Let’s leave multichannel in the past. In 2020, it’s all about omnichannel.
The internet isn’t free, and advertising on the web isn’t going anywhere. What’s changing is how that advertising is done. What smart marketers now recognize is that advertising should anticipate the needs of users—not interrupt or force-feed them. Our job as digital marketers is to connect businesses and consumers, and targeted advertising makes that win-win, high-quality connection possible. Consumers have a choice: opt out of targeted advertising and see ads for cat food when they’re actually a dog person, or see ads that are useful for life with Fido. To do that, we need to take a look at data.
Data is everywhere—from social media to websites to CRM systems. The problem for many companies has either been a lack of understanding of how to set up systems to access their data, or a struggle with “too much data” and feeling overwhelmed by how to harness it and put it to work. To put it simply, data analysis allows us to understand exactly who the customer is, which in turn allows us to create content and ads that speak directly to those customers. Which, at the end of the day, speaks to our client’s bottom line—increased sales. Here is an example of how we successfully improved site performance, user experience, and e-commerce conversions for Tishman Speyer’s Rockefeller Center and Top of the Rock.
And by the way, there is no such thing as too much data.
At HZ, we divide data into three main types: user, asset, and campaign. User data is fairly self-explanatory—it’s who a client is talking to based on things like age, geography, and language. Asset data is the numbers we get back from a single piece of marketing content, like an ad or video. Campaign data looks at performance over time to diagnose the campaign as a whole, and its impact on business metrics.
So, what’s the difference between multichannel and omnichannel?
Before the advent of advanced analytics and data warehouses, channel data was stuck in a silo in a multichannel approach: Facebook here, Twitter over there. You were running advertising on multiple channels, but you weren’t able to see how a user interacted with them in a holistic way. Here at HZ, we look at this data as a combined whole.
Omnichannel—what we use at HZ—looks at these three data types using a cross-platform approach, finding common threads that add up to powerful, data-driven insights. These insights help us to create the right content. With multichannel, you’d know if someone clicked on a Facebook ad. An omnichannel approach allows us to understand the user journey and the interactions they have throughout the path to purchase.
For example, The National Aquarium came to HZ with a mission—to build a fully integrated brand campaign to create meaningful connections with local and visiting audiences, showcase the Aquarium’s mission, put the Aquarium top-of-mind for those planning visits to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, and, ultimately, increase ticket sales.
So instead of marketing the National Aquarium as an attraction, we built an omnichannel campaign from a simple idea—that the call of the water is already inside you. And at the National Aquarium, you can answer it. Click here to see the great work we did!
How does a data warehouse make omnichannel marketing possible?
A powerful difference between multichannel and omnichannel is that in omnichannel, the data lives in one place. We start by pulling in data from all of our client’s sources into one, holistic data warehouse. We automate that data grabbing so we can spend time on the important stuff—learning from it and helping our clients understand what it means: which customers to reach, when, where, and with what message.
Helping clients to understand what to do with all that data—what it all means—that’s where our experts come in. HZ marketers, data analysts, data scientists, and strategists recommend data-informed decisions to get the most out of the client’s marketing budget.
Why is this awesome and exciting?
Historically, companies needed a huge ad budget and a lot of tech to achieve something close to this type of system. And while they might have achieved some results, that tech may not have been truly working for them—we’ve worked with companies using external black box systems to help them gain back ownership control over their data.
What we've developed is a structure that’s far less expensive, and ensures that companies have full access and ownership of their data. It simplifies. It saves money. It sets companies up for success. For our client’s customers, that means they are being delivered more relevant and more successful content. For our clients, it means a stronger connection to users and real impact on sales. That’s a lot of win-wins.
If you’re curious about omnichannel marketing, looking to develop your brand or campaign, or just feel like chatting, please reach out by emailing us at newbiz@hzdg.com. We would love to talk to you about how we can work together.
