Insights
Published: 6.14.23
This article is the second in a series of articles on omnichannel strategies and digital marketing.
Omnichannel strategies are rapidly becoming the best way to strategically reach audiences where they are. These multifaceted approaches leverage business divisions throughout an organization to connect with customers.
Within an omnichannel journey, digital marketing and sales enablement activities can act as an extension of your sales cycle, allowing you and your business to create holistic strategies that better meet customer expectations while achieving results.
Tips, Tricks, and Tactics: Building an Omnichannel Journey
Put in practice, how does digital marketing support an omnichannel strategy or sales enablement? If a B2B organization were attending an event, such as a trade show, and wanted to increase engagement before, during, and after the event, it may combine multiple digital marketing tactics with existing sales tactics to boost brand awareness and nurture marketing qualified leads (MQLs) into sales-ready ones.
Create an omnichannel campaign by moving beyond each individual tactic and into a cohesive strategy where each aspect of the campaign supports the others.
Landing Pages Capture Information
A landing page is a specific page on your website that shares information on a product, good, service, or event in exchange for the user’s contact information. That information can then be funneled into a larger digital ecosystem. For an event, consider a special offer for registrants and attendees to increase conversions from prospects to customers.
Paid Media Generates New Leads
Paid media presents an opportunity to generate or nurture leads based on a number of factors, such as engagement and location. For example, paid media can begin with a campaign geo-targeting potential event registrants based on proximity to the venue and relevant job titles.
Automated Email Workflows Nurture Engagement
Automated email workflows move users through a series of emails that trigger based on important dates, user activities, and more. One way email workflows can be used is to take event attendees and nurture them through a series of emails based on engagement. For example, everyone on an email list could receive the first two emails in a series, then engaged contacts receive emails three and four.
Organic and Paid Social Media Expand Your Reach
Organic and paid social media present opportunities to build trust and credibility with audiences while sharing more information. Organic social media posts can be used to generate excitement for the event and encourage registrants to engage with opportunities associated with the event.
Paid social media can supplement organic social media by expanding the reach of event-related content. These posts can link back to the landing page to continue to capture leads. For example, a paid media post could encourage audiences to find a booth or meet with the sales team at a trade show.
Articles or Blogs Share Information
An article or blog post about an event or offer demonstrates its value to registrants and attendees. An article may provide more information than what is available on the landing page, including proof of concept, such as a case study. This article can be used throughout other channels to continue to build awareness and engagement. For example, the article could be linked in an email and quotes from it could be used on social media.
Sales Enablement Supports Teams
Additional tactics can support sales enablement and personalized outreach. Creating print materials for sales teams to share with prospects can keep the business front-of-mind.
Combine print materials with digital marketing tactics for a more comprehensive sales enablement strategy. For example, sample emails can be used to give the sales team a template for personalized outreach. Similarly, example posts for individual team members can be shared for better visibility on social media.
These activities provide opportunities to begin building relationships with other registrants and attendees, and to share more information about your business in an informal way. Interested individuals can then be funneled into the digital ecosystem to nurture their journey.
Measurement and Reporting Track Your Impact
Understand your goals before undertaking a multifaceted campaign, so you can best evaluate your impact and return on investment (ROI) afterward. For example, use a CRM to track conversations and engagements of individual prospects, to best understand when and how they engaged with trade show materials.
Ready, Set, Go: Getting Started with Your Omnichannel Journey
An omnichannel strategy involves a thoughtful, cohesive approach to generating and nurturing leads. For one lighting and technology solutions company, this approach contributed to a 31% increase in web traffic, a 48% increase in site users, and better brand recognition overall.
That said, not every business is in a position to do a complete omnichannel strategy for every event, product, or marketing strategy. For many businesses, choosing one or two of these tactics and building a cohesive campaign using them is a strong step toward more multifaceted approaches later on.
As you consider which tactics make the most sense for your team, consider not only what you have capacity and resources for, but also where you will receive the most return on your investment. Also consider your business goals, and how you can align your tactics and strategy to them to have the largest business impact. Together, these considerations will help you narrow your focus and create a strategy that will lead to the most success.