The Importance of Connecting Online and Offline Data

Online marketing is crucial to a business’ success, but not linking online with offline can literally kill a business.

Today’s customers are hyper-educated, technically savvy and have higher expectations around customer experience than ever before. Moving freely between the physical and digital world’s are part and parcel of an everyday customer’s buying journey. 

Businesses that are able to combine offline activities with online data and behaviours have the biggest chance of succeeding in today’s world as they are creating the most effective way for businesses to keep in touch with their customers across all touch-points: driving engagement and in turn sales. 

So how can we improve customer experience, engagement and brand awareness?

Well, firstly we need to view online and offline as channels that can actually and should complement one another rather than have them compete directly against each other. Alignment is key and although in-store staff and e-commerce teams may work in separate units, brands will need to align their business so that everyone is working towards the same shared goals.

The ‘evolution of the channel’ has taken us from single to cross channel to multi channel through to omnichannel. Today there is one channel - your brand. What’s important is the experience your customer has with your brand at every interaction. 

Customers expect the same exciting and engaging shopping experience when they walk into your store as they receive online. They do not view offline and online channels as separate extensions of a brand. A customer is jumping from one channel to another before making that final decision to make a purchase and expects that experience to be seamless. 

A customer may receive an email to their laptop about a certain item, check the inventory on the brand’s website, use their mobile to visit the social pages to see store hours and then make a trip into the store to make a purchase. If the demands of a consistent, personalised shopping experience aren’t met and brands can’t satisfy their customers expectations then they will simply start looking elsewhere. 

Successful brands are utilising digital technology in store in many ways to optimise their online and offline marketing activities to create a better shopping experience for their customers and along the way producing more profitable campaigns for marketers.

Click-and-collect shopping meets the need of the customer for instantaneous gratification - customers are so impatient these days and want what they want, now! By encouraging more customers to come into store then we are increasing the chances of additional purchases. 

Offering free Wi-Fi to your customers - helping them to stay connected, available and online to the digital world via their smartphone. 

The use of mobile payments so customers can use that connection in store to continue to browse and stay online whilst in store. 

Mobile apps to help customers track inventory in a store to check if their desired item is in stock.

Continuing the connected customer journey in-store, brands are deploying the use of beacon technology to help alert customers about discounts, special offers, coupons on particular items of interest that they may have browsed previously online or left abandoned in a cart.

The use of AR, VR and digitally immersive concept stores are giving customers the ability to test drive products and offer an interactive experiences the likes of which have never been seen before.  

And all the while, in delivering this fully immersive, connected, customer shopping experience, at the centre of it all - is the collection of data, your customer’s data.

Successful companies are able to gather data from all possible sources to gain insights into their customer base. The more data you have, the better you can analyse and map out and connect the offline and online customer journey. 

Data can be poured in from all sources; web traffic, social media analytics, surveys, retail footfall, online or offline queries, mobile app, vouchers and many, many more. 

The use of technology has been harnessed to assist brands in creating an engaging online and offline shopping experience to help create inspiring, magical, unforgettable moments for customers that they will never forget - yet have come to expect.

As a marketer, if you are able to have all your data sources stored in one area you’re able to make the right decisions. If you’re able to make a connection between the offline activity and the online behaviour of your customers you create better personalised customer experiences. If you can understand what products a customer has previously viewed online as they walk into your store to view further and then connect the two you are able to convert more browsing activity and retail footfall into sales and more importantly into loyal customers.

How do you currently connect your online and offline data? Can you be doing it better?.....