Getting started in omnichannel: what steps should you take?

Omnichannel, multi-market, multi-platform, multi-channel... many words and expressions to mean more or less the same thing: the combination of several channels. Whether they are communication or sales channels, they are diverse and varied: social networks, marketplaces, retailers, e-commerce sites, physical points of sale in own stores, department stores, mobile applications... Omnichannel is crucial for brands today: multiplying the points of contact and the sales channels maximizes your number of potential consumers and therefore your turnover

However, a successful omnichannel strategy remains challenging: how do you ensure that the customer experience, whether it's the buying journey, the navigation or the checkout process, is as seamless as possible across all channels? Yes, brands want different and varied points of sale and contact, but with a uniform and consistent interaction and experience with their customers.

One thing is certain: omnichannel is unavoidable, but you still need to know how to adopt an effective omnichannel strategy to reap all its benefits.

Steps to take to get started in omnichannel

Deploying an omnichannel strategy obviously requires an unwavering plan of action. In order for this shift to be properly captured, you need to ask yourself several questions as a brand and provide relevant answers.

1. Identify your goals

Why do you want to go omnichannel? What are the reasons? What are the goals you want to achieve and why do you think an omnichannel strategy is THE way to achieve those goals? What are the results you want to achieve? Each company has its own goals: are your goals more about visibility? On maximizing your sales channels? To be on the same level as your main competitor? To find new customers? To deploy your offer on new markets and/or new countries? What do you want to achieve by going omnichannel? What impact do you want to have on your business? How will you measure your success and the achievement of these objectives?

2. Develop an action plan

You have determined your objectives, congratulations! Now, roll up your sleeves and take action. A plan of action requires a market study beforehand. Which market do you want to penetrate and conquer? With which type of customers?

Afterwards, the implementation of your objectives is essential. Each objective must be anticipated by one or more actions. For each of these actions, start and end times will also be defined, as well as the people and/or teams assigned to this action and the resources (material, human, budgetary...). How will you evaluate the options available to help you achieve these actions? Who will be in charge of which actions? Who will be responsible for which tasks? With what budget and timeframe? This action plan will be the common thread that will guide the execution and deployment of your new omnichannel strategy. As in any project management, the actions can themselves be broken down into several tasks to accomplish the action. Finally, an action plan will not fail to anticipate the risks associated with the completion of each task. What are the risks associated with which actions? How can they be taken advantage of? What additional time is needed if these risks occur?

3. Equip yourself with a content management tool like the PIM

The plurality of your new sales and communication channels requires a powerful and efficient tool in terms of content management related to your products. A content management platform such as PIM Quable is therefore essential when deploying your brand new omnichannel strategy. The platform gives you complete control over your product data and information, and gives you complete autonomy and freedom to choose which information to distribute to which sales channel, which market, which country, etc. This way, information is distributed consistently across all your channels or the ones you choose. Advanced functionalities such as dashboards and completions on the PIM Quable platform ensure total control of product data and allow you and your teams to monitor and manage product information, its distribution to your channels and its systematic updates in total autonomy.

Omnichannel also means an increase in the number of partners, resellers, distributors, etc., and therefore stakeholders who interact with your product content (textual information, media, photos, pack shots, videos, etc.). The control of your product data is complete and powerful with platforms such as PIM/DAM from Quable. It allows you to choose what information you want to deliver and to whom. Which actor has access to which information, depending on his role, his location, etc.

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4. Focus on the customer experience

Beware, the increase of your sales and communication channels often alters the customer experience for your end consumers. Indeed, the more channels you have, the more delicate and difficult it is to make the touch points with these channels uniform and consistent. Customers want a unified interaction with your brand, regardless of the touchpoint and channel. Product information and customer experience, as well as the customer journey, must be similar across each channel. Otherwise, your sales promise and the message you want to convey can be altered, misunderstood and inconsistent, making the customer/brand relationship cheap.

This was the case for our client Devialet, for example, which sells its products in stores, through resellers, specialized distributors and on its website. The multiplicity of sales channels made the sales promise heterogeneous and the customer experience was diminished. With the implementation of PIM, the brand can once again deliver this clear and luxurious message in a uniform way across all its sales channels. 

Consistently and quickly updated product information ensures a better customer experience and satisfaction, and in turn, enables you to accelerate your business much faster and more seamlessly. The Blanc Cerise brand was able to quickly open new sales channels while providing a unified and consistent customer experience across all touch points and sales outlets, thanks to consistent product data anywhere.

Customer experience is not just for B2C companies. B2B brands must also ensure a consistent customer experience across all their channels. Like Sun City, a licensed children's apparel brand, this unification of the customer experience requires a tool as malleable and flexible as PIM and the integration of advanced features like Quable Portal, providing a unique product and customer experience for your partners and distributors.

5. Equip yourself with analytical tools: PIM but not only

They are vital to measure the performance of your actions, the achievement or not of your objectives and therefore the efforts that remain to be made afterwards. The use of these tools allows you to analyze your data and make relevant and accurate decisions based on these analyses. These tools can help you visualize how your customers and/or your partners and distributors behave and interact with your product information: which channels are preferred, which ones should be prioritized, etc., to sharpen your omnichannel strategy.

Quable's PIM/DAM platform offers numerous analytical tools that give you the possibility, freedom and complete autonomy to manage all your product data from a single location. Dashboards, for example, allow you to manage the quality of your product data with key performance indicators, updated in real time. Dashboards give managers, employees and your teams a clear and broad view of the current project(s) on which each of them is working. Finally, Quable's analytical tools are fully adapted to the multiple channels that are part of an omnichannel strategy. With product completions, you can define the data that is essential for each product before it is put online on different channels: marketplaces, e-commerce sites, distributors... No product is ever missed and the quality of the data is always there, regardless of the sales channel.

Other data analysis tools are also relevant: other reporting tools, dashboards to compile and synthesize all the data from different channels and thus analyze the performance of each channel. Some segmentation tools can allow you to propose even more appropriate offers according to the geographical area or customer typology. Social media analysis tools can also reinforce the relevance of your communication channels.

Finally, other marketing automation tools can be really useful and valuable when it comes to standardizing the customer journey of your omnichannel strategy. Automating marketing tasks (sending email campaigns, generating leads...) allows you to better segment your prospects and customers, to better know them, and to better discern their behavior and needs in order to make your interactions with them even more personalized.

6. Implementing processes for effective management

As in any project management, and even more so in massive restructuring projects, the work processes between teams, departments and collaborators are of paramount importance. An omnichannel strategy often also means several markets and therefore several countries or geographical areas to collaborate harmoniously together, at the level of your brand. 

The implementation of clear and fluid collaborative work processes is, in fact, more than necessary. The Club Med brand is a good example: the implementation of workflows customized to their activity and data model saves a considerable amount of time for all the company's employees. Everyone knows what they have to do, when they have to act and for which tasks. Thus, a significant amount of time is freed up and allocated to tasks with greater added value for your employees.

Conclusion: why go omnichannel with PIM ?

Going omnichannel with a PIM has many advantages: 

• Multiplying and maximizing your customers. With more communication and sales channels, you have even more chances to reach more customers. This increases the number of contact points and therefore the potential for more sales.
• Improved customer experience. Every customer or potential customer can interact with your brand from the channel of their choice. Moreover, a uniform, similar and consistent customer experience on any channel increases the chances of conversion from your customer.
• Increased visibility for your brand. With a multi-channel presence, your brand is more visible, accessible to your customers and the brand image is more consistent and powerful.
• Better data management and better product data management in general. Deploying an omnichannel strategy requires a flexible and consistent data model up front. Then, your omnichannel strategy and this data will help you better understand and target your customers.

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Want to get started in omnichannel with a PIM ? Ask for your free demo.