As a CMO, I often hear the term "360-degree marketing" or "omnichannel marketing" thrown around like a buzzword, but what does it really mean? To me, it's about creating an integrated campaign that perfectly aligns with your customer's journey - from that first touchpoint when they discover your brand, to the purchase itself, and ultimately becoming a vocal promoter of your business.
It's a mix of the inbound marketing philosophy and a suite of interconnected tools like email marketing, loyalty programs, reviews, and your core eCommerce platform. The key is that every tool connects with the others, pinpointing the customer at the center of all your marketing actions. The customer is basically in the center of all of your marketing actions.
For example, when a customer visits your website, they receive a push notification and ads on Facebook and Google. If they add something to their cart, they get an automated email nudging them toward purchase. After buying, the loyalty system prompts them to earn points toward their next order, while the reviews tool requests feedback in exchange for loyalty rewards. This creates an immersive, 360-degree experience surrounding the customer.
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What channels are needed for omnichannel marketing campaigns?
A true 360-degree solution requires mastering multiple marketing channels, each serving a distinct purpose. Facebook and Google Ads operate quite differently - Facebook is interest-based for attracting new warm audiences, while Google Ads captures intent-based searches of shoppers looking to buy.
Email is a powerhouse, which is why I had my team implement a robust tool like GoDigital to nurture new prospects and re-engage past customers with timely, personalized messaging flows.
Then, of course, your website is the cornerstone experience that has to be relentlessly optimized. My team uses heat mapping religiously to identify dropoff points in the purchase journey. Iterative A/B testing is critical for isolating improvements to titles, imagery, CTAs, and more.
Finally, reviews and loyalty programs turn customers into vocal promoters. A review tool like Okendo generates a steady stream of fresh user-generated content. Partnering it with a loyalty program from a solution like LoyaltyLion incentivizes continued engagement and advocacy.
Harmonizing these channel strategies allows you to attract, nurture, convert, and delight customers in a true 360-degree cycle. Understand your customer, do a buyer persona. The buyer persona is that ideal customer, the one you want to basically come into your shop. As long as you understand that ideal customer, everything is going to fall in place perfectly.
What are the benefits of omnichannel marketing?
The ultimate goal of an omnichannel or 360-degree marketing solution is to increase conversions by mapping the entire user journey and addressing any friction points through interconnected tools and channels. It provides a streamlined experience for your customers and simplifies the process for your internal team.
With all your tools integrated, you have a reliable single source of truth for data rather than disconnected silos. This centralized data stream helps you identify issues more easily through techniques like A/B testing and heatmapping customer behavior on your site.
How to build a 360-degree omnichannel marketing solution
Prioritizing the pillars
When building out your 360-degree solution, start by identifying the key pillars or phases of the customer journey - top-of-funnel marketing, website engagement, purchase process, and post-purchase. Prioritize addressing those areas based on your current data pain points.
For TRAPO, my team invested first in email marketing to drive more website traffic. We then layered on heatmaps to optimize the new website experience, followed by SEO tools, loyalty programs, and review platforms. We built the solution step-by-step based on our biggest priorities.
Getting buy-in across the company
As the CMO, you need to sell this vision across the organization and get buy-in from department leaders. Identify their specific challenges and how an integrated toolset can solve those issues, increase efficiency, and provide a better customer experience.
It's an ongoing sales process, as you'll likely face some resistance to adopting new tools and processes. Have the account managers for each solution conduct training sessions highlighting case studies and time-saving benefits. Emphasize that these tools are meant to make their jobs easier, not harder.
The architect's role
You don't need to be an expert on every component, but you should understand why each piece is important for the overall structure. I like to view the CMO's role as "the architect" - you design the blueprint and provide vision, while empowering your specialists to implement the day-to-day execution.
Delegate areas of deep specialization to your team members, but maintain that top-down perspective of how everything integrates together. Building a 360-degree solution requires balancing this high-level architectural planning with hands-on management.
Continuous iteration is key
No 360-degree marketing solution is ever truly "finished." It's an ongoing process of continuous improvement through rigorous data analysis and constant A/B testing. As I always emphasize, "Patience is key - you really need to have patience, look inside your data and see what is working and what is not working, and do a lot of A/B testing."
The power is in the data. Look for areas of friction, test incremental changes, and keep iterating. Every A/B test provides insights to further refine and optimize the 360-degree experience.
Final pieces of advice
If you're embarking on building a 360-degree marketing solution, here are my key pieces of advice:
- Have patience - Allow enough time (e.g. 90 days) to properly evaluate the impact of new tools before judging ROI.
- Analyze your data - Look for areas of underperformance and opportunities in your centralized data streams.
- Test constantly - A/B test iterative changes rather than trying to overhaul everything at once.
- Know your customer - Build a detailed buyer persona to truly understand your ideal customer's journey across channels.
- Diversify channels - Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Have a healthy mix of paid, earned, and owned marketing channels based on your customer's behavior.
With this architect's mindset toward 360-degree marketing, you can design an integrated, data-driven solution that delivers an unbeatable customer experience across all touchpoints. It's a holistic approach that places your customer at the center of all your marketing efforts.
FAQs
Q: What is an omnichannel marketing strategy?
A: An omnichannel or "360-degree" marketing strategy is about creating a completely integrated marketing campaign where the customer is at the center of all your actions. The key is connecting all of your marketing tools and channels together so the customer has a seamless experience no matter where they interact with your brand.
It's about mapping out the entire customer journey and making sure you have touchpoints at every stage to guide them through the sales funnel. From the top of the funnel when someone doesn't know your business, all the way down to making a purchase and becoming a promoter of your brand.
Every tool you use - email marketing, loyalty programs, review platforms, your eCommerce site itself - needs to be interconnected. That way, no matter which channel a customer comes in through, you can continue the conversation and nurture them towards a conversion.
For example, if someone visits your website, you can re-target them with ads and emails. When they make a purchase, you instantly follow up with a review request and loyalty points. It creates this 360-degree cycle of constantly engaging the customer.
The power is in the data. You have to analyze where users are dropping off and find ways to solve those friction points by integrating new tools. It's all about continuously testing and optimizing that complete user experience.
Q: How do you implement omnichannel marketing?
A: Implementing a true 360-degree or omnichannel marketing approach takes patience and a very methodical process. You can't just implement every tool under the sun from day one. It has to be calculated and data-driven.
The first step is looking at your data to identify the biggest areas of friction in the customer journey. Where are people dropping off? What are the key problems you need to solve first? Don't overcomplicate things by trying to fix everything at once.
For us, we realized email marketing and understanding user behavior on the website were huge priorities out of the gate. So we invested in tools like an email marketing platform and heat mapping software first.
From there, it's about layering on solutions one-by-one, always aligned with your objectives. Let's say your next goal is increasing conversions at the purchase stage. You find a loyalty program tool and review platform that can integrate. You test it, get feedback, optimize it.
The key is taking it step-by-step, pillar-by-pillar. Map out the entire user journey in phases and have a clear objective for each stage. What tools and channels will help achieve that objective? How can you connect those solutions?
It's not just implementing random tools. It's a completely interconnected system where each component integrates with the next. Always be looking for those intersection points to create a seamless experience.
And remember, it's never "finished." You continuously test, analyze the data, and evolve the solutions over time based on what is or isn't working. Constant adaptation through data and learning is crucial.
So have patience, pinpoint your priorities through data, take it step-by-step, and always be optimizing. That's how you can methodically build out a true 360-degree marketing solution over time.
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