Yep, here’s yet another post on AI. But let’s face it. The rapid developments in this space and the opportunities it brings to the marketing world are fascinating—and not something we should sleep on. Because of this, we’re continuously exploring innovative ways to incorporate it into our daily lives and clients’ marketing strategies.
We’re particularly excited about what AI can bring to omnichannel marketing strategies. With consumers interacting with brands through multiple channels, creating a seamless experience across all touchpoints is essential. AI helps with this but takes it further by personalising that experience.
AI-powered personalisation is driving significant changes in the field of omnichannel marketing. Let’s explore how.
What is omnichannel marketing?
These days, consumers won’t accept anything less than a seamless experience across multiple channels. They want the same great experience, no matter which platform they’re interacting with the brand on.
And that’s where omnichannel marketing comes in. It’s a marketing approach that aims to provide customers with a consistent and integrated experience across all channels, whether browsing products on your website, checking availability in-store, or purchasing on their mobile device. The goal is to provide a cohesive customer journey, regardless of the channel used.
It also involves using customer data to further personalise the shopping experience.
Omnichannel strategies enable companies to integrate consumer information from all linked channels, including social media, email, text messages, and other relevant sources. This holistic approach to data collection provides a comprehensive understanding of your customers’ journey and preferences.
With this information on hand, you can deliver personalised products and services to your consumers based on their previous shopping experiences, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Simply put, an omnichannel marketing strategy ensures that your customers get the best customer experience possible: consistent and personalised.
How to use AI in omnichannel marketing
While AI has many practical uses for companies to improve their marketing strategies, personalisation is one of the most beneficial.
71% of customers now expect personalised interactions, while 76% are frustrated when these expectations aren’t met. Personalisation is incredibly important to keep customers happy and drive repeat business. The more you can personalise your customer experience, the higher your return on investment (ROI) will likely be.
But, the bar for delivering personalised experiences is incredibly high. The only way to provide the level of personalisation customers desire is to rely on AI.
The integration of AI-powered omnichannel marketing automation enables end-to-end personalisation at scale, delivering tailored experiences to individual customers through a seamless, multi-channel approach.
Here’s how AI-powered personalisation is used in omnichannel marketing:
1. Data integration
To create a seamless omnichannel experience, you need to integrate your customer data from all channels. With the help of AI, you can analyse customer data from multiple channels and create a 360-degree view of your customers.
This includes data such as customer behaviour, preferences, and interactions. AI can then use this data to provide personalised recommendations and offers across all channels.
2. Predictive analytics
By analysing data from various sources, including social media, email campaigns, and customer interactions, AI can predict future trends and help you make better business decisions. Predictive analytics can also help you identify potential customers and target them with relevant content and offers across all channels.
3. Chatbots
Chatbots can engage with customers 24/7 and provide instant support across all channels. They can also collect data on customer behaviour and preferences, which can be used to create more personalised marketing campaigns across all channels.
A true omnichannel chatbot experience is when customers can start a conversation with your chatbot on one device or platform and continue it on another. For example, starting on your website and continuing on your Facebook business page.
4. Marketing automation
With the help of AI, you can automate repetitive marketing tasks, such as email campaigns and social media posts, across all channels. This helps reduce the manual workload and save time while improving the quality of your marketing campaigns.
Lead nurturing is one of the most important aspects of marketing automation. With the help of AI, you can track customer behaviour, preferences, and interactions and use this information to create personalised marketing campaigns that nurture leads through the sales funnel.
AI-powered lead nurturing can also help you identify potential customers and target them with relevant content and offers, increasing the chances of converting them into paying customers.
Challenges and ethical considerations of using AI in marketing
Data privacy is one of the biggest challenges facing marketers who want to use AI. With so much data being collected, there is a risk that sensitive customer information could be leaked or stolen.
There are also concerns about how this data will be used to target ads and other marketing messages. If this data is not used responsibly, it could have a negative impact on your consumers. For example, if a consumer is bombarded with too many personalised messages, they may feel like they’re being spied on—which isn’t a positive experience with your brand.
There’s a fine line between adding a personal touch and being creepy.
To remain ethical in your use of AI-powered personalisation, be as transparent as possible about how you’re using AI and ensure that your customers understand what data is being collected and why.
Another key challenge is that AI can lead to a more fragmented customer experience if incorrectly used. This is because AI-powered personalisation can result in different customers seeing different versions of your website or ads. This can confuse customers and make it difficult for them to understand your brand. To avoid this, you must ensure that your omnichannel marketing strategy considers how AI will impact the customer journey.
Then there’s knowing how to use AI effectively. As AI becomes more sophisticated, it can be difficult to keep up with the latest developments and understand how to use AI-powered tools to their full potential. This lack of understanding can lead to ethical issues, such as using AI in a way that discriminates against certain groups of people.
It’s important to ensure you have the right team with the skills and knowledge necessary to use AI ethically and effectively. It would help if you also put processes in place to ensure data privacy and security and ensure that customers are aware of how their data is being used.
AI: The game-changer for omnichannel marketing
AI will no doubt be a game-changer for your omnichannel marketing strategy, particularly when it comes to personalisation. But only if you’re willing to invest your time and resources into learning how to best leverage this technology.
Like all marketing tools, the real value only comes once you’ve tested, failed, adapted and tried again. You won’t get it right the first time, but you will eventually.
Technologies like AI are crucial to staying ahead in today’s fast-paced digital world. This is why, at Diginauts, we invest significant time and effort in keeping up with the latest developments in AI. If you need help figuring out how to incorporate AI into your omnichannel marketing strategy, get in touch with us!