Tools for an evergreen omnichannel strategy

An omnichannel strategy is a matter of expertise. The success of an omnichannel strategy depends on the ability of a brand's marketing team to understand the needs of users/consumers, to think through the user journey, and to create the right contents for each step of the buying journey.

Marketing professionals therefore tend to see tools as an adjustment variable for this strategy: "as long as the vision is clear, the tools will follow".

However, your expertise is always ultimately based on tools. With their functionalities, their degree of ease in integrating other solutions to offer marketing teams an equally omnichannel vision... but also their cost.

That's why a brand's omnichannel marketing strategy can never be fully thought through without bearing in mind the tools that will enable it to be implemented.

Here are a few tips to help you design your omnichannel strategy.

Definition: what is meant by an omnichannel strategy?

What does omnichannel mean? What channels are we talking about? What is an omnichannel journey? What's the difference between omnichannel and multichannel? How can a brand implement an omnichannel strategy? Here are the answers to all these questions!

What does omnichannel mean?

The term "omnichannel" literally means something that takes into account all ("omni") channels. An omnichannel strategy is therefore a way of achieving goals by taking into account all the media (channels) a brand can use today: website, tablet and mobile browsing, mobile applications, connected objects, search ads, social ads... The list is (increasingly) long.

Omnichannel strategy is sometimes reduced to its digital dimension - and we'll stick to that aspect here too - but thinking about how to articulate a strategy across all channels must also be part of a holistic approach.an omnichannel strategy should ideally also include your company's offline media (poster campaigns, direct marketing, points of sale...)...).

The goals of an omnichannel strategy are manifold, but here are the 3 main ones in our view:

• Guarantee brand consistency for the company or group across all communication channels, while adapting to the specific characteristics of each,
• Offer consistent, even complementary, user experiences across different media,
• Develop a complete view of your users thanks to data collected across multiple channels.

What is an omnichannel customer journey?

Creating omnichannel customer journeys: that's a promise you'll find on the websites of many digital marketing solution providers. But what's the reality behind the marketing rhetoric?

What is the difference between omnichannel and multichannel?

In practice, companies today are better at creating multichannel (or cross-channel) experiences than omnichannel ones. Typically, articulating online and offline experiences seamlessly, accompanying consumers from a website or web application to a physical point of sale, mobilizing digital tools when customers visit stores to create a "phygital" experience... In other words, something more akin to multi-channel - or even bi-channel, if we're being honest - than omnichannel.

Creating multi-channel paths is a very important step, and one that many companies fail to take. But it's an omnichannel approach that you need to develop if you want to build a strong digital strategy.

However, it's not necessary to imagine customer journeys involving every possible type of digital channel to claim to have created omnichannel customer journeys. An omnichannel customer journey based on a website, a mobile application and marketing tools can already create interesting consumer experiences, without the need to integrate home automation or a connected watch.

What is a good omnichannel customer experience ?

A good omnichannel customer experience ensures that shoppers receive consistent messages across all touchpoints, whether they're engaging through a mobile app, social media, or in-store. Organizations achieve this by integrating various channels, allowing people to seamlessly transition between them.

Key steps to achieve this:

1. Consistency across channels: Maintain uniform messaging and branding across all platforms to reinforce trust and recognition.
2. Integrated mobile app: Develop a user-friendly app that complements the store experience, enabling features like product research, personalized offers, and easy purchasing.
3. Social media engagement: Use social platforms to interact with customers, addressing inquiries and sharing updates, ensuring the message aligns with other channels.
4. Personalized timing: Analyze customer behavior to deliver information and offers at the right time, enhancing relevance and engagement.

As customers navigate a well-designed omnichannel journey, they experience positive emotions such as trust, appreciation, and convenience. These emotional responses contribute to a memorable experience, strengthening customer loyalty and advocacy. And at the end: conversion.

What does it mean from a more technical perspective? A strong omnichannel experience can for instance rely upon an effective Application Programming Interface (API) strategy, especially when using a Headless CMS. With APIs, organizations can seamlessly integrate various channels, allowing content and data to flow efficiently across touchpoints to meet the main goal: consistent and personalized experiences. Incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) alongside APIs can also further enhance personalization, boosting the average retention rate as users feel more connected to tailored content and recommendations. Success in these areas is well-documented through case studies showing that an API-powered approach not only improves the goal of customer satisfaction but also drives loyalty by delivering content exactly where and how customers need it.

Example of an omnichannel strategy

Here's a concrete example of an omnichannel customer journey, which could be applied to the french brand Courir. This brand of sports shoes mobilizes various digital channels to accompany its users through their customer journey, and has successfully articulated these digital channels with its physical points of sale.

1. Product discovery : customers discover a new pair of sneakers via a targeted ad on Instagram.
2. Information search: they visit the Courir website to consult product details, customer reviews and check in-store availability.
3. Interaction via the mobile app: they download the Courir mobile app, which offers a personalized experience, notifications of current promotions and the ability to create a wishlist.
4. Engagement on social networks: on the brand's Facebook page, they take part in a competition to win discounts, reinforcing their engagement with the brand.
5. Online ordering with in-store collection: customers order sneakers via the mobile application, opting for the "Click & Collect" service to collect their order from the nearest store.
6. Payment and loyalty: customers collect loyalty points via their customer account, accessible both on the website and on the app.
7. In-store collection: customers pick up their order in-store, where they are greeted by a sales assistant who suggests complementary products based on their previous purchases and customer profile.
8. Post-purchase feedback and interaction: customers receive an e-mail inviting them to rate their experience and share their opinion on social networks, with the possibility of earning additional points.

This omnichannel approach is not complex: the customer journey involves "only" 4 digital channels (website, mobile application, social networks, e-mailing) and could be applied to many companies. However, in order to make these channels work together, we need to be able to connect them to a base that aggregates data and allows it to be exploited. This is exactly what Jahia's DXP does, natively integrating both a Customer Data Platform (CDP ) and a personalization engine.

Stack or Suite: which approach for your omnichannel strategy?

When it comes to omnichannel strategy, the most obvious choice at first glance is to opt for a software suite: a single tool from which you manage everything and drive all data. But in practice, it's not all that obvious.

Here's an overview of the pros and cons of this all-in-one approach VS a more modular or composable approach (the stack).

What is a software suite?
Definition, advantages and limitations

A software suite is a tool that offers a complete ecosystem of solutions to meet the needs of its users. It is often the result of successive evolutions, through successive developments or external growth, which have given rise to complementary solutions designed to work together. Microsoft office tools or Google marketing solutions are good examples of software suites.

The main advantage of a software suite is that the tools making up the suite are designed to work together, so switching from one to another is extremely fluid.

The main drawback is that these suites are sometimes designed to work only together. These are known as " closedplatform" or "walled garden" ecosystems. This makes it impossible to associate an external tool that would be more powerful than the one offered by your Suite, for example.

However, as technologies and consumption patterns evolve, companies and institutions alike need to upgrade their tools to provide business teams with operational responses that are tailored to their needs. Software suites sometimes come into conflict with this need for agility: your tools can only evolve at the pace of your suite's releases . In this context, any new external tool you add is superimposed on your suite, usually without interfacing with it. This means higher costs, and a more fragmented view of your data. From this point of view, the suite can be an obstacle to an omnichannel strategy.

The component stack approach offers an alternative to the software suite.

What is a stack approach?
Definition, advantages and limitations

A stack approach enables each organization to select the components that best meet a particular need at a given time. These components are usually SaaS solutions, which you don't have to maintain, and which you can replace as you identify better solutions or as your functional requirements evolve.

Among the advantages of this solution is the fact that these tools are often very easy to set up, and are often far more sophisticated than what a Suite can offer. These solutions have been entirely designed to meet a precise need, and therefore offer advanced functionalities to meet that user requirement.

With a stack built around the right tool, you have access to more qualitative and comprehensive data. A clear advantage for a successful omnichannel strategy.

On the other hand, the stack approach also has its limitations. More tools means potentially :

• More potential security holes,
• Increased costs,
• Limited integration with the digital device at the heart of your omnichannel strategy (your CMS or DXP, for example).

The CMS as central piece for your omnichannel marketing and sales strategy

An omnichannel strategy walks on 2 legs: content and data.

• Content is the vehicle for the message (brand management, conversion, UX...),
• Data is the rudder of the strategy (KPI management, strategy adaptation, test & learn approach...).

Yet content and data management are rarely natively integrated in the same tool. Marketing Data Platforms (MDP) or Customer Data Platforms (CDP ) unify all data in one place, but do not manage content. Content Management Systems (CMS) offer great control over content, but access to data is sometimes more limited. This may be because it requires external modules, or because it doesn't take all data into account (i.e., it's not omnichannel).

At Jahia, we have therefore developed a Digital Experience Platform (DXP) solution based on 3 pillars:

• A CMS,
• A Customer Data Platform,
• A universal connector.

Multisite and multi-device content management

The Jahia CMS lets you create websites or mobile applications in the way that best suits your needs in terms of content management (traditional CMS, headless CMS or hybrid CMS) and agility (on-premise or cloud).

All this is accompanied by 2 functionalities that are not essential to an omnichannel strategy, but are extremely useful:

• Multilingual content management - ideal for organizations operating in several countries, or targeting audiences of different nationalities.
• Personalization engine - for omnichannel paths adapted to each user's profile, an even better UX, and multiplied conversion rates.

Omnichannel data analysis in a Data Hub

Jahia's Customer Data Platform brings together all your data in a single interface, making it an essential element in both personalization and omnichannel strategies. All user paths and customer knowledge can be analyzed as awhole, by cohort or segment, or individually via an ID graph.
This CDP, developed with the contribution of Jahia as part of the Apache community, is called Unomi. It's an open source tool, which you can use and test free of charge via REST APIs.

Connect in a few clicks for seamless integrations

Stack Connect is a set of bi-directional connectors integrated into Jahia that guarantees interconnection between the various tools that make up your stack (over 1000 connectors available). It's this ability to connect any tool to the Jahia CDP that gives you truly multi-channel visibility of the results of your strategy.

All these connectors are part of documented security policies and procedures, verified by an annual audit (secure development and testing, secure and scalable infrastructure...).

In the "Suite VS Stack" debate, an open source solution finally offers a tool designed for large companies or institutions wishing to implement an omnichannel strategy. On the one hand, these integrations are just a few clicks away, and on the other, a flexible technological base enables developers to carry out specific developments.

Jahia is therefore one of the best solutions on the market to meet the challenges of omnichannel management, with both a stack approach and an extended core to encompass numerous functionalities natively and reduce reliance on external solutions (and the security flaws that go with them).

A selection of tools for omnichannel communication

Here is a selection of tools that can support an omnichannel strategy. All these tools can be integrated into Jahia via our modules in the Store or our universal connector, but can also contribute to an omnichannel strategy on another CMS.