Why brands need an omnichannel platform approach to content

The most successful brands know how to interact with their customers no matter where they are. They don't rely on one-dimensional marketing strategies that simply rely on website interactions.

Interacting with prospects on desktop, mobile devices, and offline channels provides in-depth coverage to help convert potential buyers into loyal customers. This is where an omnichannel platform comes into play.

An omnichannel marketing platform allows companies to reach out to potential customers and promote their products and services on numerous platforms. Using an omnichannel media platform can help you:

• Expand your company's messaging and reach
• Take advantage of increased profits
• Improve your company's customer satisfaction

An omnichannel platform is a customer experience software that helps companies provide a consistent customer experience across all channels. Omnichannel platforms provide the ability to:

• Access real-time customer data from any channel.
• Connect with customers on any channel through automation.
• Leverage CRM data to deliver personalized experiences on any channel along the customer journey.

Omnichannel platforms are the all-in-one solution for growing companies focused on elevating customer experiences across communication channels.

Before moving forward, it’s important to understand the difference between omnichannel and multichannel platforms.

Multichannel marketing is the process of using multiple channels to reach and engage customers. The most common channels businesses use are email, social media, website, and direct mail. Omnichannel marketing is similar to multichannel marketing but with one key difference — it focuses on providing a seamless customer experience across all channels.

The goal of omnichannel marketing is to meet customers where they are and provide them with a consistent experience no matter which channel they’re using.

Omnichannel platforms have their share of advantages and drawbacks. Before leveraging this solution, you should be mindful of the pros and cons of omnichannel platforms for content purposes. First, let’s start with the pros:

You can avoid duplicate content issues

With an omnichannel platform, you can manage your content in one central location and then publish it across all channels with the click of a button. This means you don’t have to worry about creating separate pieces of content for each channel or accidentally publishing duplicate content on multiple channels.

You can reach more people in more places

With an omnichannel platform, you can quickly and easily publish your content on multiple channels and reach a wider audience than you would if you were relying on a single channel.

Your content will be more organized

Omnichannel solutions allow you to manage all of your content in one central location. This makes it easy to keep track of your content and ensure that it’s being used effectively.

You can better leverage brand consistency

With an omnichannel platform, you can ensure that your content is consistent across all channels. This can help you build a strong and recognizable brand that customers will trust.

You can centralize your content architecture

With an omnichannel platform, you can unify and manage all of your content in one central location. This makes it easy to keep track of your content and improve its functionality.

Now that you know what an omnichannel platform is and some of the advantages and disadvantages of using one, you might be wondering if your brand needs an omnichannel platform.

Here are a few signs that your brand could benefit from an omnichannel approach.

• You’re struggling to reach your target audience and want to improve customer engagement.
• You’re finding it difficult to manage multiple channels.
• You want to improve brand consistency.
• You want to take advantage of cross-platform publishing.

If you can relate to any of the above signs, it might be time to consider using an omnichannel platform.

It’s not possible to deliver integrated or holistic content experiences across every channel using outdated legacy CMSes. The first step to unlocking the potential of omnichannel is a headless CMS that decouples the frontend (content presentation) from the backend (content organization and storage) while using APIs to deliver content to any digital channel. This enables companies to seamlessly and quickly publish and manage content across channels from one central hub.

Contentful® Composable Content Platform goes beyond headless by providing a central hub for creating, assembling, editing, and managing content. This includes the decoupled delivery capabilities of a headless CMS but also supports back-end customization to allow for seamless cross-functional collaboration across digital teams. This is how digital-first brands can build the foundation of a truly global content strategy.

While many major companies now have a global presence, operating on a global scale still comes with a specific set of challenges. One of the primary dilemmas is whether to standardize content or adapt it to various markets. Standardization brings brand consistency to the forefront, while adaptation acknowledges that different regions and markets have unique audiences.

With an omnichannel-capable composable content platform, like Contentful, you have the option to do both. This gives your omnichannel marketing strategy a level of flexibility that a rigid CMS simply can not provide. For example, with Contentful, customers have a global space that contains content for all regions. Each region has its own space populated with content from the global space. This content architecture allows organization to choose how they speak with their customers, while providing content creators with a simplified workflow.

To learn more about how your organization can leverage an omnichannel platform approach, read how Atlassian and Bang & Olufsen use Contentful to effectively share content across their product experience.

No matter the use case or industry, omnichannel platforms allow companies to offer next-gen omnichannel customer experiences. Here are some examples of how omnichannel platforms work in different industries:

Insurance companies

Insurance companies use omnichannel platforms to provide their customers with a seamless experience, whether they’re buying a policy online, over the phone, or in person.

Retailers

Retailers use omnichannel platforms to give their customers an online marketplace that allows them to shop outside of a brick-and-mortar store. Omnichannel retail might include shopping online and picking up in a physical store.

Banks

Banks use omnichannel platforms to offer their customers a consistent experience across all channels. This includes providing access to account information and customer service through channels like mobile apps, ATMs, and branches.

Omnichannel platforms work the same but look differently depending on a company's industry and target audience. Here are three of the most common omnichannel platforms to remember:

Marketing platform:

An omnichannel marketing platform is a type of software that helps companies manage their marketing efforts across multiple channels. This might include email, social media, website, chatbots, and blog content.

Ecommerce platform

An omnichannel ecommerce platform is a type of software that helps companies manage their online sales and operations across multiple sales channels and digital touchpoints. This might include online stores like Amazon and eBay, as well as the company’s own website.

Personalization platform:

An omnichannel personalization platform is a type of software that helps companies deliver personalized content and experiences to their customers across multiple channels. This also might include website content, email, and social media.

While an omnichannel experience can be complex, your CMS doesn’t have to make it more challenging. In fact, it should be the opposite — the right content solution can streamline workflows, break down silos and improve your content operations. Plus, by investing in the core capabilities that drive your omnichannel experience, you’re also setting yourself up to scale in the future.

Contentful® Composable Content Platform platform aggregates all of your content in one place and distributes it to all of your channels and devices. This omnichannel content delivery method also provides a single access point to all of your content, regardless if it’s video, an image or copy. This content repository is not only convenient, it also means that you can easily and efficiently make your content work harder for you.

Contentful® Composable Content Platform allows you to:

• Revise, edit and reuse content centrally through structure content and content modeling
• Add in your favorite tools and services for translation, personalization and analytics. The content platform is customizable and extensible.
• Work independently from your development team. Contentful is practitioner-friendly which means it’s simple for non-technical employees to create, edit and revise content without using engineering resources.
• Scale responsibly by always being prepared for the next channel or device. No need to add another CMS or tool.

To learn more about how composable content can help your organization scale its omnichannel marketing efforts, read more about it here.

If you are a developer, sign-up for a free community membership to start building in Contentful today.

Now that you understand the concept of an omnichannel strategy, it’s time to learn how to create one.

Here are a few helpful tips:

• Start with your customer in mind: What do they want and need? How can you make their experience as seamless as possible?
• Think about the journey: What channels will your customer use? What type of content will they engage with on each channel?
• Don’t forget about mobile: More and more customers are using their smartphones for everything from research to purchase. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and that your campaigns are designed for small screens.
• Test, test, test: Try out different combinations of channels, content, and offers to see what works best for your business.

Omnichannel platforms are becoming more and more popular as companies strive to deliver seamless customer interactions across all digital touchpoints. By starting with the customer in mind and thinking about the journey, you can create an omnichannel campaign that will engage and convert your audience.

Using an omnichannel platform can work wonders for your content platform. It helps to centralize your content architecture and deliver unforgettable customer experiences that will benefit your product's engagement.

To learn more about how Contentful’s content platform can help your organization scale its omnichannel marketing efforts, read more about the benefits of a content platform.

If you are a developer, sign-up for a free community membership and start building today.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Q. What are omnichannel technologies?

Omnichannel technologies are solutions that enable users to engage with their audiences across different channels.

Q. Is omnichannel better than multichannel?

Omnichannel is more dynamic than multichannel because it provides a holistic approach to sales and marketing engagement. Users can connect their different channels and achieve brand consistency throughout.

Q. What is an omnichannel marketing strategy?

An omnichannel marketing strategy is a plan to interact with and convert potential customers across different channels, from mobile to email.