E-Commerce Marketing - Stop relying on FB ads alone! Why building an omnichannel marketing strategy is a must!

Building an omnichannel marketing strategy is vital for making sure your eCommerce business is getting the exposure it needs to thrive. List building - SMS and email in particular - and chatbots will help you to sell more online and build a loyal customer base, enabling you to stop relying on Facebook ads alone to scale your business.

iOS 14 shake-up

Earlier this year, rules changed so that iOS 14 users are now given the option to opt-out of being advertised to on platforms including Facebook. On top of this, only eight Facebook events (e.g. Purchases, Add To Cart, etc.) can be tracked from one domain on devices IF users agree to continue being advertised.

Of course, this has had a significant impact on digital marketing and can be harmful to the effectiveness of your Facebook campaigns. To mitigate against this, an omnichannel approach MUST be adopted, and you must look to include email and other tactics as part of your strategy to avoid falling behind in the race to advertise to your target market, and most importantly, sell and convert.

How to build an omnichannel marketing strategy - tactics to include

Chatbots

Chat is an effective way for customers to find answers to their queries while shopping online.

It's super convenient because they are already online and can chat with little effort. It also means they don't have to endure the hold times often associated with a phone call, nor wait for an email response. 

The results this method can yield speak for themselves: 

• 10% increase in average order value for customers who chat before making a purchase, a 48% increase in revenue per chat hour, and a 40% conversion rate. (Source: Forrester)
• Website shoppers who utilise chat are worth 4.5x as much as those who do not chat. (Source: Boldchat)
• The boost in sales performance provided by live chat is heavily influenced by a sales-friendly demographic. Internet shoppers are more likely to be from a household making more than $50,000 per year, more likely to be frequent shoppers and far more likely to spend more per year than other shoppers. (Source: Boldchat)

Other benefits of chat include: 

•    It saves time- A messenger bot can answer recurring customer service questions such as "Where is my order?"
•    You are less reliant on just one or two revenue sources- What if Facebook or Google, or Amazon shuts you down tomorrow? 
•    Improve conversion rates, increase repeat sales and boost loyalty - Offering live chat support demonstrates a commitment from a company to its customers, meaning they are much more likely to buy from you.
•    Meet customer expectations- Offer support that is effective, efficient and in real-time. 

Email Marketing and SMS 

Email and SMS marketing is another effective way to market your eCommerce business and a vital tool in your omnichannel marketing strategy. 

Among the benefits, email and SMS marketing can: 

• Keep you front of mind with your existing customers and stay ahead of your competitors
• Encourage brand loyalty, repeat purchases, increase your customers' lifetime value
• Support your efforts in paid advertising with the support of an automated, back-end follow up system designed to increase ROI
• Create a sales and marketing machine that encourages client retention 
• Keep your customers updated with service and product news
• Deliver personalised content based on customers' online activity 

Several platforms can make setting up and managing this form of marketing hassle-free and straightforward. Platforms such as Klaviyo are designed and purpose-built for eCommerce and work seamlessly with Shopify, providing both email and SMS messaging.

It's crucial to encourage sign-ups at different touchpoints on your website and social media. Use pop up forms on your homepage, in the footer and ask for email and/or SMS consent at checkout.

Your ESP (Email Service Provider) can do all the hard work for you. You can set up automated email campaigns including:

• Abandoned cart flows
• Welcome email series offering a discount incentive for signing up
• Browse abandonment
• Recommendation flows

What the implementation of iOS 15 means for you

In Sept 2021, Apple announced its very latest updates, with iOS 15 being one of them. Features such as 'hide my email' and other privacy settings threaten to hinder the progress of email marketing campaigns. 

"When it comes to email marketing, this move puts a proverbial nail in the coffin for email open rates," Greg Zakowicz, director of content at email marketing and SMS platform, Omnisend, told DigiDay in an interview. (https://digiday.com/marketing/cheat-sheet-why-email-marketers-are-calling-apples-ios-15-update-a-proverbial-nail-in-the-coffin/) 

Although the changes will have a fair impact, such as impeding advertisers' capability to assess success across email marketing campaigns, it's not necessarily the end of the world." Zakowicz says that marketers will simply 'need to focus on more meaningful email engagement, like generating clicks' since email opens will 'become an unreliable marketing metric'. 

Dan LeBlanc, CEO of Daasity, an analytics and data platform, also told DigiDay that: "Marketers are going to lose some functionality with this update." He went on: "But at the end of the day, it'll be just another update in the long line of events that were supposed to be the death of email."

Another reason to look at an omnichannel approach!

Need a little more help with your marketing strategy? 

Hopefully, the above has given you some insight into the importance of building on an omnichannel marketing strategy and some guidance on how to do it. However, if you'd like more help, please get in touch with 3twelve and book a free 30-minute strategy session - https://3twelve.co.uk/contact/ 

 

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