Conclusions

What Else Matters?

In all of marketing, the customer matters. Knowing the right customer matters more. Understanding how the right customer makes a path through the omnichannel matters most.

Connectivity. Connecting through e-commerce or m-commerce is more than the device. It is about knowing whom you are connecting with, connecting through communication, and understanding your customers’ challenges in omnichannel shopping. Connectivity may mean different devices, 3D printers, for example, where the commerce is developed by the customer through means supplied by the company.

Customer. Understanding who the customer is has become harder. E-commerce customers began as those who frequented physical locations. As online changed, the online customers become less local and more global. M-commerce customer targets became more granular—less global, more local. The need for each is different. Time constraints, pricing, and information aid in need identification for the differences in each segment. Understand these differences in order to understand your targets.

Convenience. Close to home, easy to navigate website, free app. Convenience means different things to different targets. Nevertheless, in all cases, the path to purchase should be convenience to every customer. To understand your customer’s route, go through the process to understand what your customer experiences. Understand each consumer touchpoint. Move through the e-commerce website, and then download the app. Does the online website make purchasing convenient? Does the app make information easily accessible? Does the online website and the mobile app harmonize the path to purchase?

Communication. How are you talking to your target? Does your customer understand what you are saying? Are you saying what your customers need to hear? Concise, to the point, and clear information is needed by customers when online. Concise, to the point, and clear information is also needed by customers when mobile. Online consumers look to decide between alternatives based on information, including price. Mobile consumers are ready to make the purchase decision and looking for the decision-maker, usually price. Providing the right content can make your product or service the resulting decision.

Challenges. Businesses are still trying to understand how e-commerce and m-commerce fit into the omnichannel shopping experience. The big reveal is that consumers are also trying to find their way through the pathways of offline, online, and mobile. Consumers are looking to business to get it right. Business is looking to consumers for answers. Accepting the fact that all routes are being undertaken, businesses should make each pathway filled with the right customer, know concerns, and make the omnichannel shopping experience a conduit of convenience as we all learn digital commerce integration.

Consolidation. Each touchpoint must reflect the retailer’s value to the customer. The omnichannel experience should harmonize so that a consumer, in their mind, sees a retailer as one. Each touchpoint must associate with the next. The retailer, whether online or offline, is consolidated into one entity. Marketers must understand this consolidation by making sure of the connectivity between consumer touchpoints.

Hopefully, the information supplied in this book will enable you to mesh your digital marketing efforts—online, offline, mobile, and social—harmoniously in order to attract, retain, and understand your customers.