Every one of us has at least one brand we particularly like and follow. Although there are plenty of other similar brands around, ours is by far the best and the most engaging one.
The startups that connect to their clients in a real way win. The truth is that clients are all scattered across online platforms, and they also watch TV, listen to podcasts and check their phone. On each channel they are looking for different type of interaction, – discover new brands and products on Facebook, research them on Google and Youtube, ask a quick question about the product on Twitter, get entertained by fleeting snaps on Snapchat or stunning visuals on Instagram, receive the latest promotions via newsletter or sms, etc. Apparently one channel marketing is not enough. That’s why Travis Bernard, Director of Audience Development at TechCrunch says one-size-fits-all approach to marketing no longer works. Nowadays marketing is an omnichannel game, and startups need to be really creative to win it.
How to win a multichannel game
A study done by the Aberdeen Group, suggests that “companies with strong omnichannel marketing strategies retain on average 89% of their customers and see an average 9.5% year-on-year increase in annual revenue.” Thus, today’s marketing is an omnichannel game, but what are the means to win it?
Companies with strong omnichannel marketing strategies retain on average 89% of their customers and see an average 9.5% year-on-year increase in annual revenue.
Despite all the benefits, like increased brand visibility and ways for customer relations, omnichannel marketing requires a lot of effort and resources. For businesses that means they need to produce much more content and tailor it for each channel. Plus, the content must still be remarkable and resonate with the audience of each channel.
Let’s look at different omnichannel marketing tools. While there are plenty of platforms for social media cross-posting (Buffer, Hootsuit) and email (Mailchimp, AWeber etc) marketing, centralized messaging communication tools are still not quite there, which is odd, because messengers and chat bots are taking over marketers’ attention dramatically. Today, 9 out of 10 most used apps are messaging apps. The fact that messenger apps are more than just messaging comes without a question – customers use it for browsing news, shopping, watching videos and what not. According to The Economist over 2.5 billion people have at least one messaging app installed and most of them spend nearly 200 minutes weekly on Whatsapp.
The solution is there – communication platform as a service
Since one-to-one messaging begins to dominate the online communication, messaging companies go beyond their traditional offering with new solutions that address market demands. Overall the pursuit of messengers makes them to innovate not just their products or services but to come up with new solutions and business models.
The most prominent category leader in CPaaS is London based company with Croatian origin Infobip. In February 2017 Infobip launched OMNI – a platform that allows to manage and run campaigns through SMS, email, chat apps (including Viber, Facebook Messenger, and LINE), voice, and push notifications, all in one place. OMNI is also equipped with powerful automation options, campaign builders, and provides reports and analytics on customer engagement for each particular campaign.
Personal is the new social
Infobip processes over 7Bn transactions on a monthly basis and covers nearly 60% of all world’s mobile phones in 190 countries. The company clients are the largest financial institutions, social media and messaging platforms using OMNI for verification, authentication, security and it is just a matter of time when messengers will be used for marketing and advertising.
Since the trend is shifting from social to personal communication, adopting omnichannel marketing and assuring presence on messenger apps bring marketing to an entire new level.
ArcticStartup have been using Infobip sms service to distribute content during Arctic15 and have seen some great results. This year Infobip is going to host a workshop on omnichannel marketing and share some insights on how to reach out wider audiences through messaging.
