It is no secret that the pandemic changed the way Indians interacted with brands. As per a report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), there was a 51% increase in digital transactions in the last two years, with India overtaking the United States in terms of the number of users engaged in online transactions. These changing habits only emphasised the need for businesses to transform their brick-and-mortar manner of working and bring in more innovative strategies to continue growing.
COVID-19 changed customer behaviour; it opened the door to a more digital-savvy shopping experience but it didn’t completely shut the door on physical shops. Customers wanted a mix of both. In fact, around 74% of Indian customers prefer an omnichannel experience.
Keeping these trends in mind, it is critical for brands to ensure that they are connecting with their customers across all channels – from physical stores and websites to social media, email, and mobile apps. Brands must give customers a delightful phygital experience.
The answer lies in omnichannel marketing. As technology and customer behaviours continue to evolve, brands need to leverage omnichannel marketing techniques to adapt to better fit the needs of the customer and companies using this marketing method. The method lets brands offer a personalised shopping experience across channels such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, SMS, and the nearest store, and then integrate them effectively so communications can move seamlessly between them. This lets marketers provide a consistent customer experience across all channels, allowing customers to engage with a brand conveniently.
Enter CM.com, a pioneer in omnichannel marketing. Since its launch, the company has been helping brands reach their customers physically and digitally through tools such as Mobile Marketing Cloud.
The advantages of omnichannel marketing
Omnichannel marketing integrates physical (like stores) and digital channels (such as websites and social media) to offer examples such as “buy online and pick up in-store”. A phygital customer experience would be a music festival attendee receiving a WhatsApp message regarding the start of the happy hour of their favorite drink, or a customer receiving an SMS with a coupon for their next in-store purchase.
The brand message and customer experience must be consistent across all channels to give customers a great experience. To ensure that no touch points are missed, brands must reach out beyond traditional channels like in-store, email, and phone, and include newer channels like social media, SMS, and in-app messaging.
Once a brand nails its omnichannel marketing strategies, it can enjoy an array of benefits. As the approach allows customers to engage with the brand through channels of their choice, be it the website or store, it automatically increases customer loyalty and engagement. A consistent and seamless phygital experience leads to satisfaction and retention, and ultimately increased sales.
Omnichannel marketing allows brands to collect data from different channels, which can provide valuable insights on customer behaviour and preferences. This can be used to create more targeted and personalised marketing campaigns. Brands can also reach more customers through the varied channels, increasing the company’s brand awareness and exposure.
This strategy can be more cost effective than traditional marketing, while being less risky than channel-specific campaigns. It can increase ROI as it allows companies to engage with customers across multiple platforms, with a cohesive message.
Apart from increased engagement and sales, a good phygital strategy can be a great competitive advantage. It can truly be the key differentiator for a brand, setting it apart from other players in the market.
Why CM.com?
While the advantages of the strategy are interesting, it all boils down to how a brand implements it. This necessitates a technology partner who understands the ecosystem well. CM.com has helped multiple brands create omnichannel customer journeys and adapt to customer needs with its Mobile Marketing Cloud.
Mobile Marketing Cloud is an easy to set up complex, multi-channel communication streams that helps brands build lasting customer relationships. By using one platform for all customer interactions, brands and marketers can save time and be more efficient.
Brands can access all the channels they need through the platform. Each customer has a favourite messaging channel and brands need a presence on all important channels to reach them. Be it messaging platforms like SMS, WhatsApp Business and push notifications, voice campaigns or email, landing pages, and others, CM.com can be a business partner for all.
CM.com also enables brands to deliver more relevant ads by integrating the Mobile Marketing Cloud with advertising networks. Brands can automatically or manually export segments to the preferred social media channel of their customer and create more engaging customer journeys.
They can also send hyper-personalised campaigns anytime, anywhere with CM.com’s marketing automation solution.
Apart from easy integration, the platform offers one contact for all channels to send targeted text and email messages, with customer segments and personalised dynamic fields. It also offers chatbot services, which helps reduce response time and pressure on customer support agents.
With Mobile Marketing Cloud, brands can:
1. Manage personal conversations at scale: One can get access to all mobile messaging channels available through CM.com, and reach customers where they spend most of their time. CM.com’s marketing automation tooling also lets brands save more time.
2. Unlock customer data: Since customers engage across multiple touchpoints, their data is often fragmented and siloed in different systems. But CM.com’s Customer Data Platform unifies all data sources, making this data actionable for marketing.
3. Get 1:1 personalisation: Data can also help brands personalise and target campaigns towards their customers.
4. Build omnichannel marketing campaigns: Brands can reach customers on their preferred mobile messaging channel. Email, SMS, RCS, Push, WhatsApp, Viber, and Voice are all built-in and can be used immediately.
5. Automate customer journeys: Brands can plan and design workflows with CM.com’s visual drag-and-drop editor.
With a phygital world being a reality now, it has become inevitable for brands to cater to their customers keeping that in mind. Omnichannel marketing will continue to play a key role to thrive in this era. It helps in offering personalised and seamless phygital experiences through data and technology, and is a must-have in today’s day and age.
To give your customers a delightful phygital experience and connect with CM.com,
