Text, Email, Social? Why Not All? Master Omnichannel Messaging!

Customers expect instant and bespoke services from the brand no matter where they connect with them – phone calls, email, social media, or text. Therefore, instead of considering separate channel experience, you should pursue one holistic approach – omnichannel messaging. Even 87% of retail leaders agree that an omnichannel marketing strategy is essential for their business. A study done by McKinsey shows that most B2B buyers use 12+ channels during their entire buying journey. It significantly increased from 7 channels used in 2019 and 5 channels used before a decade.

You will not juggle between various communication channels when you use omnichannel messaging. Your customers will experience consistent messaging without repeated offers. Omnichannel messaging is a customer-centric communication approach that will help you build an exceptional customer experience. This article sheds light on what omnichannel messaging is, its benefits, how to implement it and choose an omnichannel messaging platform, and much more. Let’s get started.

What is Omnichannel Messaging?

Omnichannel messaging means a customer-centric approach. All communication channels like social media, email, mobile apps, websites, push notifications, SMS, eCommerce platforms, in-app messaging, chatbots, display ads, etc, are integrated into one unified platform. Therefore, brands can see and respond to conversations and synchronize data across various channels. Omnichannel messaging platforms let businesses send messages from multiple channels within a single location. Such synchronized communication improves brand reputation, accelerates the sales cycle, and increases customer experience and satisfaction.

What Types of Businesses Benefit Most From Omnichannel Messaging?

Omnichannel messaging offers various benefits. It includes a wide range of businesses such as eCommerce stores, healthcare providers, financial services, real estate, retail, etc.

eCommerce stores can use omnichannel messaging for order updates and promotions where as healthcare providers can use it for appointment reminders. If financial service providers want to send transactional alerts, they should use omnichannel messaging as it offers connected experience.

In real estate industry, omnichannel messaging can be used to send property updates and client communication. Whereas retail store owners can use it for customer support and product launches.

How is Omnichannel Messaging Different from Multichannel Messaging?

The omnichannel vs. multichannel messaging debate has left businesses wondering which one is the best fit for their business. Here, we’ve briefly compared omnichannel and multichannel messaging.

Let’s understand it through a simple example.

Annie is planning a dream vacation. She visits the website of a travel agency and fills out the inquiry form. After a few minutes, she receives an email with package details. She was excited and replied with a few questions but got no response. Frustrated, she reached out via WhatsApp message, but they had no record of her inquiry. Since the systems aren’t synced, the Travel Agency team provides inconsistent answers, leaving Annie confused. It is multichannel messaging. In it, multiple channels are used, but they are not connected. Here, Annie’s communication breaks down, which leads to frustration because of disconnected channels.

Let’s consider another scenario. Annie receives an email but she does not respond. After sometime, she receives WhatsApp message followup that acknowledge her inquiry and offer a personalized itinerary. She clicks on the link but get distracted. Later she receives an SMS reminder to complete her booking. When she calls the customer support, the team is already aware of her preferences and past interactions.

The difference is that multichannel messaging provides communication touchpoints, and omnichannel messaging offers a connected experience across all channels. Thus, it makes Annie’s journey smooth and engaging.

Key Channels of Omnichannel Messaging

Omnichannel messaging means communicating with customers across multiple integrated channels. It ensures a seamless and consistent experience. Here are key types of omnichannel messaging. Each channel serves a unique purpose, and integrating them offers a cohesive customer journey. Here are key channels of omnichannel messaging.

What are the Benefits of Omnichannel Messaging?

Adding an omnichannel messaging approach to your sales, service, or marketing strategy offers various benefits. Here are a few of them.

1. Improved Reach

When you use omnichannel for retail, marketing, and service strategy, you can reach your customers where they are. Your customers don’t have to keep searching for your products, service, or your team, because you, your team, and your product are just one, click, call, email, or direct message away. Besides, when you’re available on more channels, there are more opportunities for exposure, brand building, and brand awareness.

2. Seamless Consumer Experience

Omnichannel lets your customers interact with your brand across multiple channels. However, they still have the same consistent experience. It also lets them choose their favourite channel to get service. For example, they can find your business profile and DM you. Such a seamless process makes customers more satisfied, and your customers become your loyal customers.

3. Boost Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

Your customers will be happy if they know they have several channels to reach your customer service and sales teams or can buy products easily, no matter their platform or device. In the long run, it increases customer satisfaction and increases the repeat customer ratio as your customers are more satisfied. And satisfied customers = loyal customers.

4. Quick Problem Solution

Customers expect quicker resolution, and with the omnichannel strategy, you can easily offer them to your customers. Omnichannel messaging lets you meet your customers where they are and when they’re looking for support. It lowers their average resolution time and sets customers up for success. Besides, if you have a representative for each channel, you can lower the resolution time even more because there is always someone to help your customers as soon as they reach out. You can even deploy AI-powered chatbots to help customers solve their common issues on their own. It will help reduce your operational costs and improve customer satisfaction.

5. Increased Profits

Whenever your potential customers are ready to buy and can easily find your product on multiple platforms and channels, it makes it easy to make a purchase. Besides, they can easily renew their subscriptions and buy from you again. It secures recurring revenue.

6. Better Data

Omnichannel messaging strategies provide businesses with a holistic view of their customer’s behaviour and preferences by combining data from multiple sources. When businesses have better data, they can quickly improve their customer experience, increase retention rates, and boost revenue.

What are the Best Tips and Strategies for Using Omnichannel Messaging?

To build a winning omnichannel messaging strategy, you must consider market and customer research elements and combine them. It will help you understand which channels will be most effective for your business. Here are a few of the best tips and strategies that you can use.

1. Do Research Your Audience and Ideal Platform

Let’s first start to understand what platforms your customers and competitors use. It will ensure that you will not miss any messaging channels. Besides, analyze your business’s current channels and platforms to understand performance and improvement opportunities. Try to understand your audience and approach your messaging strategy from the customers’ perspective. Analyze your customer preferences and behaviour to find the ideal communication channels.

2. Maintain Messaging Consistency

Once you’ve determined your ideal customers, you need to ensure your messaging remains uniform across all channels – email, phone, chat, SMS, MMS, etc. It will strengthen the brand identity and prevent confusion.

3. Prioritize Personalization

You must use customer data to craft personalized messages. These messages must be based on past preferences, interactions, and behaviour. It makes engagement more meaningful.

4. Use Automation

Include chatbots and AI-driven tools in your omnichannel messaging strategy. It will help you provide instant, quick responses and hassle-free communication.

5. Send Messages at the Right Time

You must send messages when your customers are most likely to engage and A/B test them. It will help find out the best time slots.

6. Set Clear Goals and Objectives

There is no meaning in sending messages without setting goals and tracking metrics. Goals and tracking metrics will tell you if your messaging strategy is effective. To ensure you maximize your ROI and reach as many customers as possible, you must set goals for your teams and implement messaging strategy accordingly.

7. Ensure Compliance

You must comply with regulations like TCPA, GDPR, CAN-SPAM Act, etc. It will help you protect customer data and avoid legal issues.

Common Mistakes to Avoid While Implementing Omnichannel Messaging

Effective omnichannel messaging implementation can transform customer engagement. However, you must avoid a few common mistakes that can hamper your success.

• Don’t treat each channel separately, as it will lead to inconsistent messaging. So, prioritize each channel and integrate them effectively to ensure a consistent messaging experience.
• If you send messages on a platform that your customers don’t use, there is no meaning to it. It will reduce engagement. However, you need to analyze preferences and reach them where they’re most active.
• Don’t bombard your customers with messages. Excessive messaging can frustrate your customers and encourage them to opt-out. Therefore, maintain a balanced frequency to keep the engagement high.
• Sometimes, businesses fail to personalize communication and send generic messages. Avoid making this mistake. Use customer data and deliver a relevant, personalized message that adds value.
• Offering uncoordinated and poor response management can frustrate customers. Therefore, include automation and AI-driven chatbots in your omnichannel messaging strategy for instant replies.
• Your message content must be visually appealing and optimized for mobile devices. If the content is not optimized for mobile, customers find it difficult to read it on small screens.
• Don’t ignore customer data privacy. If you fail to follow regulations such as TCPA, GDPR, it can cause legal penalties.
• Never ignore performance metrics. If you do so, you won’t know what is working and what is not. You must regularly analyze and refine your strategy for better results.

How to Choose the Best Omnichannel Messaging Platform?

You must consider your customers and teams’ preferences and specific needs to choose the best omnichannel messaging platform. Here are a few things that your chosen omnichannel messaging platform must allow your business to do. The omnichannel messaging platform that you choose must let your business share data across multiple channels and platforms. It must provide centralized communication so that you can capture all customer interactions. You must be able to scale your messaging as required.

The platform you choose must come with features such as personalization, automation, integration, contact segmentation, security, efficiency features, a shared inbox, etc. It will help achieve a smooth, engaging, and effective omnichannel messaging experience for customers.

Start Building Your Omnichannel Messaging Strategy With Texrdrip

It is no wonder that many companies use an omnichannel messaging strategy these days. It gives customers a unified experience across all channels. You can improve customer engagement, increase brand awareness, and build a long-term relationship with your clients through multichannel messaging. Choosing the right omnichannel messaging platform helps you coordinate communication from multiple platforms. Its integration capabilities with CRMs and other existing tools will further help your team centralize customer communications. A platform like Textdrip’s Automation Studio provides various apps and SaaS integration, which acts as an omnichannel messaging platform.

So, don’t stay behind! Start implementing an omnichannel messaging strategy with Textdrip’s FREE trial in your business today!