6 top tips for scaling omnichannel personalized experiences

We all know it well from personal experience — purchases don't happen in a single instance. They're often drawn-out journeys, taking place over time and across channels and devices.

An omnichannel approach helps you create a better user experience for your customers at every stage of their lifecycle, reduce churn, and nurture a positive reputation for your brand.

At its best, this approach is an accurate replication of human-to-human interaction: your brand listens to your customers’ needs and responds appropriately. And it should be the top priority for your marketing team, as 71% of Gen Z say they expect a highly personalized digital shopping experience.

While managing omnichannel strategies for a small market is a simpler task, pulling off the same results for a larger regional or global audience is significantly more challenging. In this blog, we’ll explore six key tips for perfecting your omnichannel personalization at scale.

1. Create a single source of truth

Your customers expect you to remember them – whether their last interaction with you was over the phone, on one of your social channels, or online. Not only that – they expect you to take their last interaction into account when you offer them products and services.

Ignoring your customers’ previous interactions forces them into a game of chutes and ladders – every time they progress with their purchasing journey, they’re sent right back to the start when they open a new channel. This can cause customers to become frustrated and may encourage them to switch to a competitor. To prevent this outcome, you must create a single source of truth, and make sure all your channels feed into it, so no customer interaction is missed. Capture your customers’ “digital body language”, store it all in one central repository, and make it accessible to every channel.

2. Connect your channels

Address the challenge of customer journey silos by integrating various channels, seamlessly. Ensure that your in-store, e-commerce, mobile app, and social media experiences are interconnected, creating a cohesive omnichannel journey for your customers.

You can complete this task manually, but it can be time and labor-intensive, and even impossible at scale. It's best to implement automation to ensure data is exchanged fluidly and consistently between the key elements of your martech stack.

Ideally, this flow of data would happen in real-time, so your customers see the benefits in an immediate, natural way. You can’t expect customers to wait for someone to update a database before your commerce storefront recommends the right product for their needs, or before your call center recognizes them.

Plus, connecting channel data doesn’t just benefit your customers, it provides a more holistic view of customer behavior, which can be used to inform future business strategy.

For example, a leading healthcare company in the US enhanced its personalization by collecting data from different channels and checking it weekly against a catalog of persona needs – allowing it to adjust related targeting on a regular basis. It considered how key personas had changed throughout the pandemic, and explored their different emotions, feelings, and desires as indicated across different touchpoints.

3. Unify your content

The healthcare provider’s story didn’t stop there. It tailored its communications according to its data – offering support, customer satisfaction, or resolution according to the customer’s profile. This personalization strategy became the key driver for all its marketing and the backbone for sustained success.

Often when businesses start out with tackling personalized omnichannel marketing, the content creation implications can be overlooked. Without the right marketing strategy, tools, and execution in place, your project could very well meet a significant roadblock.

To follow the healthcare provider’s example, you’ll need to create content that’s suitable for each segment and persona of your target audience. To simplify this task, you can develop modular content that can be combined or changed to fit each persona and the requirements of each channel. This means the right customers are served with the right messages, at the right times – making them feel valued and appreciated.

To further improve your targeting efforts and improve customer engagement and retention, use your customer data and ad performance statistics to make informed decisions on what content has been effective, and use that insight to evolve your content and marketing efforts.

4. Implement Artificial Intelligence (AI) for dynamic personalization

Incorporate AI into your personalization strategy to enable dynamic adjustments based on customer behavior. AI-driven algorithms can enhance personalized recommendations, making the customer journey more relevant and satisfying. Whether it's product recommendations or personalized content, AI adds a layer of sophistication to your omnichannel experience.

5. Monitor metrics and customer lifetime value

Regularly monitor key metrics to assess the effectiveness of your personalization efforts. Keep a close eye on customer lifetime value, as this metric provides insights into the long-term impact of your strategies. Use the data to refine and optimize your personalized content and recommendations, continually.

6. Utilize customer data platforms (CDPs)

Invest in a robust customer data platform to consolidate customer data from various touchpoints. A CDP provides a centralized repository that empowers you to understand customer segments, demographics, and purchase history. This centralized approach is instrumental in personalization efforts and ensures a 360-degree view of individual customer preferences.

Get the right tools

Scaling omnichannel personalized experiences requires a strategic and integrated approach. By breaking down silos, harnessing the power of AI and machine learning, and utilizing advanced tools like CDPs, businesses can create a seamless and consistent experience across digital channels, in-person interactions, and everywhere in between. Stay agile, continuously optimize, and keep customer expectations at the forefront of your decision-making processes to build lasting relationships and drive success in the omnichannel landscape.

Beyond following these tips, it’s essential you have the right tools for omnichannel. A true digital experience platform can help you deliver a more personalized customer experience for your customers, across all the channels they engage with, and increase conversion rates. To find out Sitecore’s digital experience platform offering is designed for flexible omnichannel marketing, get in touch with one of our experts.