Merging Bricks and Clicks - 7 Things Marketers Should Try in 2023 for Omnichannel Growth

The current virtual marketplaces and digital landscapes are evolving at an unprecedented rate. With the growing prevalence of hybrid shopping experiences, the once-clear distinction between physical and virtual channels is rapidly diminishing, requiring marketers to go above and beyond to overcome intense competition.

It's imperative for companies to transit and adapt to the circumstances—and the key to successfully adapting to the changing virtual marketplace trends is to merge “bricks and clicks” — the offline and online worlds — to create a holistic, simplified, and unified shopping experience for consumers.

Businesses should ensure that they offer in-store pickup for online orders, use customizable QR codes, scanners, and NFC technologies to blur the lines between physical and virtual marketplaces, and create as immersive an experience for customers as they possibly can.

As a top-rated content writing agency, we have understood the requirement for marketers to stay ahead of the curve and focus on omnichannel growth if they are to attract customers. But how do we do that, and what are the best practices for efficient omnichannel marketing? Let’s find out together.

What is Omnichannel Growth?

Omnichannel growth, which is also referred to as omnichannel marketing, is simply the expansion and integration of more than one channel — in both online and offline mediums — with a view to creating consistent and convenient shopping experiences for customers.

The main purpose of omnichannel marketing is to reach out to the customers where they are, give them the convenience of shopping from their preferred channels, and deliver a personalized experience to sway their loyalty to the brand.

With omnichannel growth, the company will focus on creating a unified brand experience across various touchpoints, including brick-and-mortar retail stores as well as online storefronts, social media, mobile applications, and so on.

In today’s climate, all e-commerce platforms are leveraging omnichannel marketing to better understand the needs and wants of their customers, optimize their marketing strategies, and boost revenue and profitability.

Benefits of Omnichannel Marketing

There is a significant emphasis on omnichannel growth in the business world. However, if you choose to focus on this area, it will demand a considerable investment of both time and resources on your part.

So, why should you make that kind of investment? The answer is simple — because the reward will be even greater. Here are the primary advantages of shifting your focus to omnichannel growth:

Greater Reach

Omnichannel marketing enables you to reach out to your customers directly, without them having to face the inconvenience of reaching out to you. This approach ensures that your company's information, products, and services are easily accessible to customers, resulting in greater reach and engagement.

Greater Profits

Omnichannel marketing offers a significant improvement in customer satisfaction. By enabling your prospects to purchase your products seamlessly from their preferred platforms, you can increase the chances of converting them into actual buyers, leading to higher profits.

Optimum Customer Experience

Providing a good customer journey is the priority of many high-end commerce platforms. If it’s convenient for people to get cross-platform access to your company’s information, they’re likely to make repeat orders regularly. In the end, omnichannel marketing will help out a lot on that front as it is solely devoted to making the customer journey a smooth one.

7 Best Practices for Omnichannel Marketing in 2023

We have already talked about the importance and benefits of deploying an omnichannel marketing strategy.

But you will never get the desired results if you don’t focus on the implementation. Marketing is not easy. It becomes even more difficult if you have to apply the same strategy on multiple platforms and channels.

So, how can you improve on that front?

By applying these 7 tips in your omnichannel marketing strategy for the year 2023:

→ 1. Conduct Audits:

Before you scrap everything and start afresh, it’s best to gain some valuable insights from what you have done so far.

The best way to do this is to get detailed audits of all the marketing strategies that you have implemented. Doing so will give you a clear idea about your customers’ demands, their opinion of the businesses, and weak links that you need to fix in the revamp.

One good way to assess pre-existing marketing strategies is to have a look at customer reviews. They can tell you a lot about the issues that your clients are having with your business and what are the areas that are providing optimum results.

→ 2. Map Customer Journey:

Your omnichannel growth need not be explosive. In fact, it’s recommended that you keep things slow and sustainable. Trial and error is the best way to explore your marketing options.

As such, you should map your customer journey, behavior, and habits to get a better idea of how to proceed.

For example, the purchasing power of your average customer can give you a good idea of what platform or channel would be the most important for your target audience.

→ 3. Start Slow:

As we mentioned, you don’t need to have an explosive start. Focus on small-scale changes initially. For example, revamping your social media accounts can be a good place to begin, as you’ll find that almost half the general market is online on popular platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

From there on, you can start making modifications and strategizing for other channels like your website, offline retail, and so on.

→ 4. Create Unified Brand Experiences:

Cross-platform marketing strategies can only work if you have a distinguishable brand. Just think for yourself - if you don’t have a unified brand theme across several platforms like Facebook and Instagram, how would customers remember where they purchased a particular product from?

Thus, a unified brand experience across multiple channels will make your business more memorable and potentially increase reorders and customer loyalty.

→ 5. Focus on Mobile-First Strategies:

In 2023, mobile devices account for over 60 percent of global internet traffic, as per a report by Statista.

We’ll lay down another interesting fact for you - mobile users are five times more likely to abandon a website if it isn’t optimized for smartphones.

So, implementing mobile-first strategies is the need of the hour, as well as all the coming hours.

Make sure that your website is optimized for mobile viewers. Creating an application can also go a long way when it comes to capturing the target market. Lastly, the SMS technology should be leveraged efficiently for sending targeted push notifications.

→ 6. Use Emerging Technologies:

With the advent of advanced but highly accessible technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and artificially intelligent chatbots, you can easily improve the omnichannel experience for customers by making the whole process more immersive, interactive, and personalized.

→ 7. Merge Bricks and Clicks:

Integrating online and offline experiences is the most crucial step for promoting efficient omnichannel growth.

Businesses should ensure that they offer in-store pickup for online orders, use QR codes, scanners, and NFC technologies to blur the lines between physical and virtual marketplaces, and create as immersive an experience for customers as they possibly can.

Conclusion

As we move past 2023, the need for omnichannel growth will be amplified for marketers and businesses that wish to remain competitive in the modern market.

Customers want a pleasant buying experience without the slightest hiccups in their respective journeys. It's up to businesses today to approach customers and not the other way around.

The only sustainable method to do this on a large scale, for now, is a fool-proof, efficient omnichannel growth strategy.

Marketing