5 Best Practices of B2B Omni-Channel Marketing Masters

According to the B2B data experts at ZoomInfo, only 30 percent of marketers are highly confident in their ability to deliver an omni-channel marketing strategy. What’s more, only 14 percent of organizations say they are currently running coordinated marketing campaigns across all channels. Whether you label your approach to marketing across a variety of channels as cross-, multi- or omni-channel, one thing is true of all, it requires due diligence from everyone on the marketing operations team in order to create a well-coordinated and cohesive customer experience that drives results.

5 Big Benefits of a Solid Cross-Channel Marketing Strategy

There are a myriad of reasons why investing time, money and effort into your current omni-channel strategy is well worth your team’s blood, sweat and tears. Research has shown that companies with effective omni-channel marketing strategies often see significant increases in:

1. Annual Revenue — Companies with an effective omni-channel strategy enjoy an average 9.5% year-on-year increase in annual revenue. A near 10 percent increase in annual revenue is a respectable accomplishment in any economy.
2. Customer Retention —Companies with effective omni-channel strategies typically retain 89% of customers. What’s better than spending a big chunk of your hard-won budget to get new customers? Nipping churn in the bud by keeping the customers you have!
3. Customer Lifetime Value — The customers of companies with an effective omni-channel strategy usually have a 30% higher customer lifetime value (CLV).
4. Customer Spend — Customers spend up to 10% more after being reached via omni-channel marketing campaigns. The rewards of making yourself available across channels are truly measurable.
5. Customer Satisfaction — Companies with an effective omni-channel strategy see their customer satisfaction increase as much as a 23x. More importantly (for you) happy customers not only spend more, they advocate for your business by sharing their good experiences with peers.

BONUS:  50% of marketers who use omni-channel marketing hit their financial targets. If you’d like to forecast that your team is going to make it rain for your company, then it’s time you upped your omni-channel marketing game. Fortunately, we’ve got five best practices that will prepare you to master the art of omni-channel marketing. So get out your umbrellas and get ready to bring the thunder!

Best Practice #1 – Prep Your Marketing Technology Stack

Before you can deliver a coordinated omni-channel campaign, you need to know that your stack is poised and ready to do so. To prepare your martech stack for success, follow these steps:

1. Make a list of everything in your stack and how it is connected.
2. Determine if the integrations are optimized for omni-channel campaigns, i.e. are they sharing clean, complete and standardized data? If your current integrations have too many manual processes, consider adding an integration platform to your stack.
3. Note any data silos in other departments that you need access to and form a plan to work with those departments to share pertinent data with one another.

Best Practice #2 — Set Up Your Data for Ongoing Success

It is imperative that the data you collect and use for your omni-channel campaigns be clean, complete, standardized and ready to use in a moment’s notice. After all, what good is it to have everyone’s email, but only a few dodgy mobile numbers when you need to send an SMS campaign? The best way to keep your data ever-ready is to use a customer data platform (CDP). These tools typically feature a dashboard that centralizes your view of customer data. This makes it easier to glean insights, compare metrics, run reports and make note of the data you have and the data you need. Some CDPs, like Sureshot Command, feature integrations with B2B data vendors, so that you can enrich your data quickly, easily and economically.

Best Practice #3 — Let Your Data Dictate the Channels You Choose

Today’s B2B customers expect to be able to connect with your business via their favorite channels, which include any combination of email, social media, text messages, chat, voicemail, live calls and more. As you determine the types of channels you want to add to your marketing mix, don’t forget to ask your customers directly how they would like to hear from you. In addition to preferred channels, you should also give customers the ability to choose the frequency with which they hear from you. By giving them control of the communication in the relationship and honoring their wishes, you’ll develop the kind of long-term mutually rewarding relationship that leads to higher CLVs.

Best Practice #4 — Optimize the Right Channels

Finding the right mix of channels to ensure you are reaching the people in your target market will require patience, a willingness to experiment, and permission to learn from failed efforts. As you test various channels and campaigns, your data will reveal what’s working and what’s not. This will enable you to adapt quickly and spend your budget where it matters.

As you plan campaigns, be sure to think carefully about the type of message you need to communicate and then choose the right channel for the job. For example, if you need to communicate a message that’s longer than 150 characters, don’t use SMS, use email. Remember; just because you have a channel at your disposal, don’t abuse the permissions customers have given you to contact them through it. Companies that overuse every channel available to reach customers, instead of carefully timing each message, run the risk of becoming intrusive and annoying to their audience.

Lastly, use good design to establish brand continuity and ensure your marketing pieces look great on every channel. A simple eye-catching design instills confidence and consistent messaging builds trust, so make sure your marketing messages present a united brand look and voice.

Best Practice #5 — Use Automated Content to Personalize Campaigns

As you collect data about your target market and individual customers, patterns will begin to emerge. Use this information to personalize your approach and make your marketing messages more relevant to customer needs.

If you worry about the time and effort it takes to scale omni-channel campaigns, add a Content Automation Tool (CAT) to your stack. These magical wonders make it ridiculously easy to create personalized, multi-channel campaigns by continuously searching and pulling relevant content from data sources throughout your enterprise. When you connect a CAT to your marketing automation platform (MAP) or your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, it will pull content that’s relevant to each customer and send it to them via the channel you choose — automatically. Talk about instant gratification! Your customers get the 411 they want, the moment they want, and via the channel they want and you are able to save thousands by repurposing content across all channels.