Performance Series 2 Episode 1 (EMEA/AMER):
Setting the Stage for Omnichannel Marketing

What newscasters talk about before they start the news? Probably about the news. Yeah. I bet. Well, looks like we're live. I think we're live. I'm I'm gonna go ahead and start. How's that how's that feel for you? We're live. We're live, baby. Yeah. Awesome. Hi, everyone. Thank you for coming to this live edition of the performance series. It's been a while. I think it's been, like, six months since you did something like this, which is pretty awesome. But today, we've got an awesome bit of content. I have Nick Odom here. We're gonna be talking about setting the stage for omnichannel marketing. Really, for this webinar, our goal is to really define what omnichannel marketing is and to give you some advice on how to actually do it and how to implement it. But, yeah, Nick Odom here. You're the director of technical adoption. Yeah. I mean, if for anyone that's been around, I'll spare you the the background. But, yeah, we're we're really just trying to focus on, like, how to expand into different channels and, like, how to to make them play well together. Right? Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I feel like whenever we talk to customers on a pretty regular basis, we hear some of the struggles of, like, like, how do I get my, you know, attrition, you know, down on certain channels, and how do I, you know, get more people engaged on other channels? And I I think a lot of these problems can be resolved by having an omnichannel as opposed to, like, a multichannel mindset. Yep. Yeah. So, I think where we could probably start is is what is omnichannel and what is multichannel? You know, how do you define those things? So I when I think of multichannel, it's it's a lot of, like, it's a lot of activity happening all at once across all the channels. Like, you're using all of your channels at your disposal, like, all the time, and they're not necessarily in sync with each other. So I might be getting the same message on email and text messaging and it which might work, but it might also be overwhelming. You know? As you shift more into, like, omnichannel, I I think it's more of a bit of more of a mindset shift. It's more customer centric. The channels are kinda talking together. And and might I say, there's no silos between Yeah. The channels. My favorite. We're in silos. Silos. You know? So Silos. Yeah. It's really it's really focused on, like, what that customer needs and what messages make sense to go out on the channels and, like, they're kind of playing in harmony together. Mhmm. Okay. You're using multiple channels, but they're more in sync. It's it's tuned up and, like, they're all kind of you know, they all serve their purpose amongst the the strategy. Yeah. It's kinda like playing You know what I mean? You got everyone is kind of together. Everyone is playing the right parts. Yeah. You know, the violin isn't playing the cello parts or the woodwind parts, things like that. They're all just they're doing their jobs. Okay. Okay. So, I got a story. And I wanted I want you to tell me, I don't think this is an omnichannel experience, but Sure. You know, let me know. So I I bought an electric skateboard, which, I mean Shocker. I know. It's a huge shocker. I have long hair. So I bought an electric skateboard a while ago, and it was, like, six to ten weeks before it shipped and arrived. I mean, it kept getting pushed out and the delays and things, you know, pretty typical. Nothing to be expected. Couple of years. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. New products. But the problem was I kept visiting the website. I kept, you know, following on social media to see when the shipping updates were changing, but I kept getting ads that said, hey. It's shipping now. And and there's nothing worse than, you know, continuing to engage and, like, check on shipping and those types of things. And then to say, hey. It's shipping now. And I'm like, well, money is your engagement as interest. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know? Like, if you're thinking about it, like, you know, so you're you're retargeting. You're retargeting in that in that scenario. But, Not realizing that I had purchased. I mean, I Shame on them. Right? Exactly. That yeah. There there needs to be a suppression strategy for people that just purchased. And and, quite frankly, if if you are having shipping delays, that's fine. Yes. But alert, you know, keep be transparent. Like and we we kinda talked about this in our last last set of, you know, topics around, you know, just transparency with some of these use cases and, like, just the ways we can, like, just inform a customer on, like, hey. Sorry. This is gonna be delayed. It's gonna be this is your expected date. Yeah. We don't quite have it yet. But, like Yeah. By all like, definitely suppress you from Yes. Trying to sell you another skateboard. You know? So I I don't see the way that would be frustrating. Yeah. And I I I think that kinda gets at the the heart in my mind of of what we're thinking about with omnichannel. You know, it's it's really having this mindset of how, you know, how do I wanna understand my customer? How do I engage with them in the way that they wanna be engaged? And then most importantly, how do I save money? You know? Because Facebook ads cost money, Instagram ads, all those things. Well, that that's great. I was wondering if I was having an omnichannel experience. I didn't really feel like it. So feel it yeah. You is it omnichannel, you're you won't feel it because it just feels right. Yes. Yes. It just all of it feels right. Yeah. Yeah. Well and I I think that kind of leads to some of these omnichannel myths. Yeah. So I feel like when I go online, I see a lot of different things. People talking about omnichannel. Some people are very pro. Some people are, I don't know if they say I'd say anti omnichannel, but definitely not as Doesn't exist. Doesn't exist. Yeah. So Just like subliminal ads don't exist. Yeah. Subliminal ads. Basically. So so does omnichannel exist? I like I said, I think it's a mindset, and it's like an approach to multichannel. Like, it's not like, if you just look at it for what it is, like, oh, I'm sending emails and text messages and this, this like, it look the same. But, like Yeah. If you're if you're in a Honda Civic or you're in a Ferrari Mhmm. They might have similar components, but they definitely feel different. Yes. Yes. Definitely. I mean, I I don't know what the Ferrari Civic I I mean, either. But, you know, I would I would imagine that a car that's tuned up like that Yeah. Is gonna feel a lot different. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that's really the where I think about it more is, like, if you've got all these components, but, like, how well do they play together? Right? You're a painter. You've got red, blue, yellow, green. Like, some person puts it on the canvas a lot better than another. Yes. Very true. And not everyone is Van Gogh. Not everyone is Van Gogh. Hey. Practice. Practice. So the other one is, we got a couple more of this. So we're omnichannel because we have more than one channel where we engage with customers. I think we've kind of dispelled this myth already. Yeah. It's much more than just having multiple channels. It's really about Having a strategy around Having a strategy. Having a lot oh, yeah. It's a planning and a strategy and, like, really taking that customer experience into account with it, not just saying, we need to sell more bags. Go oh, you've you know, the SMS team has a hundred thousand people on their list. You know, team's got five hundred thousand on their list. Like, let's go push it out, like, not even taking into account the fact that there's overlap and Yeah. This is what we're bought a bag last week. Some people just bought a bag. Some people are opting to both channels. So which one should they get? Like Yeah. They're just just sometimes it's, like, little details. Like Mhmm. They just bought a bag where they have both channels. They prefer this one. They engage with this one. They don't engage with this one. Yeah. Know, just little things. And sometimes it's, like, explicit, you know, permit like, not permissions, but preferences that people have told us. Mhmm. Like, hey. New items, I wanna be alerted in text messaging. Yes. You know? Absolutely. Some people love to get those new items first. Some people are totally fine getting something a little bit later. You know, more like your, you know, product updates. You know? This thing's running out, like, low in stock. This thing's just came back in stock. Like, all these types of things. Like, those might be really good use cases for SMS, and it might be something that when they signed up, they said that's what they wanted you use that channel for them for. Yes. Yes. And and, I mean, that that, you know, the the I think the conversation around that is really the important bit. You know, is having the conversation and saying, you know, the personalization side, sending it to everybody the same content is not really the point. It's really understanding that. I think that really brings me to, like, you know, last myth, which is omnichannel is just too hard. Mhmm. And I I don't really think that this is the case. You know, we've spent some time kinda walking through ways that we can, you know, get to omnichannel. I think we've got some more content. But, you know, is there is there any reason why you think omnichannel is too hard? Is that is that a valid myth? I think when approached, like, some of the typical marketing channels been approached where there's a lot of spray and pray, a lot of just batch things, a lot of a lot of pressure from the merchandising team to go sell more stuff Mhmm. It's hard. I think when the customer experience grows organically and is done, you know, with the, you know, basically, the customer in mind at the start, and you just let it grow over time and let people kinda opt into what they want to and, like, just really use the channels and build credibility on the channels as it grows. Like, I don't think it's as hard. But it's definitely it's definitely more long tail play. Yeah. Yeah. It it multichannel is a little bit more shortsighted Mhmm. Where you're trying to get immediate returns. And you might get those immediate returns, but at some point, list fatigue will set in. They'll be diminishing returns, these types of things. Omnichannel is something that you grow more organically over time. You you send people things that they're they're engaging with, and you kinda listen to that feedback. And, like, you grow the channel at the pace that the customers kinda want you to grow the channel. Yeah. And you're listening to them throughout and putting things in place that make sense for the audience as a whole. So, yeah, I could see why it's hard. Yeah. Well, let's kinda break down, you know, how do we even start with this. And I think one of the things that when we had the conversation about this topic that I didn't really personally even get was permissioning. So how do we get people, you know, how do we get permission to engage with these people, and what are some best practices around that? Yeah. And I know our our next episode, you know, coming up in a few weeks is, is gonna dive more into the website and, like, what goes on. But just to kinda lightly touch on it, like, if you think about what happens on a website, like, a modern website these days, like, you know, a channel that you're maybe not even thinking about is cookies. Yes. You've got you've gotta go and opt in to you know, sometimes it's just a general cookie permission. Sometimes websites are all asking for, like, different types of cookie permissions. Mhmm. So you've got that going on. And then you've got the email team trying to get people to subscribe to that. And maybe Well, and once I accept the cookies, everything else works. So whatever other, you know, whatever other channels that are there are now starting to work. And Well, a lot of times we're front loading that that experience, and it's all on the the homepage. So, like, it's almost a chore getting onto a new website because I'm, like, closing this, closing that, closing this, closing that. Like, there's no, like, real intention besides maybe a ten percent discount or something Mhmm. That it's offering me. Yeah. And at that point, I may not even be interested in the product. You know? Maybe I'm just starting the discovery process of that. There's still an education that needs to occur Yeah. About this. You know? And so I I think that there's there's definitely a strategy behind that. I I think some of that becomes a lot more clear when we know what use cases we wanna use different channels for or, like, what our goals of the channels are. Yeah. And then where on the website should I plug it in? Like, it doesn't all have to be on the homepage. Homepage is maybe one of the the worst spots to put it. Now you might get a higher rate of return there, but for for how long? And, like Yeah. Does it does it actually incentivize the wrong behavior on the channel? Like, if I'm just signing up for the discount Mhmm. But I really want the email. Yeah. What does the attrition look like? You know, do people sign up and then immediately unsubscribe? Do you lose those subscribers while giving away ten percent? You know, things like that. I think that's great. So I really, you know, I I really would love for us to kinda get into some, you know, super practical stuff. I think the permissioning, you know, we'll spend a lot more time on the next episode. So it's May seventeenth for for those interested. May seventeenth. We're gonna be talking about actually doing that on the web and and how we can use things like web channel and web push and, you know, web personalization to to get a little bit more engaged. But, you know, I I think from so for some practical takeaways, I I think the one thing that we kinda talked about was, you know, taking stock of your channel. We talked a little bit about, you know, what does each channel do, how does it work. You know, what what questions are you usually asking customers whenever they are trying to take stock of the channels? Well, the first the first thing I'm trying to understand, like, really meeting any any new customer is, like, how are your teams structured? Like, do you have, like, a CRM manager? Or is it, like, an email team, a text team, a social media team? Do you have a team that's, like, selling on third parties? Like, how is that structured? How how much do we collaborate together? But I I think Is there any collaboration? Is there any collaboration? Because we would, we do, like, transform workshops with our with our, like, paid strategy clients. Mhmm. But it it's honestly it's a really awesome exercise that I think anyone could kinda go through with their team. Yeah. For us, it really sets the stage for, like, what that strategy engagement's gonna be. Mhmm. There's a lot of deliverables that come out of that. If anyone's interested in doing that, let us know. But, you you know, I the exercise in general is is really just mapping out what that customer experience is and getting everyone in a room that that has anything to do with the customer experience. And everyone's just kinda talking about, like, from the first time someone hits the website, you know, what happens for the next two years? You know, let's just cap it at two years. Like Yeah. You maybe you visit the website, you don't sign up for anything, and maybe you do sign up for something. What happens there? What if you Mhmm. Sign up a purchase on the same day? Like, what, you know, what happens there? What happens if you sign up and you don't purchase for a week? Yeah. Just all Going through these strategies. And I I think Yeah. When you have a lot of people in a room, it's really easy to kind of talk about those. Yep. Because everyone has their own experiences with different brands too. Well, they know their channel really well. Yes. And, like, it's depending on, you know, if you're if you're all managing your channel out of the same platform or if you're working in different platforms, like, that can really either kinda simplify the situation or add complexity to the situation. And, you know, really just writing it all down and kind of mapping out. Like, here's the different scenarios that the person might encounter. Here's Mhmm. The things that happen after certain touch points. Here's what happens after a purchase. Here's what happens. You know, we already knew them. They've been a subscriber for six months to visit the site. They get an abandonment use case. Okay. What's in that? Yeah. And it's, like, kinda tedious. Once you ever once, it's a lot easier to keep it updated. Yeah. And I think, like, you know, how, how you're kinda talking about this, it sounds to me like you're you're really saying, like, each of these channels is gonna have, like, its own lane that it lives in. And sometimes those things are gonna cross over. Sure. But it's really that strategy. Do you have the customer or the product or the event is, like, determining that crossover. Right? Okay. Yeah. Does it make sense? Right? Like Yeah. We might both be signed up for back at stock alerts for a particular product, but, like, I don't wanna get a text message from this particular brand. Maybe you do. Yes. Yeah. You know, maybe it's, you know, going back to, like, our camera use case where, you know, like, you might wanna be alerted about cameras, like, right now. Mhmm. You're, you know A new release, you know, a brand new camera coming out. Just be something I check on the weekends and I go through and I see what's going on. And if I missed it, I missed it. You know? But Yeah. For me, it's not a big deal. And that's gonna be different for everyone with every brand, every use case. Mhmm. So Yeah. Really trying to take stock of that, you know, as a whole Mhmm. Can can provide a lot of clarity and also expose, like, any sort of gaps that you might have in this experience. Like Yeah. And I I think even thinking about the specialties of those channels, you know, like, SMS is great for notification. You know, I I ordered some shoes the other day, and I really wanted to get notifications of when they ship, so I signed up for SMS. Yeah. But But then I started getting marketing messages, and I didn't want those. So then I unsubscribed. And it's, like, those types of thinking and that kind of mentality to really, you know, find ways of enhancing the customer experience. Well, there's some, like, trust and credibility, especially with, like, some of those more intrusive channels. Mhmm. And I think that's where I see SMS done wrong a lot is, it it just gets turned into another stream of batch and blast. It's Yes. There's so much trust to getting into my, e like, my text messaging inbox. Like Yeah. That's that's really where family, friends, and and work are kinda, you know, even work, I separate we separate that out. Yeah. That's why I get it. These sorts of things. So, like, if if I'm letting a brand into my my SMS inbox, like, you know, it just it needs to be handled with care. And, like, there's probably something that I did at the time of sign up to indicate what I wanted that channel to be used for. And that that could be spread out across. Right? It could be a back stock thing. It could be it would just purchase. You can get shipping notification. It could be, you know, they've got flash deals on the site. I wanna get some of that stuff. Like, what did what did I sign up for originally? And that that channel can grow for me as a, you know, a customer. Yeah. But, also, it might just stay where it is. And, like, as a brand, we shouldn't necessarily deviate too far outside of that and and continue to build the crust Yeah. With me that that you're gonna be using it for what what I've opted into. Yes. Yes. And I I think too, like, times change. I mean and and one of the things that I noticed is sometimes these exercises take a lot of time at the beginning. Yeah. It's a lot of work to get everybody in the room. I mean, expect literally in a room the last couple of years. It's been hard to even get humans in a room together Yeah. Let alone, you know, get everyone to talk and collaborate. Good tool collaboration tools just digitally now too. I'm just thinking, like, a Miro board or Yeah. Like, some of these things. Like, we've we've totally digitized some of that stuff. But, I mean, you're right. It's hard it's hard to get people in one spot. Yeah. Well, and I I think when it whenever that, you know, that physical issue of getting people together, of having those conversations becomes a problem, it's really easy for your brand to stagnate. Sure. Easy for your strategy to stagnate. So how often do you advise customers? You know, is this once every five years, once every year, once a month? Like, what is this cycle of kind of, like, revision and and cleaning things up and having these conversations? I mean, I I'd say definitely at least once a year. Mhmm. You know, ideally, you know, maybe it's just your channel that does it amongst your group. Like, you know, getting everyone together probably once a year, but, like, really quarterly, you should probably at least be looking at it. Yeah. You know? Well, seeing I mean, if you have this map so let's say we spent you know? Let's pretend like we spent all of January building this map of Sure. Of our you know, how our customers are being interacted with. You know, if you are going back every quarter, there's not a lot of work. You know, it's not a lot of work to say, like, does this match this? Does this still apply? You make changes if you've made changes, you know you've added in any use case, like, going in, like, a pending that. So you're kinda keeping it. It's a live document sort of thing. Yeah. You know? But the other one is, like, there's a lot of there's a lot of, you know, new people coming into Teams. There's a lot of, you know, changes in Teams, people promoted, leaving, like, whatever The great resignation. The great yeah. I mean, what whatever it might be that changes the dynamic of your team and the team members on it, like, they're everyone in this space wants to come in and, like, you know, build a machine to do these things. I mean, we're all trying to track towards, like, a more automated system, a more Mhmm. Personalized one to one dynamic content, yada yada yada. But, like, you know, as we come in, like, I think it's important to take stock of what what's actually currently happening. You know, I see that a bunch where it's like, we've got we've got a new new person coming to use the system and, like, the the good ones are always like, hey. Show me what's going on Yes. Yes. The people who understand the role and understand what they're doing, yeah, they they want a map. They want a map. They wanna start on the map. Exactly. They wanna say, like, what's going on? What's working? What's not working? Like, what can we optimize right now? Is there something we're missing that we could just you know, what's a quick win? Yes. Yes. And that's Everybody loves a quick win. Everyone. And and I think whenever you start having these, you know, a mind map, if you will, once you have all of these, you know, individual touch points, it becomes obvious what you should do next. Yeah. It doesn't it doesn't end up turning into, you know, an hour long conversation. It's not a lot of work. You know, it's it's, oh my gosh. Why are we not doing that? You know? It becomes very simple, very easy. Well, that's kind of the beauty of the map. It's like it does expose it expose the gaps. It exposes the places where you're maybe, like, heavier than you need to be. Yeah. You know? And, like, you can really start to, like, see how everything plays together or, like, isn't. Yes. You know? Yes. And then from there, we can formulate a plan to, like, get to where we wanna go. Yeah. Finding those specialties, finding, you know, the different use cases per channel or ways that those intersect. It it I think the visual side is very important. Yeah. No. It it definitely, like, helps you kinda wrap your mind around what's going on and what are your customers experiencing. Yeah. I I totally agree. Well, Nick, this has been super helpful. I know we've got some time for q and a. Yeah. But before we really jump into that, I I do have a couple announcements. May seventeenth, we already talked about that. We have our next, webinar, and there should be a QR code popping up as well. You know, I don't know if this that one's for the webinar, but I I believe it's for ebook. Oh, yeah. The ebook, the omnichannel. Yeah. So the omnichannel strategy ebook. So if you got your phone out right now, tap that QR code. We also have a upcoming training webinar on May eighteenth. Then that's, like, getting a little bit more in the weeds. Right? Like, getting into the product, like, showing exactly how we execute on some of the stuff we've been talking through here. Yeah. Because I I think, you know, what what's hard is that whenever we we have these conversations, these big picture conversations Yeah. What does it look like in the platform? You know, it's this so the May eighteenth, training webinar, we're gonna be talking about how to retarget customers with Smart Insight and web channel, which will be great for the seventeenth May seventeenth episode, where we'll dig into web channel and, yeah, sign up for those. Sign up for both. Hopefully, this content is helpful for you all. And then also download that ebook. We've got the omnichannel, powering up your omnichannel strategy. But, yeah, I I think Anna's got some questions coming in for us. If you all see inside of the chat or inside of the the platform here, we've got little q and a area so so you can share whatever questions you have. And let's see if, see if anything has come through. We'll give people a little bit of time. Let's see. Let's see. Nick, while we're waiting for questions, any anything that's been, like, on your mind around, you know, omnichannel strategy? Anything that you're seeing that's that's, you know, people are doing really well? Anything that you know, kind of little bits of advice that you could give on those? I mean, the I think it just comes down to the data strategy. Like like, what are your what are you really, like, trying to collect and, like, you know, what what touch points matter to the what first party data are you maybe trying to to profile on the the customer that they can tell you the preferences, you know, explicitly. Yeah. Because there's, you know, so many different affinity models and things that we're collecting, but then there's also things that we'd just be asking. Yes. So I think that's where really a lot of this comes to life is just having a really good data strategy and Mhmm. And asking the right questions at the right time. You know? Yeah. Really trying to understand what are our customers' need, what are they looking for, you know, how can we really deliver the value that is important for those customers. You know? And, I mean, I've even seen the suppression side. I think that's something that's very, very overlooked on a really regular basis. Yeah. Having, you know, having this ability to suppress people who have made a purchase, to suppress people on on multiple channels, to really coordinate that on a larger scale. Yeah. You know? I I think that's something that Amars is particularly good at, you know, because we have, you know, Facebook ads. We have, you know, Google. We have I think how to orchestrate that at one spot makes it a lot cleaner to kind of manage each of the channels. Yeah. Absolutely. Orchestrate across each of them and, like, you know, bringing in, you know, just the the right amount of data to execute against, for for your customer. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, looks like we probably don't have any questions coming in. We'll give it another minute or so just so we can, you know, let you all have time to ask any questions if you have any. But, Nick, this has been been super, super helpful, for me. I know, you know, just in the planning side of this, I feel like I'm even uncovering a lot of my own, you know, misunderstandings and and biases around how do we do strategy, how do we, you know, really make these things work. So it's it's very, very important. Pen to paper a lot of times is what Yeah. What really brings it to life. You know? And that's kind of the whole goal of mapping it out, thinking about it, and building a strategy. Mhmm. Yeah. And, I mean, something that may not be, you know, as helpful, but I I I find it really helpful is teach your team these things. So if you are you know, maybe you're the only one at your company who's, you know, watching this webinar and learning about this and and kinda do your own research, like, take some time to teach other people. Yeah. You know, I I think the more that people are aware of what is omnichannel and what that strategy really entails and ways to leverage it inside of your organization, You won't have those requests coming over saying, can we do this or can we do that or can we do this? Yeah. Because they'll understand, does that fit into the strategy that we've defined for our customers? Really as a team dynamic thing? Like, how well are you playing together just internally? Yeah. I mean, have have a lunch and learn meeting. You know? Yeah. Invite people. Say, hey. Bring your snacks or whatever. You know, there's a lot of ways that we can really get this inside of organizations a little bit larger. And and, you know, I personally think it's very valuable, especially if you're you're starting out in your career trying to understand it, to teach others. You know? Yeah. Let yourself be known as a person who's learning and and growing. And Well, sometimes that's when you to your point, that's when you learn the most is when we are trying to teach. Yes. Yeah. Because you have to you have to synthesize what you're learning and talk about it. You know, I I think I had my own misconceptions around omnichannel is too hard. You know? And for me, it's like, well, yeah, it's you can do it, but it's really hard. And then when I started breaking down, you know, the individual questions of how would we do that? You know, taking SOC of these channels of, you know, really, you know, moving forward and and and thinking about our our strategy as a whole as opposed to individual pieces Yeah. It, you know, helped me even helping our own customers for the last couple months is, you know, just questions that came in and ways to orchestrate, especially with, you know, the great resignation or big quit or whatever other brands in turn. Yes. I mean, having a good game plan and seeing you know, I mean, very cliche sounding, but having a game plan, seeing the big picture, like, that's that's really where where that comes to life. And then then go on going deep into it and, like, what do what are the little nuts and bolts that that contribute to that? Like, where are you executing on that? Like, what data points do we need for that? Like, what events occur for that? Like, all those things are are workable. But, like, if you're not looking at the big picture, like, just gonna be sending stuff out. You know? Yeah. Totally agree. Well, Nick, this has been super helpful. Absolutely. Yeah. Time. Thank you all so much for watching. Like I said, May seventeenth, we have another webinar for the performance series. In May eighteenth, we have, a training webinar. So make sure you sign up. Thank you all for your time. Have a wonderful day.