How to Blossom Into Success as an Omnichannel Brand

Want to Succeed with Omnichannel? Just Breathe Excellence!

What is success?

Success is achieving your desired goals.

Anywhere your travels might take you, you'll probably find someone saying that success can be attained by emulating someone (or something) who has already achieved what you wish to achieve.

I get it, and imitation might even be considered the highest form of flattery. But last time I checked flattery doesn't translate to bottom line (and yes, strong bottom line profits are a metric of success).

What translates to bottom line and success are customers that buy, buy again, and tell their friends they bought and bought again.

Those customers buy from and remain loyal to brands that emanate excellence.

Do you know what defines excellence for you?

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Aristotle said that.

Aristotle lived from 384 until 322 BC. He knew an ancient existence and the beginnings of science more intimately than most of us can imagine. And those are the confines in which he defined excellence.

But Aristotle knew as much about business and marketing as I know about modern astrophysics. (Not much!)

Today, excellence is not a habit.

Excellence comes with an understanding of your changing market and evolving customer. Excellence depends on how you design cultural changes within your organization to progress and meet your customers' needs. 

So though excellence is not a habit, making a habit out of constant, smart change and adaption is definitely excellent. (It is also a much less obstacle-ridden runway to success)

So how does this idea of excellence and success play into content and omnichannel business?

For the most successful companies in the world, excellence is the breath that contrives every piece of content they produce. That content is the front-end of successfully engaging consumers and customers in omnichannel environments.

If you’re creating content in the wake of learning who your customers are, you’re coming out of the gate a step behind. (That doesn't mean you shouldn't learn from your customers [big data] and use that insight in meaningful ways)

When you begin to develop content in anticipation of who your next customer will be, you start to build a different, more useful brand. Suddenly you become a muse, offering things people desire. Hyundai didn't sell over 700,000 cars last year by following BMW. They saw trends, anticipated, and then created their own successful future.

Marketers need to start thinking completely differently. A true omnichannel content strategy should break down barriers previously perceived as concrete. Here are a few tips you can start putting thought around:

• Stop marketing to the omnichannel shopper and start marketing for people (people, of course, who interact with and are surrounded by different media all day, every day). Anticipate what your customers will want or need (big data, useful data, insights, etc.). Stay ahead so you can deliver unexpected user experiences that delight your customers.
• E-commerce, M-commerce, S-commerce, etc. – POOF! Be gone! Just call it Commerce, or Sales – make it less complicated (I believe the term Omnicommerce covers a lot too)
• Online, offline, separated budgets, silos – POOF! They need to disappear. Each ‘component’, or channel within your strategy, should not be looked at as a to-do list item. Aligning all departments and media with a single, customer-centric mission is critical (Yes, I’m saying it’s time to cut some red tape and redefine some old school thinking of what’s inherent to your brand)
• Content should be directional, influential and inspiring. Show people things they haven’t yet thought about. Answer their questions before they ask them. Seduce. Impassion. Breathe excellence!
• Create memorable experiences for your customers. This can be facilitated through promotions, contests, giveaways, community involvement, surprise reach outs from your CEO, etc. Then get those experiences to go viral!
• Invest in digital technologies that will bridge the online-offline gap. Recently I ordered a washer from one of the biggest appliance companies in the US - you wouldn't believe how disjointed (and disappointing) the process was.[More to come on this topic in a future post]

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