Chances are, your content won’t be in just one place. You could have a website, social media profiles, and an email newsletter. SMS could be part of your marketing mix.
While some of these audiences will be different, your customers will often connect with your brand in more than one way. For example, someone might subscribe to your email newsletter, follow you on Facebook, and shop via your website.
When your customers get the same type of content no matter how they connect, it’s called an omnichannel approach.
Spreading your marketing strategy over multiple channels can positively impact sales. In fact, marketers who focused on more than three channels saw a purchase rate that was 287% higher than those that only had one channel.
Omnichannel marketers saw the average order value increase by 13%.
The goal should be consistency. Your customers should know exactly what to expect when they visit one of your platforms.
If you want to improve your omnichannel content marketing strategy, here’s what you need to do.
1- Use Your Website To Open Up New Channels
If you’re having trouble growing your followers on other channels, make the most of your website.
Give your website visitors the opportunity to follow you by sharing your social media business profiles and an email signup form.
With this strategy, you can support your omnichannel marketing efforts. By utilizing website personalization, you can open up new channels and create an engaging and personalized experience for your website visitors, ultimately leading to increased engagement, conversions, and customer loyalty.
How can you get your site visitors to connect with you in other ways? You can encourage them with an incentive. Depending on your business, offering them access to news could be enough for them to give you a “Like.”
Alternatively, try tempting them with discounts or special offers. For example, if someone signs up for your company newsletter, you can reward them with 10% off or a free ebook.
If your goal is to get more social media followers, you can show a snippet of your feed on your sidebar. You can even have icons and videos directing users to your social pages at the end of each post or product listing.
Here’s a quick case study from VPNGuru. Take a look at how VPNGuru uses its website to open up new channels.
When you visit the website, you’re met with a pop-up that invites you to subscribe via email. The incentives are VPN deals and tips.
One of VPNGuru’s preferred social media platforms is YouTube. The company often includes YouTube videos at the end of its blog posts. These videos enhance the content while allowing readers to connect with different channels.
Related: B2B SaaS Content Marketing Strategy Guide
Here’s an example from a review it did for ExpressVPN. At the end of a thorough review, VPNGuru has embedded a supporting video.
2- Track Your Visitors and Leads
In marketing, you need measurable goals. To determine these goals, you should think about the purpose of your content. Do you want more website visitors, email signups, or sales?
What motivates your business will help you plan your campaigns. You could write articles, share information on Facebook, and send weekly emails to subscribers.
Creating content for multiple channels can be time-consuming, so you don’t want to waste time on anything that doesn’t lead to conversions. To understand what your users are doing and what is flagging their interest, you’ll need to track your visitors.
You can start with Google Analytics, a free tool that can be easily installed on your website. You’ll get access to statistics and reporting to see where your visitors are coming from and how long they stay on each page.
Related: 5 Best B2B SaaS Content Marketing Tools
This is what the dashboard looks like:
If you’re using social media, these platforms often come with unique reporting tools. For example, Facebook will tell you how many people your post reached, the number of engagements, and the distribution score.
This information can help you see what types of content are most appealing to your readers.
And, if you pay for advertising on social media, you’ll get more in-depth reporting. You can compare the analytics from different platforms to come up with an omnichannel content marketing approach.
We recommend software with predictive lead scoring for those looking to boost sales. You’ll be able to keep track of your warm leads, helping you tailor your content for higher conversions.
3- Be Recognizable
We know consistency is key to a successful content marketing strategy. Your brand should have the same look and feel across all of your channels. Whether it’s your logo, brand colors, or written communication, you should always be recognizable.
Let’s say your company sells luxury handbags. On your website, your content is professional, with clear photographs and a neutral color palette. The words you choose target a niche audience who want to splurge on a high-quality bag.
But then, you have a Facebook business page filled with controversial memes, bright colors, and flash sales.
The content on both channels contradicts each other. You may be gaining new followers, but you’re going off-brand and losing loyal customers in the process.
Related: Content Marketing ROI Stats
Now, think about Coca-Cola, a brand that knows what it is. It’s one of the most recognizable brands in the world. When the company markets, it’s selling a lifestyle.
It’s fun, refreshing, inclusive, and nostalgic. Coca-Cola is for everyone, and it’s made for the summertime. Known for the curvaceous white logo and red background, the branding is consistent across every channel.
This is Coca-Cola’s Instagram page:
Now, compare it to the website:
Coca-Cola fans will get exactly what they expect from the brand, no matter where they look. Even though the content is customized to the different platforms, the tones, colors, and nostalgia are similar.
4- Use Automation
Next on your list of omnichannel improvements should be marketing automation. Clever software can save you time and money by automating routine tasks.
You can use tools like Hootsuite to streamline your social media management, with all of your accounts in one place. Thanks to automation, your social media posts can be scheduled ahead of time, targeting your audience when it best suits them. And depending on the platform, there may be options to reshare your most popular content at regular intervals.
Other aspects of your content marketing can be automated too. Email and SMS automation are common because you can personalize your advertising to each subscriber. For example, you can set an email to send with a discount on someone’s birthday or give them a reminder when they’ve abandoned their cart.
When you upload new content to your website, there are plugins that let you automatically share it across other channels. So, if you write a post, it’ll automatically be shared on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Related: B2B Content Marketing Ideas
Plus, your email software can pull content from your website and send it to your subscribers using a pre-designed template. Once it’s set up, it’s all automated, so you can increase your omnichannel reach with minimal effort.
5- Create Rich Content
If you’re going to post similar content across multiple channels, it needs to be high quality. There’s a chance your followers will see the same information more than once, so it needs to match their interests.
When you outline your website articles, keep your other channels in mind. Make sure your articles are long, in-depth, and free from spelling and grammatical errors. Use headings for time-poor readers who want to quickly find what they’re looking for.
Have a summary that can be broken down into a string of Tweets and add shareable images that can be uploaded to your Instagram feed.
Here’s an article about how student loans work. It’s informative and covers the topic in a way that’s easy to understand. Finance can be a heavy topic, so the author has added headings, dot points, and customized images.
The image at the start of the article can be featured when sharing the link via social media or email.
Or, the brand may prefer to use an informational graphic to make the content more shareable.
Related: The Ultimate Guide to B2B Content Marketing Strategy
Here’s one from the article:
Remember, images may need to be customized and resized to suit different platforms.
6- Ramp Up Your Customer Service
If you have content on different platforms, ensure your customer service is A+. Omnichannel marketing and customer service go together. You got them there, now back it up.
Monitor comments for spam and remove them as soon as possible.
Make a conscious effort to interact with your customers. Whether they’re commenting on a blog, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram post, you should be available to respond.
If you have a team, give them training on responding to customer queries. No matter how your customers contact you, the service should be the same.
Related: Ridiculously Easy Ways To Improve Content Marketing
For larger businesses, customer relationship management (CRM) software is available that lets you manage all your customer communication in one location. This software is often cloud-based, so it’s accessible to remote workers.
Improving Your Omnichannel Content Marketing Strategy
Most businesses have multiple platforms. If you want to get better results from your marketing, you should be using an omnichannel approach.
Make the most of your website by using it to promote your social media profiles and email mailing list. Track your visitors so you can learn what type of content is most appealing to readers.
Your branding and customer service should be easily recognizable, regardless of how your customers find you. Don’t forget to create rich content that can be shared across all of your channels.
Are you time-poor? Automation can streamline your omnichannel marketing and take care of repetitive tasks and scheduling for you.
