3 Easy Ways to Connect Online to Offline Customer Experiences

By 2020 customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. But only 14% of organisations are running co-ordinated campaigns across all channels. Whether you have brick-and-mortar locations or you’re a web-based brand there are distinct ways to combine your online to offline efforts and create more enticing customer experiences.

1. Stop seeing online and offline as separate

According to Gartner 98% of CMOs no longer make a clear distinction between marketing online and offline and say the disciplines are merging. Meanwhile eConsultancy reports that 66% of all companies believe that the siloed data within their organisations prevents them from making the most effective use of their marketing.

The question is not whether online or offline marketing is more important; it’s whether customer journeys are joined up. A study by Google found that retail marketers can boost conversions by 16% by using cross-device marketing, so it’s important that conversations with customers are consistent.

Tip: Use Eagle Eye to create a Single Customer View and get consumer and purchase data delivered to your CRM in real-time.

2. Onboard customer data

Did you know that 90% of all retail transactions still happen offline? Unless you onboard your customer data you’re blind to whether the prospects you’re chasing are existing customers already.

Put simply, data onboarding is the digital activation of your offline, CRM, or point-of-sale transaction data. Using your offline data online gives you a more complete picture of your customers so you can increase the relevancy of your promotions.

Tip: Connect your CRM with digital messaging software like Eagle Eye Engage to create personalised promotions based on customer behaviour.

3. Align your messaging

You can drive sales by making consumers aware of current offers on products and places they’ve previously shown interest in. If a customer abandons their basket online and visits your store a week later, you can target them with SMS or push notifications with coupons towards the products they abandoned online. This is a great example of holistic marketing which connects the dots.

You can also target customers with proximity marketing by teaming your CRM data with digital promotions software. This enables you to utilise beacon technology and send the right messages at the right time in the right place, all via the consumer’s preferred channel.

Tip: Target your customers with timely, personalised and interactive messaging using our Campaign Manager functionality.

Looking for personalised recommendations on how your business can improve its customer experience efforts? Get in touch today.