Marketing efforts are more scrutinized today than ever. There are also more channels than ever before. There’s a paradox at play: more risk, but more opportunity too. Brands need to know how to build the right strategy to meet consumers in the right places at the right times to move the needle. To do that as effectively and efficiently as possible, brands need an agency partner with omnichannel expertise.
What Omnichannel Marketing is and Why it Matters to Your Brand
Omnichannel marketing makes the best use of all available channels to connect with consumers on their journeys. It combines traditional and digital marketing into a holistic approach based on consumer needs and business objectives. It examines which channels are best at different points in the consumer journey for an integrated campaign. With an integrated campaign, each channel and consumer touchpoint reinforce the others so you can maximize your efforts, budget and results.
Today’s channel landscape is constantly changing, especially on the digital side. There’s always a new platform to join or features to explore. Brands can’t take a one-size-fits-all or check-the-box approach to channels. Each campaign needs to start with the consumer journey, data and business objectives. Once you have these outlined, you can build a custom omnichannel strategy that elevates your brand and your products or services.
Why Brands Need Agencies with Omnichannel Expertise
As the marketing channel ecosystem continues to fragment, it can be tempting to piecemeal campaigns across different channel-specific agencies. However, that can create a fragmented, inconsistent consumer experience with different agencies working in silos or even at cross purposes. The best way to maintain brand and messaging consistency is with a single agency who has deep omnichannel knowledge and proven results.
With a holistic plan under a single agency, brands get a global view of their efforts and are better positioned to connect the dots on their campaign and customer data. They can better optimize the entire plan instead of just its legs. Rather than start from a channel point of view, brands can start from the consumer’s point of view to create an overarching strategy. It’s about giving consumers what they need and want, which creates better relationships, while achieving business objectives.
What to Look for in an Omnichannel Agency Partner
It goes without saying that an omnichannel agency partner needs to be an expert in both traditional and digital channels. They need to have the diversity of expertise and experience to pull the campaign off. Here’s what to look for.
Data Expertise and Insights
Without insights or cohesive narrative, data is just a bunch of numbers. Brands have more data than ever at their fingertips, yet most don’t know how to unlock the narratives buried inside it, whether that’s demographic, financial or engagement data. Your omnichannel agency partner should be able to examine all the data you have and provide even more context and understanding with third-party data-service providers. They should be able to humanize the data to uncover consumer mindsets and behavior patterns. How do they feel? What makes them tick? How do they shop? Brands need an agency partner who can help them think through their data and bring an outside perspective to it too.
Rooted in Strategy
It’s easy to just start making and deploying things. With an omnichannel approach, you first need to step back to move forward. Omnichannel agencies should be experts at marrying consumer needs with business goals. They should take deep, ongoing dives into the industry category, business model, specific brand and consumers. From here, they can develop a solid strategic framework that ties everything together. This level of deep understanding is like a tree’s taproot. The campaign strategy becomes the tree trunk, and the channels the branches. Without deep roots, the whole tree crashes to the ground.
Measurement, Attribution, Evaluation and Testing Capabilities
Omnichannel agency partners must be able to prove their effectiveness. They need to know how they will measure the plan’s objectives and which metrics are the best to do so. They need to be able to successfully attribute increases in reach and revenue to their efforts. They need to know not only what’s working or not but why and how to optimize moving forward. They need to be able to effectively test which elements of a plan work best.
Born for Business in Theory and Practice
It’s one thing to talk about omnichannel strategy and another to execute it. At Heinrich, we do both. We’re passionate students of our clients’ businesses and dedicated to building relationships that last. We take the time to dig in to understand our clients, their goals and their consumers’ needs. We have the processes and tools to bring everything together, from strategy to execution, deployment to evaluation. We lead our clients with an eye toward the future. At Heinrich, we don’t just do work that’s creative; we do work that gets results. That’s why we’re born for business—your business.
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