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The advertising industry is rife with buzzwords. When it comes to e-Commerce though, standing head and shoulders above the rest of the pack is the term “omnipresent” (AKA omnichannel). The phrase didn’t get its popularity by accident, though; omnipresent marketing and sales strategy can result in an exceptional customer experience that drives sales in ways other strategies simply cannot.
So, what is an omnipresent strategy, and how can you put it to use for your business?
Omnipresent Marketing, Defined
In short, omnipresence in marketing is an approach to speaking to prospective customers that views them holistically, communicating with them across channels in different ways depending on how they interact with each channel – and how they’ve interacted with other messages from your company.
Let’s look at an example:
A company that sells shoes and performance apparel might operate a retail store and an e-Commerce storefront. Upon landing on their website, a new visitor might be greeted with a pop-up offering them 10% off their first purchase if they agree to provide an email address. The customer agrees to do so, then continues shopping on the site. After a few minutes of browsing, they eventually add a pair of shoes to their online cart.
Continuing to browse the site after adding the shoes to their cart, a chat window pops up offering to answer any questions the customer may have about the shoes. Before completing the purchase, however, the customer, a busy mom of three, abandons her cart and closes the browser.
24 hours later, she receives an email from the company reminding her that she can apply the 10% discount to her purchase, and what shoes are featured? That’s right: the exact pair she abandoned in her cart earlier. Also included in the email is a selection of other shoe models the customer might like, based on the pair she added to her cart.
The customer reads the email but doesn’t bite, instead choosing to open Facebook. There, she is served another ad featuring the shoes she added to the cart. This time, she clicks and completes the purchase. She receives a confirmation email, and all of the ads featuring the shoes she purchased disappear, to be replaced by other, related products the company sells.
Sometime later, the customer receives another email asking how she’s enjoying her purchase, and inviting her to review the product on the company’s website, which she does. She’s loving her purchase and reflects that in a 5-star rating of the shoes she bought.
The customer then receives another email a few days later inviting her to refer a friend to the site using a unique code that’s just for her. If her friend uses the code, she’ll receive another 10% coupon to be applied to a future purchase. She adds her friend’s email and sends the referral.
That’s the power of omnipresent marketing in action. Notice how the treatment differs across the different channels and timelines. All of the messages are related, but they differ subtly in the role they’re trying to play.
Omnipresent vs. Multi-Channel Marketing
Omnipresent marketing and multi-channel marketing are two terms that are often confused and used interchangeably, but the reality is that they mean different things. The easiest way to differentiate the two is to remember that omnipresent marketing uses different channels differently, which factors in that all of the messages are speaking to the same human being.
In contrast, multi-channel marketing communicates the same message across a wide variety of different channels. The wording or imagery might be different, but each channel operates independently of the others. They don’t work together to drive the prospective customer toward making a purchase. This strategy can be effective, but it pales in comparison to a well-constructed omnipresent strategy.
Let us help you build your omnipresent strategy
Creating an effective omnipresent strategy can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Our software services are designed specifically to simplify your omnipresent marketing efforts and make them as stress-free as can be.
For instance, in the previous example, the client could have received all of their emails from our Email Octopus service, which allows you to build emails, design automated email journeys, and track the effectiveness of your strategy.
While on the company’s website, the messenger window that popped up could easily have been managed by ManyChat, which makes it easy to build out sophisticated automated messenger responses that reduce reliance on live customer service agents and save you money.
All of the messages and ads served up on social media could have been facilitated by Agora Pulse, which allows you to effortlessly schedule social posts across all the major channels, monitor conversations, and responses, and generate reports with the click of a button.
And all of these efforts could be fed into our Ontraport software, which brings all of your campaign activities under one roof and allows you to seamlessly monitor the holistic impact of your efforts.
Conclusion
Not only is omnipresent marketing and sales strategy a more effective way of maximizing sales and conversation rates; it offers the level of service and personalization that customers have come to expect from companies.
Thanks to the likes of Amazon and other major retailers, a smart, omnipresent approach to marketing has become table stakes for many customers. The only question that remains is whether your business wants a seat at that table as well.
