The retail environment has changed rapidly in the last 18 months. The demand for responsive, powerful software has grown almost as rapidly as the eCommerce and retail industries themselves – and as a result, software providers also needed to evolve to ensure they meet the requirements of growing brands and enterprise retailers. 

To meet the needs of these retailers, Shopify created Shopify Plus and its coveted Shopify Plus Certified App Partner program. Shopify Plus’ partner program is open to apps that are shoulder tapped because they have proven that they can meet the complex needs of larger retailers. To be specific, Shopify Plus Certified App Partners must offer retailers the highest “performance, security, privacy, and support” – in fact, of the 6000 or so apps on the Shopify Marketplace, only 60 are Shopify Plus certified. 

We’re proud to announce that Marsello has been selected to join the Shopify Plus Certified App Partner Program and is the only certified marketing app that integrates both in-store and online whether a retailer uses Lightspeed POS, Shopify POS, or Window-based legacy software.

Quicklinks:

• What sets Shopify Plus apart
• What is the Shopify Plus Certified Apps Program
• Marsello: the only retail marketing Shopify Plus App Partner that integrates in-store and online
• How Marsello became a Shopify Plus certified partner
• Marsello x Shopify Plus retailers making the most of their marketing
  
  

What sets Shopify Plus apart

While Shopify has been a household name in the retail sphere for quite some time, Shopify Plus is home to the eCommerce and POS provider’s largest retailers. And it’s a non-negotiable that these enterprise-level businesses have confident access to apps that are proven to support their continued growth. 

Shopify Plus provides high-growth retailers with solutions that help them develop and scale with confidence and ease. From (vastly) improved online traffic management and full eCommerce store customization capabilities, to multichannel integration, emphasis on user experience and site speed, and an approved app program (the Shopify Plus Certified App Program), Shopify Plus retailers are equipped with all the tools to see rapid and continued success.

What is the Shopify Plus Certified Apps Program

Shopify’s marketplace is bursting with apps that are all vying for retailers’ attention. While having plenty of options is a powerful position to be in, retailers don’t often have time to test all the available options and make a well-researched decision. This is especially true for big retailers who are beyond the stage of experimenting. As they cater to some of the biggest and best retailers, Shopify Plus needs to be able to provide these retailers with app recommendations that meet certain standards. This is where the Certified App Program comes into play.

The Certified App Program essentially vets their best-performing Shopify partner apps within certain categories. We are proud to say Marsello has met Shopify Plus’ partnership requirements, offering Shopify Plus retailers the only true omnichannel marketing app.

Marsello: the only retail marketing Shopify Plus App Partner that integrates in-store and online for retailers using Windows POS

So what does Marsello offer Shopify Plus retailers? That’s easy! Marsello’s ability to integrate in-store and online means that Shopify Plus retailers can attribute each and every customer interaction to their marketing efforts, no matter where that interaction occurs.

With last-touch attribution, industry-leading marketing tools (from email and SMS campaigns to loyalty marketing and automated flows), Marsello is built to help retailers big and small achieve great things with their marketing. In fact, Marsello retailers see an average of 98x return on investment!

How Marsello became a Shopify Plus certified partner

Shopify Plus requires that any partner app that wishes to become certified must meet a baseline of the following requirements:

• Support: 24/7 access to app partner support
• Security and privacy: Trusted and secure information and data handling
• Performance: Advanced app performance and integration standards.

At the end of the day, Shopify Plus Certified App Partners must have a proven successful history of working with Shopify Plus retailers, while also ensuring the ability to continue this success with any other Shopify Plus merchants who may wish to use the app in the future. Marsello’s mission has always been to empower retailers to create stand-out marketing that supports their business at every step of the way, on every sales channel. Becoming a Shopify Plus Certified App Partner allows us to ensure we’re offering the highest quality product and experience while supporting all of our retailers to grow, scale, succeed and sell more!

"The Shopify Plus Certified App program is designed to meet the advanced requirements of the world's fastest-growing brands," said Mark Bergen, VP Revenue. "Marsello's accreditation in becoming a Shopify Plus Certified App Partner is a testament to the hard work we've put into the partnership over the years. As the first New Zealand-based app to become a Shopify Plus partner, we are excited to play a part in helping omnichannel retailers scale their businesses." – Brent Spicer, CEO at Marsello

Marsello x Shopify Plus retailers making the most of their marketing

Let’s take a look at how some Shopify Plus retailers are already using Marsello to make the most of their marketing. 

International swimwear sensation, Triangl, sees 5182x ROI with Marsello

Triangl found international success selling a color-blocked neoprene bikini that took beaches worldwide by storm. From celebrity endorsements and rapid growth to scaling beyond eCommerce and staying ahead of the fast-paced fashion world, Triangl needs total confidence in any tool they add to their kit, and consistency in their email marketing is no different.

"The increase in our results was also driven by improving our Welcome Email Series where the content seeks to build community, encourage user-generated content, showcase new arrivals, engage customers in upcoming releases, and get involved in our Travels via the Blog."

Triangl’s focus on consistency and customer experience has helped them to curate a loyal following of customers that love to engage with their content. And by integrating their email marketing with both their eCommerce and brick-and-mortar stores, the stand-out swimwear brand are making the most of every customer interaction. In fact, Triangl aren’t just seeing results, they’re seeing remarkable growth – 5182x return on investment with Marsello to be exact.

Learn how Triangl uses Marsello to power email marketing that compliments their brand and delights their customers.

Cosmetics & Fragrance Direct’s omnichannel marketing creates a consistent customer experience

Cosmetics & Fragrance Direct, an Australian beauty stockist, are experts in curating ‘flow’ between their in-store experience and online stores. Recognizable branding and consistent messaging go a long way in customer experience. Cosmetics & Fragrance Direct knows this and has been careful to ensure that the customer experience of transitioning from in-store to online to engaging with marketing efforts feels seamless, effortless, and recognizable. 

With Marsello, they can rest easy knowing that every customer interaction is accurately tracked and organized within their marketing funnel thanks to last-touch attribution reporting and seamless omnichannel integrating with their Shopify Plus eCommerce site and their Lightspeed POS sites. The TL;DR? Cosmetics & Fragrance Direct knows that their marketing goes out to the right customer, with the right message, at the right time because they have ensured that their marketing integrates with all their sales channels. And with 17x ROI just from their one-off email marketing campaigns alone, the team behind Cosmetics & Fragrance direct also knows that their marketing efforts are reaping the benefits.

Read about Cosmetics & Fragrance Direct’s omnichannel marketing success.

Final words 

Marsello’s approval as a Shopify Plus Certified App Partner cements our continued commitment to retailer growth and development, as well as our dedication to our partnership with Shopify Plus. We continue to push the envelope for what retailers can expect from their marketing applications and we’re excited for what this certification means for our work with current Marsello retailers as well as future users. 

Retail marketing is a fast-growing, fast-paced environment and we thrive on challenging ourselves to continually provide a platform that meets retailers’ primary marketing needs while also going above and beyond with customer service, experience, product development, and integration possibilities. We excitedly welcome the future of true omnichannel retail.

Getting customers to pay attention to your brand is becoming more and more of an uphill battle.
Email inboxes are overflowing. Social media is saturated. Even with the right messaging and the right tools, there is sometimes too much noise to be able to stand out.

So, how can you make people actually see your marketing efforts?

Enter SMS Marketing; the marketing channel that receives some of the highest open rates and engagement.

In this post, we’ll be giving you an in-depth look at SMS marketing. You’ll learn what it is, why it works, and the best practices for developing an SMS marketing strategy that's cost-effective and boosts your bottom line.

Let's get started.

What is SMS marketing

Short Message Service (SMS) marketing is a strategy where businesses use SMS messaging to send timely and relevant short-form content directly to a customer's mobile device. 

The uses of SMS marketing span from informative (i.e. letting someone know that their order is ready for pick up) to promotional messages, like alerting customers to your latest special offer.

SMS marketing can be used for an even broader variety of purposes, such as:

• Abandoned cart notifications
• Giving out discount codes or coupons
• New products arriving in-store
• Order/shipping confirmations
• Loyalty or VIP programs
• and many more.

Because it allows for such direct and personalized brand communications, text message marketing is a fantastic tool for building customer loyalty and driving repeat purchases. It enables customers to be better informed about your brand’s activities, while also giving them the tools they need to take action quickly and effectively.

SMS Marketing: The Numbers 

Text messaging is hardly a new innovation. Mobile phones with full keyboards have been around since the late nineties. So, why is SMS marketing receiving so much hype from marketers?

Many brands worry that SMS marketing messages might come across as intrusive – but this view is not supported by consumer surveys. By the end of 2020, it’s estimated that 48.7 million consumers have willingly opted to receive SMS, while 58% say they would be happy to hear from their favorite brands multiple times per week.

Why? The answer is simple; internet-capable devices have given us unprecedented connectivity with businesses and brands. This gradual shift towards mobile eCommerce is a clear sign of our increasing desire to shop on the go; 56.7% of shoppers are now going “mobile-first”, while only 6.7% primarily use desktop for online shopping. 

56.7% of shoppers are now going "mobile-first", while only 6.7% primarily use desktop for online shopping. 

Parker Panache

Marsello customer Parker Panache intelligently used one-off SMS campaigns to build a buzz around their annual Black Friday sale, one of the biggest events in the retail calendar. In conjunction with other marketing tools, they used SMS message blasts to spread the word by taking advantage of the medium's high open rates. It certainly paid off, with their total ROI reaching 240x over the two months leading up to Black Friday.

American Eagle Outfitters

American Eagle was an early adopter of SMS marketing, and this strategy has clearly paid off.In the 2015 holiday season, their "legendary gifts" campaign gave consumers the chance to win $10,000. The 12-day campaign took place across SMS, email, and social media and required customers to 'opt-in' to receive personalized URLS that directed them to their daily gift. As well as winning the grand prize, customers were also in to win exclusive discounts and perks.

These creative efforts helped American Eagle to reach more than 8 million email and SMS subscribers within the 12-day period, with a 60% SMS click-through rate.

Final words

Ambitious marketing campaigns can be challenging to coordinate for some businesses, especially due to time and budget constraints. SMS marketing is a highly engaging strategy that takes advantage of our attachment to mobile devices to deliver exciting updates in real-time. As retail grows more mobile-based, this marketing tool is only going to grow more effective at driving sales and brand awareness. Our take? The sooner you get started, the better.

When creating an effective marketing strategy for your business, consider all of the different customer touchpoints. Focus on learning how shoppers like to move between different engagement channels (for example, browsing on social media to shopping online) and what information they are looking for while interacting with your store and similar stores. 

Building all of this into an omnichannel marketing strategy allows you to ensure that you’re providing your customers with a consistent customer experience. This is true for both retail and eCommerce businesses, as well as those omnichannel retailers.

Some businesses get overwhelmed when planning and creating a cohesive marketing strategy, especially as they begin considering every single touchpoint and every single customer. Instead, use these tips to design a realistic strategy that will engage most customers, while ensuring your marketing is doing the hard work for your long-term and you’re not likely to become overwhelmed.

Why should your business use omnichannel marketing?

Consider the whole customer journey from awareness to consideration to purchase; your customers are likely to have multiple different touchpoints and interactions with your business. Research shows that more than half of customers engage with three to five channels during each journey, highlighting the importance of consistency across all of these channels.

Omnichannel marketing enhances the customer experience you’re providing by creating consistency, which, in turn, increases sales and improves loyalty. Customers want fast, efficient transactions and solutions. Providing this can help reduce acquisition costs and grow your business faster. This means better value for your customers and you.

8 Omnichannel marketing strategy tips to boost ROI

Below, we’re going to dive into the eight tips that will help you begin creating, rolling out, and analyzing your omnichannel marketing strategy. The primary goal is to increase your return on investment, so bringing all the data into one place allows you to compare tactics to ensure you’re creating the best strategy possible. Not sure if omnichannel marketing is right for you? Learn how omnichannel strategy is quickly becoming the future of retail.

1) Identify the channels that your audience is interested in

Working out who your customer is, beyond just demographics like age and gender, can help you better define which channels you need to prioritize. Omnichannel experiences don’t have to combine all potential touchpoints. Instead, knowing which channels your ideal customers spend the most time on will help you narrow your focus.

Once you know which channels, understanding the device they use and what content they want is essential to a successful strategy. Some people watch videos on Facebook, others on YouTube. Are they watching television on a tablet or a TV? What device do they use to check their emails? Are your emails and website optimized for various screen sizes? And does all of this marketing clearly represent your brand and your product offering, and how you expect your customers to engage with them?

2) Keep the brand consistent across platforms

Building consistent branding across platforms ensures that your customers aren’t confused, and they can immediately know that it’s your brand they’ve scrolled across. When designing your omnichannel strategy, you need to find a balance between creating consistency and channel-specific content.

One of the best ways to do this is to leverage existing content into other platform-specific pieces. For example, taking an infographic from a webinar to create a social media post or turning a blog post into quotes for Twitter. This not only builds consistency but also provides better returns from each content piece you create as you can use it more.

3) Leverage new marketing channels and marketing automation

Rather than being stuck in the past, look at how you can embrace new marketing channels and automation to improve the customer experience you’re providing. New omnichannel marketing solutions can help streamline your processes, save you money and increase sales. Marketing automation can help reach your customers at the right time, and also improve revenue.

There can also be increased returns when using technology like augmented or virtual reality that allows customers to try before they buy. This can be for furniture, clothing, or make-up, where customers can see products in real situations or on themselves. In fact, we wrote about this over on Shopify’s blog when sharing our predictions for the future of retail post-COVID-19.

4) Use data to gain business advantage

An omnichannel marketing strategy provides you with data that allows you to understand your customers better. The data and insights you gather from digital channels need to be analyzed to see where your customers are coming from, how they’re engaging with your brand, and what it takes to turn them into paying customers. 

For example, you might see high numbers of followers on Instagram, but working with the data can help show what content drives customers through to conversion and what content results in likes but no action. Or you could learn how retargeting ads work for your customers that have abandoned their carts and whether you can convert them.

5) Listen and respond to your audience through your marketing channels

Creating an omnichannel approach to your marketing allows you to create consistent engagement with your customers in a variety of places. This includes in-store, online, and through multiple different channels (like social media). You can also craft refined, personalized messaging that’s relevant to each customer. While it goes without saying that social media is a wonderful tool for retailer-to-customer (and vice versa) engagement, one of the biggest complaints customers have about a brands' behavior on social media, is their lack of response when messaged. Consistency is essential and it’s times like these that automation becomes a powerful addition to any marketing strategy. 

Let’s create a scenario. 

A customer, let’s call them John, has contacted your brand through Facebook messenger to let you know that they really enjoy shopping in-store but their most recent product wasn’t what they expected and they are dissatisfied with the service they’ve received. It’s one thing to respond directly to John with an apology and an offer of (for example) a free replacement – but what else could you be doing? What if you were to create a ‘nurture’ flow for a specific segment of at-risk customers who’ve left negative or dissatisfied feedback? By collecting customer data at the POS, you’ll be able to find John’s purchase (and therefore contact details) and add him to your segment. From here, John first receives his personalized apology and offer. He’ll also get curated communications that nurture him towards making another purchase and once again become a loyal customer with your brand. Once he has made that purchase, John simply exits the segment and the automated flow.

Automated email flows allow you to create extra communication touchpoints with maximum impact and minimum effort. By setting up procedures, automations and ensuring you have the right people on board to engage with your audience (no matter where they chose to contact you). This will ensure customers like John feel appreciated and loyal to your brand. It’s simple engagement like this that enhances the customer experience and increases the likelihood of both purchase and repeat purchase.

6) Make use of offline opportunities

Your customers’ world exists both online and offline. Whether you have a physical presence with retail stores or not, there are still plenty of ways to utilize offline opportunities in your omnichannel campaigns. With a strong understanding of your customer, you can look to show up in other channels like radio, branded merchandise, magazine ads, event sponsorships, or direct mail. In fact, one of the strongest approaches is to simply ensure your branding and your customer journey are consistent at every touchpoint and this means that when they’re in-store with you, they feel it’s just as easy to explore, browse and engage as it is online.

Ensure that you continue to maintain a consistent brand voice by selecting the right channels. Also, make sure you leverage this content for other uses as well. Photographers, videographers, writers, and influencers can all create online content from your offline experiences.

7) Personalize the customer journey

One of the benefits of using omnichannel marketing software is the ability to create personalized interactions which result in an exceptional customer experience. Technology that allows you to send SMS, email, and push notifications that are relevant, timely, and useful can help to drive sales. 

Before you begin, ensure you spend time crafting the right messaging for each channel, especially if customers will be receiving more than one. You also want to ensure you’re only using the channels that are going to provide value to your customers so that you’re generating a return on investment.

8) Analyze and retarget your customers

Most customers need to see or hear about a product more than once. Or they need time to compare alternatives. Or they may simply have forgotten to complete a purchase. Omnichannel advertising tracks your customers to gently remind them about your products after an initial interaction. This is where retargeting can help increase your sales. 

Using data from across social, web traffic, and email can help you track people through their customer journey. Integrated platforms automatically collate data from across your various touchpoints to know who to interact with and what advertising to serve them to improve conversion.

Final words

Creating an omnichannel marketing strategy can help increase revenue, enhance customer experience and help you better understand your customers. Learning which channels your audience uses, how to best show up on them, and new ones as they launch gives you the data to understand, listen to and respond to your customers. 

Using Marsello allows you to do this on a single platform, creating efficient systems that pull all your data in one place. This means you can personalize the experience for your customers which drives customer loyalty and retention.

To better understand these two topics, we’ll break down their definitions, the metrics for tracking them and show you which is going to increase your revenue over time. Whether you’re running a small, online shop or a multi-site retailer, understanding these topics will take your business to the next level.

Quick links:

1. 1. 1. What is customer loyalty
      2. What is customer retention
      3. Customer Loyalty vs Customer Retention: What is the difference
      4. What are the customer retention metrics that matter
      5. Should retail and eCommerce businesses focus on customer loyalty or customer retention?
      6. How to turn shoppers into loyal customers
      7. Why is it important to track customer data to understand loyalty and retention
         

What is customer loyalty

Building strong relationships with your customers helps to establish a positive view of your business. This in turn helps to create loyal customers. Building these bridges with your customers requires a proactive approach to ensure that their needs are being met, their interactions are smooth, and that they feel valued.

The major benefit of customer loyalty is that they’re more likely to stay with you, buy more from you as well as recommending your business to their friends and family. This means more than just spending more. Becoming a loyal brand advocate means that these customers are out there vouching for your business.

What is customer retention

Customer retention is the set of practices and procedures you put in place to help keep your customers engaged with your business. This leads to increased recurring revenue as they continue to spend. It is often tracked through churn, the number of customers that stop purchasing or never become repeat purchasers. 

It also helps to keep customer acquisition costs down, as you build a group of customers providing reliable, regular revenue. Keeping customers is generally cheaper than acquiring new ones, so keeping your existing base happy and spending can reduce your overall business costs whilst increasing earnings.

Customer Loyalty vs Customer Retention: What is the difference

So how do you define customer retention vs customer loyalty? They are closely aligned, and there is often an overlap of actions that drive the two.

Loyalty measures a customer’s predisposition to select a business entity as a preference and indicates a certain resistance to competitors. Retention is a measure of whether an existing customer continues to do business with you and the acts to make this happen.

Loyal customers have a certain stickiness to your business which can make them easier to keep and more valuable rather than just focusing on keeping them through mechanisms that make brand switching hard. 

What are the customer retention metrics that matter

There are several customer retention metrics that you should be tracking to better understand your customer lifecycle. The first and most common is customer churn. You can calculate this on a scale that is relevant for your business, but the basic measurement is: 

• Annual Churn Rate = (Number of Customers at Start of Year - Number of Customers at End of Year) / Number of Customers at Start of Year

A certain amount of churn is natural, but if this reaches between 5-7% it can be an early warning sign that you are not retaining customers and something isn’t right.

Repeat Purchase Ratio (RPR) is a great indicator of customer loyalty. To calculate:

• Repeat Purchase Ratio = Number of Returning Customers / Number of Total Customers

This shows the number of customers that are staying loyal and sticking with your business.

Should retail and eCommerce businesses focus on customer loyalty or customer retention

For all businesses, you should be focused on both customer retention and loyalty.

If you’re a retail business, building customer loyalty often comes through individual interactions. But how do you know if you’re succeeding? Setting up loyalty program systems will allow you to track individual customers’ spending over time. This data will help you better understand their habits and if they are staying with you.

If you’re an eCommerce business, tracking customer retention is usually quite straightforward. You can see your customers' most recent purchase, purchase history, and overall spend. You can easily benchmark this against your other customers to better understand individual behavior and what areas you need to improve. Understanding the loyalty of your customers can take a bit more work, but should not be forgotten. You might need to send surveys like Net Promoter Score to better understand what your customers think about your business.

How to turn shoppers into loyal customers

So how do you build a base of loyal customers? By tracking data like purchase frequency and average order value, you can better understand which of your customers are loyal to your business. To encourage loyalty, you can employ a variety of customer retention strategies. 

Improving customer service will help to enhance the customer experience you’re providing and help turn retention into loyalty. Experience is one of the easiest ways to differentiate your business from your competition. Using customer accounts and loyalty programs is another way to increase your repeat customer rate, especially if you can provide discounts or special offers as rewards.

Why is it important to track customer data to understand loyalty and retention

The best way to understand your customer retention and loyalty is through tracking customer data, including the customer journey. Customer retention technology will help you understand how long your customers are sticking with your business, at what points they drop off, and areas where you have an opportunity to build stronger relationships.

Metrics that show you customer retention are a great starting point and it can be tempting to focus purely on this. But customer loyalty is going to bring you longer-term success and financial stability. So make sure you’re also looking at metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).

Final words

It can be tempting to zero in on customer retention alone, but these customers aren’t necessarily going to stay with you for the long term. They’re likely to switch brands for a better offer. Instead, putting your energy into building loyal customers will set your business up for long-term success.

Using a product like Marsello’s all-in-one marketing platform can help you better understand your customers and the customer experience you’re providing. This will help build customer loyalty for your business, leading to better financial outcomes for you and improved interactions for your customers.

When you’re building your marketing strategy, you need to consider multi-platform marketing as a method of achieving strong customer loyalty and retention. Omnichannel marketing allows you to provide a consistent customer journey through various touchpoints with your business, both in-store and online.

Increasingly, shoppers are engaging with their favorite stores through multiple mediums, from email and SMS to websites, social media, and direct advertising. Creating a strategy that incorporates all of these platforms will ensure that you are not only staying front of mind by recapturing your customers’ attention, but you’re also improving their experience with your store at every step of the funnel. 

In this blog, we focus on the multi-platform aspects of omnichannel marketing, giving you actionable steps to create a multi-platform strategy that you can ensure stretches across all facets of your business. By the end of this blog, you’ll have the tools to start putting together your own cross-channel to omnichannel marketing strategy.

What are multi-platform and cross-platform marketing

You may be asking yourself, what is cross-platform marketing? Sometimes called multi-platform or cross-channel marketing, both simply refer to a strategy of marketing to your customers and potential customers across all possible touchpoints, thereby optimizing customers; engagement throughout every point of their journey. It allows you to engage with your audience wherever they are, such as email inboxes, websites using targeted advertising, and more.

By being in multiple places, your audience can interact and shop with you on their terms. Whether they like to shop from their Instagram feed or prefer in-store experiences after they’ve done their online research, you can support shoppers to engage with your store in the way that they prefer. Just look at how Federation + incorporates email, SMS, and loyalty marketing into their online and in-store marketing strategy.

So when does cross-platform marketing become omnichannel?

Short answer: omnichannel doesn’t just stop at multiple touchpoints, it also encourages the customer to shop across all sales channels. Omnichannel broadens the customers’ engagement with your brand at every level and at every touchpoint.

What are the benefits of using multi-platform marketing?

Multi-platform marketing creates an improved, seamless experience for your customers as they interact with your store through different marketing channels and sales channels. By ensuring your marketing strategy is geared towards capturing the customer at every stage of the funnel, you help to drive customer loyalty and can even increase the overall customer lifetime value as shoppers feel more connected to your business.

Using a cross-channel marketing platform will help you achieve all this, without any added stress. By gathering the necessary data and insights (such as previous purchases and abandoned carts), you ensure that your marketing is showing up in the right places, in the right way, at the right time. And timing is everything! It’s the difference between the store that bombards customers with inconsistent, impersonal messages, and the retailer that knows their customers and sends targeted, personalized marketing that captures the shopper’s attention because it resonates with their current movements. Brandini Toffee has achieved astounding results with personalized messaging by sending an automated abandoned cart email that lets customers know they’ve still got items left to purchase. The email is triggered to send a short time after a customer abandons an online shopping cart and the Brandini Toffee team has seen as much as a 583% increase in attributable sales with Marsello from this email alone!

6 ways to bring in new customers through a multi-platform marketing strategy

So what are the ways you can take action to build a multi-platform marketing strategy? Firstly, begin with your customers. Knowing who and where they are, how they are behaving and what they’re looking for will help you reach them with the right content at the right time. The final step is to analyze and ensure you’re getting the results you need. Here are the six steps to action today:

1. Focus your marketing strategy around your customers

Begin your marketing strategy by understanding where your customers are, what they need from you, and what resonates with them. Integrating your point-of-sale and eCommerce platforms allows you to gain insights into customer behavior. You can track your customers' transactions and interactions across email, in-store and online to build out customer profiles.

You can then begin building out a marketing strategy that is relevant. Instead of generic campaigns, create tailored messaging around promotions, abandoned carts, or loyalty campaigns to cut through the marketing messages bombarding your customers.

2. Create a consistent and integrated experience for your customers

Customers want to seamlessly move between platforms. From an email or text message, they should be able to switch to a website, loyalty platform, or instore to purchase. Having to re-enter information or hunt down discount codes puts up additional barriers that can prevent your customers from completing their transactions.

The level of customer service they receive across platforms should also be consistent. Receiving quick responses to questions via chat but a lack of communication on email creates confusion and frustration for customers. Instead, a consistent customer experience increases customer satisfaction.

3. Understand the demographics and how they interact on each platform

To take the next step in demographic marketing, once you’ve defined your overall audience, you need to further segment your customers. You can then begin to understand how different market segments engage with each platform. This will define the activities for each platform.

When building your marketing strategy, think about how each platform can be best utilized while still staying true to the campaign and strategy. Are text messages relevant and how can location triggers best be utilized? You can then leverage your content efficiently across platforms.

4. Create unique content on each social media platform

Getting specific about your social media channel strategy ensures that you are sharing relevant information. 41% of people will unfollow a brand that doesn’t. If your audience finds your content boring, repetitive or they’re embarrassed to be seen to be following you, they will unfollow.

Although your audience members will most likely follow you on multiple platforms, they won’t necessarily interact the same on each. Scrolling through Instagram they are looking for short videos or beautiful images, whereas YouTube gives you the chance to create longer, more informative videos. Use platform appropriate storytelling to build an emotional connection with your followers.

5. Analyze the results of your marketing efforts and make adjustments accordingly

It’s important to analyze the results of each marketing tactic and compare across platforms. This will highlight where you’re performing well and where you can improve. Key indicators you want to look for are engagement rates like open rates of emails and tracking through to purchase. You can then look to optimize your cross-platform marketing.

You may find that some platforms are performing better for you than others. Customers may respond well to email reminders but have a low engagement when it comes to text messaging. Investigating which tactics are driving the traffic that is actually converting to purchases allows you to better allocate time and resources.

6. Cross-promote your brand

To gain the best response to your marketing activities, you’ll need to set up cross-media marketing strategies. It gives you the greatest reach and maximizes your engagement. Your audience will often need to hear from you 2-4 times before they will decide to purchase. Engaging them on multiple platforms can help you achieve this level of reach.

Some simple strategies to help you cross-promote your brand include providing incentives for customers to provide you with additional information. This could be an email address to send a receipt to or a phone number to use to follow-up.

Multi-platform marketing needs to be included in all marketing strategies to ensure you are meeting your audience where they are, with relevant content at the right time. Begin by understanding where your customers are and how they are using different platforms, before strategizing how to create channel-specific content. Finally don’t forget to analyze the results to ensure you’re seeing a return for your investment.

Final words

To help you manage this whole process, a multi-channel marketing platform like Marsello can crunch the data, capture customer information, and motivate them to shop. All while building strong relationships that establish customer loyalty.

A Guide to Navigating Shopper Input

Did you know that poor customer experiences result in an estimated $83 billion loss by U.S. businesses every year? 

Gathering, managing, and analyzing customer feedback is a vital part of your customer success strategy, but is often neglected by businesses. In fact, a recent study by Hubspot found that 42% of businesses don't collect customer feedback at all. 

If you don't know what your customers think or want, it's impossible to put them at the center of your growth plan. That's why a robust customer feedback management strategy is the key to fostering lasting relationships with your customers.

In this post, we're going to:

• Discuss why customer feedback matters
• Identify key types of customer feedback
• Talk about how to collect, manage, and analyze customer feedback

Let’s dive in!

Why is it important to collect customer feedback? 

Let’s kick things off by discussing the benefits of having good customer feedback management practices in place. 

It helps to refine your product/service

Making the effort to collect customer feedback helps you to identify pain points, as well as gather suggestions that you can communicate to your customer success and product teams. In turn, this helps to enhance your product/service and promote a better user experience.

Essentially, any omnichannel retailer should be making the customer the focal point of their business, and collecting customer feedback will enable this process. 

It improves customer satisfaction and retention

No matter what business you run, your customers want to feel as though their experiences matter. When customer service representatives take a long time to respond to concerns – or worse, don't respond at all – this can seriously damage the customer relationship. 

On the flip side, when you make the effort to implement changes or updates on the back of feedback surveys, it showcases a customer-centric approach that aims to meet the expectations of loyal customers. And when customers are satisfied, your retention rates will soar.

It strengthens your WOM (Word of Mouth) marketing efforts

Here's a fact about marketing: We're far more likely to trust other people's perception of a business than what that business says about itself. In fact, 88% of consumers say that they trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations.

With the rise of social media and community forums, we're no longer passive consumers of advertising. By making customer feedback a core functionality of your business model, you have a powerful customer acquisition strategy.

Types of customer feedback 

Customer feedback can be divided into two main types: Direct/solicited customer feedback, and indirect/unsolicited customer feedback.

Direct/solicited customer feedback

This refers to feedback processes that rely on the business reaching out to their customers for feedback. The advantage of this approach is that businesses can either tailor their surveys to specific topics, such as the usability of certain features, or they can ask about the customer journey as a whole. However, invitations for direct feedback often struggle with low uptake.

Direct/solicited customer feedback methods include the following:

• Customer surveys
• Customer reviews
• Focus groups

Indirect/unsolicited customer feedback

Conversely, indirect/unsolicited feedback is when a customer reaches out to a business with queries or concerns. It's within a business's interest to encourage this behavior, as unsolicited feedback can often bring up issues or opportunities they wouldn't have identified on their own. 

The following can be considered types of indirect/unsolicited feedback:

• Social media
• Customer support centers
• Live chat

Note: It's a good idea to use a combination of methods to ensure that your business is getting impartial feedback data. In this next section, we're going to dive into some of these methods in more depth.

How to collect customer feedback

Now let’s look at the different ways that you can gather feedback from shoppers.

Customer surveys

Customer surveys are one of the most common methods for feedback collection. You can completely customize a survey depending on what your needs are, making it one of the best options for collecting feedback on a large scale.

However, putting together a good feedback survey is a lot of work. Once you've chosen the area that you want feedback on, you need to decide what survey format is most appropriate.

While a qualitative survey using free text fields is one of the easiest to put together, it can be a discouraging time investment for customers, and setting it up effectively could be time-consuming for you too.

Instead, you could consider using some qualitative forms of customer satisfaction survey, such as:

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

CSAT is a metric for determining how satisfied your customers are with different touchpoints in the customer journey. It captures customer sentiment when they're interacting with that stage of your offering i.e. "How would you rate your recent order or experience?"

CSATs usually give customers the choice of choosing a number between 1 and 5, with 5 being “very satisfied” and 1 being “highly dissatisfied”. CSATs can be single questions or use several back-to-back questions depending on how broad you want your survey to be.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is another qualitative survey measure but it differs from CSAT. NPS measures long-term customer loyalty. It helps to benchmark a customer's willingness to recommend/promote your brand to others, which indicates their commitment to repeat purchases. So, if your NPS is low, this means your churn rate is likely to be high.

Most NPS surveys use a 10-point scale, as shown in this template by Le Tote:

2-choice questions

In some cases, you want to make it as simple as possible for customers to provide feedback. This is why 2-choice surveys can be extremely useful when you want to gather a quick pulse from your customers. 

The following example from Katie Waltman, which lets people indicate their feedback by simply tapping a happy or sad face is an example of quick and easy feedback collection.

And in case customers would like to share additional details, Katie Waltman asks a quick follow-up question based on the shoppers’ initial response. Katie Waltman has a 97% customer feedback rating. Their customers have particularly positive feedback for KW’s product quality, customer service, and the value of their products. Keeping in mind that customers are most inclined to leave feedback when they are passionate, this makes praise that Katie Waltman has received all the more impressive.

Social media monitoring

Did you know that 1 in 3 consumers would rather post service or product feedback on social media than contact a business directly? Quick and appropriate follow-ups to comments and mentions by your customers are vital on an open forum, and also presents opportunities to ask for feedback via polls and surveys:

Qualitative customer interviews

If you're wanting more in-depth customer insights, organizing a series of interviews with customers is a great tool for adding more context to NPS and CSAT surveys. Getting direct information straight from shoppers can help to highlight and create understanding around areas that are working well, versus areas of your business that could do with attention.

This technique is best suited for interviewing long-term customers who can answer more in-depth questions about your product/service. It's a good idea to use your CRM to pick out loyal customers who can offer you the most valuable insights.

How to manage customer feedback 

Once you’ve collected a good amount of feedback, it’s best to set up processes for managing all that information so you can act on it. 

Use the right CFM tools

Feedback management tools are vital to getting the most out of your feedback collection. CFM (customer feedback management) software allows you to sort and analyze customer data effectively, rather than having your customer success team spend days or even weeks sorting through it manually.

The right tools depend on how your business plans on gathering customer feedback. For example, if you plan on doing customer surveys on a regular basis, a survey tool like SurveyMonkey or Typeform is a good investment. Likewise, you're a brand with a large social media presence, consider a social listening tool such as Brand24 that uses AI to monitor brand reputation in real-time, a popular technique with SaaS companies. 

On the other hand, if you want to grab quick feedback on the product or shopping experience of your customers, then an eCommerce CRM like Marsello is a great option. Marsello’s feedback tool makes it easy to attach quick surveys to your transactional emails so customers can let you know how they feel.

From there, you can get detailed reporting on customer satisfaction and find ways to improve. 

Implement a Voice of the Customer (VoC) program

The Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a broad term referring to all of the data and metrics you've gathered from feedback management tools and unsolicited customer feedback. A VoC program collates all this data from across channels to identify emerging themes that indicate specific pain points, then develops a roadmap to address them.

For a VoC program to work effectively, it can't be siloed just to your customer success division. It requires active collaboration with the product development, marketing, and sales teams to identify trends within their own workflows. For example, if the sales team keeps coming across a particular feature request, this can be passed onto the product team far more seamlessly.

Close the feedback loop

Once you've identified issues or opportunities and taken action in response, it's important not to miss out on informing customers what you've accomplished. This is known as “closing the feedback loop.”

Unless customers receive a follow-up, they have no idea whether their concerns have been listened to. This leaves the feedback loop wide open and could affect your retention efforts.

So, once you've decided to introduce a change in response to feedback, you need to think about the best way to communicate this. The appropriate channel will depend on the demographics of the respondents. For example, if your survey was hosted on social media, it makes sense to inform customers using the same medium. If it was an on-site survey, you could consider producing a webinar that discusses your initiatives.

How to analyze your customer feedback 

The best way to get the most out of customer feedback is to analyze it. Here are some tips to help you organize what you’ve collected and ensured that you gain actionable insights from them.

Categorize your feedback types

Once your data is in one place, assigning it to a specific group will help you get a broad overview of what areas are receiving the most attention from your customers. For example, you could use categories like:

• Onboarding
• Pricing/billing
• Feature requests
• Product/user experience
• Technical support.

You can also break these down further into sub-categories i.e. whether the feedback is negative or positive.

This exercise will help you to highlight any overarching trends and “hidden” issues that your business might not have identified, such as confusing pricing structures or difficulty finding support documentation.

Start feedback analysis

While it's possible to analyze your feedback manually, this is a very time-consuming process and requires someone with strong expertise in coding and data analysis. Moreover, there's always the potential for personal bias to get in the way of finding actionable insights from your customers.

Instead, consider using a tool such as Marsello, which can organize feedback data into graphs and tables that make it easy to analyze the information.

As patterns start emerging, it's important to ask yourself some key questions:

• Are these new or established customers?
• Where are they located?
• Who has been assigned to manage their account?

This helps to add context to the results of your analysis – and may also establish some underlying causes for recurring issues.

Present your results

Once you have the results of your customer feedback campaign, you need to think about the best way to present them to your teams. This will depend on whether you're doing a relatively focused feedback survey or a landmark study on your product/service as a whole.

If it's a small feedback project, you can likely present the results on a one-page that summarizes the key takeaways via bullet points or tables. In the case of large, multi-question studies, you will need to break this down in a lot more detail.

Large-scale data visualization using line or bar graphs are a great way to communicate to your staff the changes to customer sentiment over time and provide answers to key questions. Check out this visualization by Thematic investigating the reasons behind a drop in NPS:

Thematic not only displays the drop-in NPS rating over time but also offers the user detailed information that highlights why their performance could be taking a downward turn. 

Final words

Customer feedback has traditionally been one of the most neglected elements in customer success. It's easy for businesses to tell themselves that gathering customer feedback is too time-consuming or difficult to analyze to be worth the effort. 

But at the end of the day, customer satisfaction is the key to long-term success as a business. If your customers are unhappy with your service or product offering, your churn rate is going to skyrocket. But by implementing a strong customer feedback program, you're in a much better position to foster retention and loyalty.

Need to collect and analyze customer feedback? Marsello has powerful tools to help retailers gather input from shoppers and turn them into actionable insights. 

A Guide to Marketing Across Multiple Channels

It's one of the biggest buzzwords in retail and marketing, and one that all businesses should be paying attention to. 

Omnichannel.

Industry data shows that marketers using three or more channels in any one campaign earned a 287% higher purchase rate than those using a single-channel campaign.

With numbers like this, retailers have few reasons not to embrace the power of omnichannel marketing. 

In this post, we're going to define omnichannel marketing, why it matters, and how to implement your own omnichannel marketing strategy for better customer engagement and sales.

What is omnichannel marketing? 

Simply put, it’s a retail strategy that involves the complete integration of all offline and digital channels. It denotes a customer-centric approach by prioritizing seamless, high-touch shopping journeys that take place across multiple channels.

With seamless channel integration, customers can easily complete actions like checking inventory levels online before turning up at their local store. And it's shopping experiences like these that positively influence customer loyalty and helps to create brand advocates. 

Omnichannel marketing ensures that customers receive a cohesive shopping experience. All sales and marketing channels operate in sync with one another to build trust and brand engagement.

The difference between multichannel and omnichannel marketing

Don't confuse omnichannel marketing with multichannel marketing. 

While both involve coordinating marketing strategies that span several channels (such as eCommerce, social media, SMS messaging, and mobile apps), the execution is very different.

Multichannel puts the product, rather than the customer, at the center of marketing activities. So, while multichannel marketing allows consumers to engage a brand via several channels, they cannot transition seamlessly between them. This silos messaging and keeps it static, rather than adapting to the needs of each customer.

In contrast, the channel integration of omnichannel marketing means that every message is relevant and tailored to your individual customer as they shop across multiple channels and devices.

For example, if a customer puts an item in their cart with the intent of coming back for it later, they might receive a push notification or SMS alert to let them know when that product is low in stock. They might also get a tailored promotion to entice them to purchase. It's these personalized interactions with customers which make omnichannel marketing efforts much more successful than a generalized multichannel approach.

Why implement omnichannel marketing? 

Here’s a quick rundown of the advantages you can unlock from omnichannel marketing.

Providing a consistent experience across channels

If we think about our most negative retail experiences, they're likely to involve scenarios where retailers have obstructed rather than aided our efforts to shop efficiently. 

As consumers show a growing preference to use multiple channels to execute their shopping journeys, it's never been more important for retailers to meet these expectations. According to a study by Invespcro, the most in-demand services are: 

• • • Checking product availability before arriving in-store (82%)
    • BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick-Up In-Store) (57%)
    • Having a customer profile stored across channels (50%)
    • Personalized shopping experiences (47%)

By implementing advanced omnichannel experiences like these, your customers have the freedom to shop how they want without barriers. This makes them feel empowered during their shopping journey and helps to foster trust in your brand.

Maximizing touchpoints with your customer

In the past, we would walk into a brick-and-mortar store, browse for a bit, and then make a purchase – often within the same visit. 

Today, consumer behavior is very different. People want as much information as possible before committing to a purchase, especially if they are new customers shopping with a brand for the first time. This involves utilizing multiple channels to research and compare options.

Today, 82% of customers use their mobile devices to browse before purchasing at a physical store. By offering customers a unified experience across digital and offline channels, you can add a huge amount of value through engaging touchpoints that build brand awareness and customer loyalty.

Valuable data-driven insights

Seamless experiences across different channels mean more opportunities to gather customer data. Omnichannel integration allows you to follow the customer journey from beginning to end, meaning that you gain access to in-depth insights about who your customers are and what they're looking for. 

It allows you to identify key buying patterns and personas within your target audience – including those you hadn't anticipated shopping with your brand. This makes it easier to deliver the appropriate messaging that coaxes prospective customers along the path to purchasing.

When you understand your customers, you have a much better sense of how to encourage repeat purchases. This is why retailers who use an omnichannel approach see 90% higher customer retention can those who don't.

How to start an omnichannel marketing strategy from scratch 

Ready to kick off your omnichannel marketing strategy? Here are the steps you should take to set yourself up for success.

1. Start thinking customer-centric

Going omnichannel in your marketing is about more than just integrating your channels. For many retailers, it requires a fundamental shift in how your brand relates to its customers.

Why? Because what's most convenient for your customers might not be what's easiest for business. To make this transition effectively, you need to have everybody on board inputting customer success at the center of the shopping experience.

Making omnichannel campaigns run effectively is a lot of work, and requires serious consideration of every touchpoint within the buyer's journey. 

For example, when your customer enters your website, does it have a responsive design that easily adjusts to mobile? Are your social media posts optimized to drive prospective customers to the appropriate product pages?

By having your operations, sales, and marketing teams evaluate your marketing approach step by step, you can ensure a positive omnichannel customer experience.

2. Know who your customer is

You might be surprised by how many businesses don't have an in-depth understanding of who their customers are. A study by HubSpot found that 42% of businesses don't run customer engagement surveys or collect feedback.

This is a problem because if you don't touch base with customers and get their feedback, you won't get insights into what they want and need. Collecting feedback also helps you determine the right demographics, so you can create more effective personas for your campaigns.

To  put your customer first, you need to invest in gathering data that gives you the full picture of their activities and preferences, such as: 

• • • What problems does your business help customers to solve? 
    • Through what channels do they like interacting with your brand most, and why? 
    • Which kinds of content do they find the most useful/valuable?

You can accomplish this by using data from your CRM, or by running surveys across channels and asking for feedback at multiple points during the shopping journey. 

3.  Invest in the proper toolkit

When it comes to omnichannel marketing, your strategy is only going to be as strong as the tools supporting it. 

As well as helping you to generate and nurture more leads, marketing automation allows you to build personalized experiences for your customers by sending them targeted content that supports their needs. Best of all, the data captured from these workflows in the form of CTRs and engagement rates will tell you whether your efforts are hitting the mark.

This is where a solution like Marsello comes in handy. Our software serves as an all-in-one omnichannel marketing platform that combines email, SMS, and loyalty programs. Since everything is accessible on a single platform, data flows smoothly from one channel to the next, and it's easier to provide a seamless shopping experience no matter where your customers are. 

Marsello also integrates with leading point-of-sale systems and eCommerce platforms, so you can easily sync your physical and digital stores as one.

4. Content, content, content

No matter how advanced your marketing software is, the content remains the backbone of omnichannel marketing. This involves everything from your social media content down to in-store signage

For example, let's say that your business is running a promotion that gives your customers 20% off storewide both offline and online. Your online store has a big banner on the home page publicizing the discount, and a promotional email has been sent out to your mailing list to spread the word. 

But when customers walk into one of your physical store locations, there's no signage greeting them at the door to make them aware of the discount. 

A lack of cohesion between your offline and digital marketing efforts can result in a lot of missed sales opportunities; if in-store customers don't know about the promotion until checkout, they're a lot less likely to maximize spending to get a better deal. This makes informative touchpoints essential for successful omnichannel retailing.

Want to see an omnichannel content strategy done right? Check out Federation, a streetwear brand that runs a powerful omnichannel loyalty program. Federation allows customers to earn and redeem points in-store and online, so shoppers are rewarded regardless of where and how they're shopping. 

Plus, the program’s content and messaging are consistent on all channels, so the customer experience always feels seamless and on-brand. 

Another excellent example comes from the jewelry brand and clothing stockist, Katie Waltman. The store runs a comprehensive marketing initiative that covers loyalty, feedback collection, and email marketing. In doing so, Katie Waltman is able to connect with customers across multiple platforms. 

Just like with Federation, the content and messages that Katie Waltman puts out there are consistent on all channels and devices. So whether people encounter the brand in-store, on their eCommerce site, or via email, customers are treated to the same look and feel. 

5. Segmenting your messaging

As we mentioned above, what separates multichannel marketing from omnichannel is that customers are not treated as a one-size-fits-all group. 

The valuable data insights that omnichannel retailing gathers from across the shopping journey give you the ability to segment customers according to demographic data, shopping behavior, and the “warmth” of leads. 

According to Epsilon, 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand that offers personalized experiences. In short, you can deliver the right content at the right time to enhance customer lifetime value. 

For example, with the aid of marketing automation, you can set up specific triggers to target customers who've purchased certain items (e.g. "you might also like..." emails) or those who've been “inactive” for a certain period of time by sending an SMS with a link that allows them to set their communications preferences. 

We can see this in action in Brandini Toffee, which uses Marsello to send automated marketing emails based on user behavior. One notable example? The Brandini team sends a campaign automated email geared towards shoppers who have abandoned their cart. To entice this segment to complete their purchase, Brandini Toffee sends a reminder email with a built-in product recommendations section that is automatically populated with similar products and items which the customer is likely to enjoy (based on their previous shopping behaviors). 

Since they first created automated campaigns, Brandini Toffee has seen as much as a 583% increase in attributable sales and this campaign alone has generated 95% of the total orders generated by Brandini’s automated campaigns.

6. Track and analyze

The power of your omnichannel marketing efforts becomes more evident the longer they're in play. The more you invest in gathering and utilizing data from customer journeys, the more you can refine your approach to target exactly what it is your customers want.

This is why it's important to test and track different elements of your marketing strategy to find what appeals most to your customers. This includes A/B testing of different copy, subject lines, images, and CTAs to see which gets the best response. 

It's also important to compare your content across channels to see what works for each medium – what works on email, for example, isn't necessarily going to resonate with your audience on Instagram.

 By regularly analyzing the results of your omnichannel marketing campaigns, you can ensure that your business is using the very best formula to inform and excite your customers.

Final words

Implementing a thoughtful omnichannel marketing strategy is a big step up for retailers who are used to more siloed multichannel strategies. But if you want consumers to choose your business over the likes of Amazon, it's essential that you can facilitate seamless shopping experiences that allow customers to move between channels with ease.

At the center of successful omnichannel marketing is a core philosophy; it’s seeing your customer as the center of gravity that your brand revolves around. So long as you stick to this core idea, the rest will follow.