Creating a Seamless Omnichannel Experience for Your Members

One day, I spotted someone familiar in the grocery store, but I couldn’t remember her name or where I knew her from. So, instead of saying “hi,” I ducked down an aisle to hide.

Once my brain turned back on, I realized she was a coworker I knew well and liked a lot. Seeing her out of uniform and in a different environment meant I couldn’t connect her name with her face.

Opportunity to connect, lost.

In today’s digital world, marketers have literal seconds to capture people’s attention. Fortunately, seconds is all it takes to increase brand awareness, brand recall and intent to purchase. At least, it will IF your members can recognize your messaging no matter where they see it.

Mixed messages mean missed opportunities.

Who knows where people might run into your business: email, social media, your website, text alerts, mobile apps, in store... If your message isn’t aligned across each and every touchpoint, the value you’re offering can slip right through the cracks. Worse still, ignoring certain marketing channels could miss you the opportunity to engage entire segments of people who prefer those channels.

In other words, you don’t want your members ducking down a metaphorical aisle because they don’t remember where they’ve seen you before. Opportunity to engage, lost.

Consistent messaging across platforms helps members trust you, which can lead to an increase in revenue of 10-20%. How? Members who regularly recognize businesses across all their favorite platforms are more likely to click an offer, redeem a reward, share your program with friends or take other valuable actions. Consistency builds trust.

An omnichannel experience spans all the varied communication methods. A seamless omnichannel experience is one voice, one message, one purpose, many platforms.

Omnichannel is Bigger Than Just Marketing—But That’s Where We’ll Start

The majority of members channel hop. For example, 86% of shoppers regularly toggle between two or more channels before deciding where and how to purchase. Creating an omnichannel experience means establishing consistency for members across every aspect of their journey.

Here are some important components of a full-spectrum omnichannel loyalty strategy:

• Omnichannel Reward & Redemption
  Members tend to earn and burn points faster (an important indicator of longevity) when they can seamlessly switch between mobile app, website, physical location, etc. based on what suits their needs moment-to-moment.
• Omnichannel Data Integration
  Organizations that consolidate data from all touchpoints can better track each member on their individualized member journeys and therefore personalize offers and messaging more effectively, based on real-time behaviors.
• Omnichannel Branding
  Recognition (and therefore, engagement) skyrockets when a business’ visuals, tone, and messaging are consistent across social feeds, websites, print materials, and customer service channels. A scattered brand, on the other hand, sows confusion.
• Omnichannel Customer Service
  Members expect support through whichever channel is most convenient for them—be it live chat, email, phone, or even Instagram DMs.

All efforts to provide an omnichannel experience help build member loyalty. In this article, however, we’re zooming in on one of the most visible and impactful aspects:

• Omnichannel Member Marketing
  Marketing brings all your omnichannel efforts together and presents them to the member. The world is more connected than ever before, but each member has their own preferred channels of communication. Coordinated messaging through email, social media, direct mail, in-app notifications, and in-person events ensures no member segment is left out, and reinforces value at every touchpoint. A strong value proposition reminds members to consistently engage with their member benefits.

Best Practices for Seamless Omnichannel Marketing

Certain businesses have a reputation for creating rabid fandoms (think Starbucks and Disney) in part because they do an excellent job creating a seamless omnichannel experience that inspires instant recognition and allows members to interact exactly how they want to. Members find interactions to be more interconnected, positive and engaging, and as a result, they tend to be more fiercely loyal and more resilient (forgiving faster and referring quicker.)

Most businesses (87%) agree about the importance of having an omnichannel strategy, though only 8% have achieved it. Fortunately, you don’t need a megacorporation’s budget to create a smooth, unified member experience. Every effort you take, will help remove friction from the member journey. Here are five simple best practices any organization can adopt, whether you have a full team or a team of one.

1. Establish a Single Source of Truth

When everyone knows the best way to represent your business—other departments, the press and more—you can better ensure your messaging will be unified across the entire member experience. Most businesses start by creating a centralized brand style guide, which defines features like the tone of voice, visual assets, logo usage rules, message pillars, and more. This guide should be easily accessible to every team that touches member communication.

To make it even more meaningful, you can pair it with a shared marketing calendar so everyone knows what’s coming, when it’s going out, and why it matters. Better yet, go as far as to define your company’s value proposition and rank your member benefits based on how much engagement they inspire. That way you can be sure you’re always directing members to the benefits that matter most.

2. Build Campaigns Around a Clear, Unifying Message

Marketing campaigns that are built around seasonally relevant themes help inspire clear and urgent reasons for members to use their member benefits. To accomplish this, each campaign should focus on a single theme like “back to school,” “summer travel savings,” or “everyday essentials.” This theme then shows up everywhere—social captions, email headers, homepage banners, print fliers.

If you offer a member discount program, this is the perfect opportunity to highlight deals which reinforce the theme. Not only does this keep recognition high across platforms, it provides massive value to your relationship by presenting your members with savings (which are highly relevant right now) on the everyday necessities they’re already thinking about buying at any given time.

3. Create Channel-Specific Content with Platform Strengths in Mind

The first two best practices help you unify your tone and central messaging. Doing so will give you the freedom to customize from there without losing cohesiveness. Each marketing platform has its own strengths and weaknesses. For example, social media favors marketing that is quick, visual and emotionally engaging, while email specializes in highly informative and personalized messages. For timely or urgent messaging, SMS is best. On the other end of the spectrum, your website can be an immersive experience for those who want to dive deep and learn the most about you.

Each member likely has their own unique blend of favored channels, but the data shows the vast majority flow effortlessly between many platforms. The best results come when you tailor the content format for each while maintaining consistency in tone, value, and branding.

4. Time It Strategically

Another strategy for fully utilizing each platform’s strength is to coordinate the timing of different campaign elements so that they build on one another. This can help develop interest through excitement and suspense. A smart campaign might look like this:

1. Tease an offer on social
2. Send a follow-up email with more details
3. Reinforce the urgency via SMS
4. Highlight the promotion on your website homepage

When all the parts are working together, members get the message—and they act on it.

5. Personalize without Losing Consistency

Members don’t just want personalization, increasingly they demand it from businesses. 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and even more get frustrated when they don’t receive it.

As opposed to seasonal campaigns where everyone receives the same messaging at the same time, personalized messages are triggered by actions an individual takes. For example, members might receive a special series of onboarding emails upon signup, or receive custom recommendations after a purchase. Even though personalization introduces differences, you can maintain cohesiveness through your branding. And, of course, each message presents the opportunity to reinforce the benefits they can enjoy for being a valued member.

Keep Value Fresh in Your Members’ Minds—The Easy Way

Creating a seamless omnichannel experience is a big challenge. Small marketing teams may lack the bandwidth to manage coordinated campaigns and create engaging content. Varied teams, each siloed in their own departments, often fail to communicate well enough to align messaging.

That’s why businesses are choosing to partner with member benefits providers that help shoulder some of the work. For example, Access Development supports its clients by providing client marketing kits and more.

Access partners receive several fresh, ready-to-use marketing toolkits each year. These include print and digital fliers, social media assets, web and email banners, and more—all designed to help promote the discount program and remind members to use their money-saving benefits. 

These kits eliminate the guesswork and give your team a consistent, professional foundation to promote your member discount program across every channel—confidently and consistently.

Want to see how it works? Let's talk.