[Omnichannel Marketing Strategy #3] Shoppable, User-Generated Feeds

Looking for social hacks?

Look no further than Walls Need Love, who’s able to generate 94% of its social traffic from Pinterest alone with a three-pronged approach:

1. They partner with bloggers to help them create content and take amazing photos
2. They use those photos for basic, organic social promotion to test, and see which perform best.
3. Then they take the best performers of the bunch and use Promoted Pins and Buyable Pins to scale results

Social commerce companies like BazaarVoice and Yotpo are also helping companies curate user-generated content, that can then be redistributed back to Instagram, Pinterest, and more.

For example, companies can create browsable galleries, uploading photos from all different users to show site visitors real people using the product and promotes conversions; capitalizing on Instagram’s 5X growth rate in usage over any other social platform.

Turning this Instagram photos into shoppable content makes the buying process even more personalized and seamless. Users can click on the shoppable photo tag of the item, which will take them to an in-app product description page, giving them the prompt to “Shop Now.”

Services like Like2Buy help make a company’s Instagram shoppable.

Users can click the company’s Like2Buy link, which will take them to a replica of your Instagram feed. They can then click on the specific photo they were interested in, which will pull up prices and links to the products. In addition to paid tools, brands can also integrate sales links back to their website in their Instagram bios and captions.

[Omnichannel Marketing Strategy #4] Discounts Aren’t Dead, Either. Use Them Effectively.

Coupons are often what convinces the customer to ultimately buy, according to a study commissioned by RetailMeNot: Almost 80% of those surveyed said that that digital coupons "close the deal" for them when undecided on a purchase. Here are a few discount/offer ideas that are more than your typical “20% discount for all products” offer.

• Multi-buy offers: Multi-buy offers give customers multiple products for a price that together is less than if purchased separately. This is a good way to sell less popular, more-expensive products at full price by putting them together with a discounted popular item.

• Volume-based discounts: With volume discounts, shoppers receive additional percentages or amounts off when buying a certain threshold of product. For instance, if you spend $100, you get 10% off your purchase, but if you spend 150, you get 15% off. This “buy more, save more” model prompt more movement of the product at a lower price per piece.

• Gift with a purchase: Sometimes if a buyer is on the fence about a product, a free gift can be the tipping point to make them purchase. Even better if the gift is something that the buyer wants AND promotes the brand. Like a free t-shirt with the company logo on it.

• BOGO: Buy one get one free (or buy one get one at a certain percentage off), or BOGO, works by raising the prices of purchasing a single item when it means that purchasing multiple is a better deal. When a customer can pay almost the same price for two items as they would have for just one, it’s hard for them to say no. Retailers make up what they are selling in volume what they lose in margin.

[Omnichannel Marketing Strategy #5] Incentive MOAR UGC with Contests

Contests can generate UGC into free promotion and endorsements, especially when votes are required as contest participants will share their content.

UCG provides the added bonus of brand new and fresh content, which also appeases the SEO gods.

Another idea is to hold a UGC contest in which users get to create product videos and descriptions. Customers are a brand’s biggest asset, and their reviews and real-life use of the products matter. And, according to Octoly, user-generated videos on YouTube are viewed 10 times more than videos created directly by the brand.

Contests increase visibility, promote engagement, and bring traffic to brands. There are many tools out there to help companies create effective contests.

• Gleam works with brands to produce viral competitions and manages responses.
• KingSumo manages viral giveaways to promote email growth.
• Rafflecopter runs giveaways without IT or coding experience required.
• Coredna encourages UGC for contest and competition promotion.

[Omnichannel Marketing Strategy #6] Craft A Recognizable Brand Voice

Focusing on how you talk to customers helps build loyalty and brand recognition over and above your well-designed logo. As Ann Handley asks, “If the label fell off, would people know it was you?”

Handley suggests considering brand voice at all corners of their reach, not just the flashy homepage and social channels. Error pages, the About Us section, the FAQ Page -- all in play. She suggests honing that voice with a deep dive into what makes the company unique:

• What makes the product special?
• What’s unique about the way you do business?
• What’s the culture like?

Brand voice is how company communicates with customers and should remain constant across all platforms, collateral, and physical locations.

[Omnichannel Marketing Strategy #7] Create a Movement by Standing Up for Something

Brands can emulate the social movement model but should make sure the movement still aligns with the current business goals.

Ogilvy analyzed multiple examples of social movements by brands and companies to see what works. There are a variety of key steps to take to build an effective social movement campaign, but most movements of these kinds succeed under the assumption of four similar tenants:

1. One, focused purpose,
2. An authentic mission,
3. Low barriers to entry, and
4. A commitment to cultivate growth.

[Omnichannel Marketing Strategy #8] Create Product Category-Level Buying Guides

Create even more fresh content with buying guides that can be segmented and broken down into seasonal and customer-based info.

Seasonal buying guides, as opposed to less-frequent, long blog-styles posts will bring customers back more often to see what is new and available. Making these guides seasonal gives even more incentive for the customer to buy. And these lead magnet-esque buying guides take away stress from consumers; perfect for loyal customers to feel more comfortable and knowledgeable about the product.

Buying guides can also be broken down by personality (gifts for different types of dads, for example), and can feature a collaboration with an opinion leader (like “Jenna’s Picks”).

They can also be a great opportunity for the upsell: by showing items that complement each other, it can be hard to pick just one.

Conclusion

Omnichannel marketing isn’t a tactic.

It’s not even a tip or a trend. It’s an evolution.

It’s the coming together of many different factors (like mobile and social) to advance the way consumers expect to shop.

But omnichannel marketing isn’t necessarily easy to execute, either. It requires increased coordination and streamlining of services.

That extra work, though, ultimately pays off. It provides a better experience for consumers.

And, best of all, more opportunities for growth for retailers.

Companies are no longer bound to just retail or constricted to open and close times of their brick and mortar locations.

Instead, today, eCommerce companies can reach more people, faster, and easier than ever before.