How to Streamline the Retail Customer Journey

Retail customers have various ways to shop, from brick-and-mortar to e-commerce stores. When marketing your products, developing strategies that help you reach audiences in all channels is essential. Cross-channel marketing is one of the best ways to meet customer expectations and target customers in person and online.

Learn about cross-channel marketing and how to leverage it to streamline customer journeys.

What Is Cross-Channel Marketing?

Cross-channel marketing is a method marketers use to reach target audiences through multiple forms of communication. It helps brands leverage and scale communication channels to promote products and increase sales while focusing on customer needs and journeys. Channels brands may use to connect with customers include:

• Email
• Ads
• Social media
• SMS texts

Cross-channel marketing works by sending related messages through different channels. For instance, a lead may receive initial news about a product through a social media post. Later, they may get an email that continues the conversation about the product, detailing how it can solve their problem. They may also get an online ad displaying a customer testimonial for the same item. Cross-channel marketing keeps the product or service at the forefront of a lead’s mind by unifying the messages across platforms.

Why is connecting all the messages important? According to Google, 74% of people start shopping online even if they plan to visit a physical store. The consistent, relevant messaging a lead receives online can influence their decision to complete a purchase. When a person gets the message that the brand cares and has a solution to their problem, they are more likely to buy the product, whether in store or online. Even with the number of people shopping online, 85% of all retail sales still happen in brick-and-mortar stores.

Brick and Mortar vs. E-Commerce Marketing

Brick-and-mortar and e-commerce customers have significant crossover. When determining if you need to implement brick-and-mortar marketing or e-commerce marketing, understand that the best solution to prioritize depends on your industry.

If you’re selling products in brick-and-mortar stores, you may take advantage of marketing tactics like:

• Product displays
• In-store events
• Sales posters

Due to everything being online, e-commerce shops would benefit more from marketing strategies involving:

• Social media accounts
• Online ads
• Emails

Some e-commerce marketing techniques could help advertise your products sold in physical stores, but brick-and-mortar marketing methods wouldn’t suit e-commerce products.

Understanding the Digital Customer Journey

With most customers starting their product research online, they subconsciously begin their digital customer journey, which is the path they take when purchasing a product and becoming loyal to the brand. The journey follows five stages:

1. Awareness
2. Consideration
3. Purchase
4. Experience
5. Loyalty

When marketing your products, you want to convert casual shoppers into long-time ones, and one way to do that is through cross-channel marketing. Follow your target audience along their digital customer journey by targeting messages to them at each stage.

Suppose a customer is considering purchasing a new pair of shoes. While some may complete their purchase without seeing the shoes in person, others might want to:

• Try on a specific size.
• Feel the fabric texture.
• Compare options.

Using cross-channel marketing tactics, the shoe brand could see the customer is considering the shoes, show ads on a social platform and then send an email with a customer testimonial detailing how the shoes fit, the fabric’s texture and how they compare to other shoes.

Improving Your Retail Customer Experience

Consumers shopping in-store want a complete experience. While in-store marketing strategies include beautiful displays, organized products and helpful customer service, more is needed to fully convince the consumer to purchase. This is where marketing for brick-and-mortar versus online comes in. Both marketing strategies benefit the consumer since they are now aware of the product and can learn more about it online.

How to Create a Positive Cross-Channel Customer Experience

If you want to deliver the best customer experience possible, consider implementing cross-channel marketing. To start, you must:

• Learn about your customers.
• Pursue digital and in-store marketing.
• Tell a consistent brand story.
• Communicate between channels.
• Deliver on your promises.

Focus on your customers to fully understand their needs and shopping journeys. When you know your customers’ preferences, you can develop strategies to maintain a consistent brand experience and communication between channels, optimizing them to deliver on promises.

Benefits of Cross-Channel Marketing

Cross-channel marketing offers several benefits for brands promoting products in brick-and-mortar stores and online. When you engage in cross-channel marketing, your company can:

• Increase digital and in-store sales.
• Stay ahead of the competition.
• Create the best customer experience.

You’ll meet consumers where they are to gain a bigger audience, boost engagement and increase the chance of converting leads into loyal customers.

Invest in Your Customers’ Journey With Creative Displays Now

Start your journey to leveraging brick-and-mortar and e-commerce marketing for your products. Use cross-channel marketing techniques to improve customer shopping journeys and experiences. Creative Displays Now is here to help when you need new displays for your products as part of your brick-and-mortar marketing strategy. We’ll develop unforgettable displays that will showcase your products and their benefits.

Learn more about how Creative Displays Now can help you invest in your customers’ journey when you contact us for an estimate today.