Digital Marketing: An Omnichannel Strategy is the future!

#omnichannelmarketing is the strategy adopted by an ever growing number of brands to stay competitive and to get closer to their customers by providing more engaging, relevant and personalised customer experiences during the various touchpoints.

Recently, as part of my course "Mastering Digital Marketing" at the London Business School, I read this interesting report "Omnichannel in Europe today lessons from leading retailers", which was published by Coresight Research and Salesforce in 2019, following a survey on 470 senior retail executives across Europe.

Although the report is from 2019, we can see that the findings of the report are very evident in the current times with a growing number of retailers coming up with very creative ideas to capture the attention of existing clients as well as new prospect clients too. An example of this is given by SEPHORA , the well known French multinational retailer of personal care and beauty products.

Looking at how Sephora has approached the digital-first era and in what way its #digitalmarketingstrategy has been adapted to the omnichannel trend, we notice a few interesting points:

• Offline: Sephora continued to use their catalogue mailers
• For hyper local clients (that is clients around and within store proximity), Sephora came up with store displays that were / are very eye catching and routinely changed.
• Online | not in-store: it is all about the leading e-commerce site www.sephora.com
• Online | in-store, Sephora introduced the DPM (Digital Place-Based Marketing) though a Digital Kiosk concept, whereby customers can interact with displays to be given product recommendations (ie. Skincare IQ Kiosk).
• Online Mobile marketing (not in-store) is a game changer indeed if we look at statistics showing the number of hours spent on a mobile phone on average on a daily basis. Here Sephora came up with Mobile Apps that can still provide ad-hoc recommendations through a Beauty Board within the app.
• Online Marketing in-store: Sephora created a complete strategy whereby they can identify when a client is walking into the store which automatically triggers a welcome message for them and the app changes into an in-store mode by allowing, for example, scanning of products as well as use of augmented reality features and last but not least use of payment options integrated into the app to complete the customer journey.

Sephora is a clear example of a brand that has embraced the omnichannel experience creating a lot of value for their clients. What stands out is also how Sephora ended up offsetting the costs of the showroom effect by actually inviting clients to take out their phone and use it within the store, creating engagement during what could be a decision making process for the client.

Showrooming is what happens when customers visit brick-and-mortar stores to check products out for then buy them somewhere else (online). Sephora has used the digital technologies to its advantage transforming a showroom scenario into an opportunity.

Going back to the outcome of the survey in the report by Coresight Research and Salesforce, it is interesting to notice that:

> increasing sales in the short term does not seem to be the key priority for the sales leaders surveyed, but instead increasing efficiency in the way internal teams collaborate is more imporant.

> improved customer relationships through personalisation are also considered very important.

It is fascinating the idea of the physical stores seen as complimentary to the digital experience, in an effort to create more brand consistency and continuity. It goes without saying that the adoption of the right technologies is, of course, something not to disregard. Being able to integrate new technologies with existing ones was also a point of concern for European retailers as it came out in the report. Clearly, there is still some way to go if, in 2019, only 14% of the European retailers surveyed considered a full omnichannel implementation to be a reality, whereas 60% was still in the early stage of development and implementation.

I would like to conclude with a quote from an influential voice in interactive marketing and social media, Ian Schafer: “Innovation needs to be part of your culture. Consumers are transforming faster than we are, and if we don’t catch up, we’re in trouble.”