Anyone tempted to click this banner?

Thirty years ago your digital marketing strategy was probably limited to banner advertising. And why not when you consider that back in 1994 this, the first banner ad ever, debuted on HotWired and achieved a clickthrough rate of 78%!

Compare that to Facebook in 2023, with an average CTR of 0.90% across all sectors – with some industries (like Employment and Job Training, for example) nearly half of that figure.

In the HotWired example, the high CTR can be attributed to novelty, the first-to-market factor and the fact that more scale over time equals less qualified customers (a similar effect to the Technology Adoption Cycle). The fact is that clickthroughs of ads, just like the performance of lots of other marketing channels, declines every year from introduction.

However, it’s important not to abandon traditional digital channels in favour of every new marketing channel that emerges. Instead, it’s crucial to recognise that the growing number of businesses and brands vying for attention and the increasing accessibility of today’s marketing channels has naturally lead to increased competition. As a result, relying solely on individual channels may no longer be sufficient and you may be noticing that it’s getting harder for you to achieve significant cut-through within your market.

An Omni-channel marketing approach solves this problem, and in addition to allowing you to diversify, has also been proven to uplift the performance of ALL channels, effectively helping you battle the natural decline in results.

What is an Omni-Channel Digital Marketing Strategy?

The definition has changed a little over time, and different terms are used geographically; however omni-channel essentially means ‘all channels’. By using all your available marketing channels you give your customers seamless access to your services and products. The customer experience becomes much more integrated and cohesive, and you are always on tap no matter how they choose to reach out.

Google chrome is a great example of an omni-channel experience, as logged-in users can enjoy seamless and harmonious access to their account and activities, synced across every device they own.

Some of the main benefits of omni-channel marketing are obvious. You will enjoy greater reach, as your marketing messages will reach your customers wherever they are – they will no longer have to search you out. This critically translates to increased sales and profit, as you’ll be right there in front of them at ‘buying time’. Retention is also improved as your customers will feel more engaged and looked after if they know that they have multiple different ways of contacting your sales or customer service teams.

Omni-channel marketing boosts revenue on ALL channels.

Less obvious is the fact that an omni-channel digital marketing strategy has also been consistently proven to uplift performance across all marketing channels. Neil Patel has run the numbers for many brands with revenues of all different sizes, and it’s interesting to see that the smaller revenue brands actually benefit most from the omni-channel approach:

Omni-Channel Digital Marketing Strategy – Final Thoughts:

Omni-channel is about understanding that there is no perfect marketing channel today, and that increased competition and saturation is increasingly driving down ROI at a faster rate than ever. However, marketing is not dead – just much more fragmented. There are simply smaller slices of a growing pie to grab hold of. Think of it this way: If your return on a single channel goes down, then why should you care if the loss is offset by an overall greater return because you’re leveraging more channels – especially when doing so can add additional value back into each one.

If you are noticing a drop off in performance across your existing marketing channels, then maybe it’s time to shake things up a little! Implementing an omni-channel digital marketing strategy can be a daunting and long process, which may well involve setting up and kicking off on completely new marketing channels. However, as long as you choose the right ones, and ensure that your overall channel strategy fits within your customer journey, then omni-channel could be the shot in the arm your marketing needs. If you would like to discuss how WDA can help then give Lee or the team a call on 01332 372728, or send us a message here.

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