Touchpoints, Platforms, and People: Designing an Omni-channel Strategy that Delivers an Integrated Experience

Fireside Chat Keynote Panel at ClickZ Live Chicago 2015
Touchpoints, Platforms, and People: Designing an Omni-channel Strategy that Delivers an Integrated Experience
Ashley Jane Brookes, Hootsuite @ashjbee
Shawn O’Neal, Unilever @shoneal99
Szabolcs Paldy, Discover @PaldySzabolcs

Omnichannel looks different in different markets.

What is your omnichannel strategy advice?

Ashley Jane Brookes (AJB): Where does your customer want to start? Social may not be the best place to start interacting with customers, but it is a good place to listen. Set up your customer personas in such a way that you can monitor the channels and interact appropriately.

Shawn O’Neal (SO): Every single brand in the world has a website. If you use that as a hub, everything else becomes a spoke. Everything else can direct back to the brand site.

Szabolcs Paldy (SP): Don’t get too anxious about it because it’s impossible to monitor all channels. Keep at it. Don’t get discouraged. Website probably gets the most traffic, but find the actual reach of your different channels. Don’t always use the same message across all channels.

What are the best practices for customizing messages across channels?

SO: Know your consumer. There are some things you can to to get it right.

• Test as you go – you can find out quickly if you have the right content for the right channel. One test of small and one test of optimized.
• Design to find out the second, third, fourth rounds of interactions. Design for feedback, so you can constantly improve your message for the next round.

AJB: Totally agree with the testing model. Fail fast. You will find out quickly if you’re resonating or not. The more you test, the more you learn, but nothing works forever. Even if you find something that works, you’ll have to continually updated and change.

SP: Make sure you add value to your customer. Don’t just ask. When you provide a service or value, it will seem more like a service than a marketing message.

Which Brands Do You Thing Does Omnichannel Well?

SP: Financial services

AJB: AirBnB

SO: Two unilever brands – Dove & Axe (millennial male audience)

Where should small teams with limited resources focus first?

AJB: Focus your efforts on social first and garner relationships. Pick one or two channels that make sense based on your audience or demographic.

SP: If you have an app, go with push notifications. Email channel is also successful. If you’re going with branding, work on content on your site, social proof and reviews.

Personalization can be invasive. How do you avoid being creepy?

SP: I think the question about invasiveness and creepiness of data gathering and personalization was valid 8 years ago, but now it has become expected. As long as you don’t call people by name and are offering personalization for relevant products, it’s okay. I don’t think it’s an issue anymore. I think the issue is that we won’t have the ability to use as much personalization because of privacy legislation.

SO: I think he give brands a lot of credit. There is a difference between creating good and bad advertising. Personalization is the same way. You can make personalization really creepy and do it badly, but I think brands will get better at it.

AJB: From a consumer perspective, when someone is served up the wrong personalized content, it just doesn’t make sense.

Do you develop a custom persona for each channel?

AJB: We start first with which persona has the greatest match with the value that we have to offer and apply that persona to behaviors across the different channels. It’s more behavioral actions and what they want to see.

SO: I look at the concept of personas like a person. People interact differently at home, at work and at play. Brands need to lock in on who they are and who they resonate with. These are their core attributes. How they discuss their core attributes between different demographic audiences, is what makes the persona work in a modern 3-dimensional brand for a business. People won’t always like it, but it will resonate.