niche.
In Conclusion
Reaching your customers where they shop has certainly changed over the decades; though with this handy guide you should be set to start your omnichannel marketing plan to hit them where the shop and live just as though it was 1988. Be sure to consider your messaging and storytelling based on the medium you are engaging. Each platform should have a different tone with different goals for each stage of the marketing funnel.
