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Marketing to My Mom, Me & The Millennials

September 25, 2018   /   by  Diane Callihan

Why Omnichannel is More than a Movement

My mom shops from catalogs. In fact, because she shops from catalogs, she’s now on every catalog mailing list on earth. She recently started calling around and asking businesses to stop sending them because she gets OVER 70 different ones on a regular basis.

I’m serious. She made a list.

To me, who’s worked in digital marketing for a long time, I find it hard to believe businesses in the digital age could be making money from people calling in and asking for item no. XXXXX, quantity 1, size medium, color teal, but apparently, people ACTUALLY STILL DO THIS.

Of course, I’m a proponent of online shopping, especially good ole Amazon One Click with free Prime shipping, although I’m also a sucker for products promoted on Facebook.

And somewhere, some millennial is snickering at me. Facebook is so old school. I only shop from my Instagram feed.

Whatever, man.

My point is different strokes for different folks. If I had to call someone whenever I wanted to buy something, I would live a very spartan existence. I loathe, and I mean REALLY loathe, talking on the phone to even the world’s most pleasant customer service rep. I even book my hair appointments online.

But my mom thinks that if she buys anything online that people will hack into her bank account and steal her life’s savings. It’s futile trying to convince her otherwise, and believe me, I’ve tried. And she seems to actually enjoy chatting with strangers.

Anyway, I have two points here. One is that there is really something to this whole omnichannel experience in marketing. Your business needs to offer a great, seamless customer experience everywhere your customer is – online, in-store, in print, on social media, mobile, search etc. – to meet the needs and wants of different audiences. Don’t put all your eggs into one basket.

By the way, this goes for B2B companies as well.

Second, you need a way to track and attribute the amount of sales that come in through each channel, so you know where to focus the bulk of your marketing efforts. And sometimes, you may find that there is a channel that customers are no longer responding to (Cold calling maybe? Bulk mail?). Without attribution, you may be wasting a lot of your budget on things that aren’t yielding any significant ROI.

Meet your customers where they are, and make sure their experience is fabulous. They’ll love you for it.

Need help developing a seamless omnichannel experience or an attribution strategy? We’re here to help. Let’s talk.

Diane Callihan

Diane Callihan

With more than 20 years of experience writing for some of the country’s top brands, Diane helped to shape Roger West’s content strategy, lead generation, and PR efforts as Director of Marketing. She currently serves as President of Callihan Content Creation.