Cross-channel marketing is the act of using multiple channels to reach customers, also known as multi-channel marketing. So when we introduce cross-channel sales it is the next evolution to capitalize on your marketing efforts and give consumers the ability to buy online pick-up in-store or buy online in-store providing consumers the best of online and offline shopping. Here are the top five reasons why a cross-channel sales platform should be in your budget this year:
1) Sell More
The consumers path to purchase is anything but linear these days. 93% of consumers shop in more than one channel before buying and can transact at anytime.The consumer is in the drivers seat, and making their purchasing journey as seamless as possible across channels oozes consumer confidence reflecting well on your company boosting conversions and revenue.
Having the opportunity to capture consumer sales wherever and whenever your customer is ready is the cornerstone of a cross-channel sales platform.This means online, in the store, or even online in the store. Shoppers that browse in more than one channel also spend more up to 3X more than a single channel shopper. Don’t let these valuable customers slip through the cracks with a single channel approach.
2) Track Conversions and Measure Marketing
No more fluffy guesses as to what converts and what doesn’t. With a cross-channel sales platform knowing if a sales converted or not is simple allowing you to attribute a boost in sales to a certain marketing activity. Now you can track conversions of what led to the ultimate sale, in addition to other activities that might have led up to the purchase. Knowing exactly what works and what doesn’t is critical to maximizing your marketing spend and lowering customer acquisition costs. Great cross-channel sales platforms should be able to tell you not only how online sales are performing, but also what offline sales are looking like. This means being able to track clicks to bricks and bricks to clicks.
3) Consumers Prefer In-Store Shopping
63% of consumers preferred method of shopping is in-store. Two thirds of all retail transactions involve a store either before or after purchase, and 90% of all retail sales still occur at physical retail. Quite simply this is a channel that cannot be ignored. What about future generations like Millennials or behind them Gen Z?
Recent research by UPS in the Pulse of the Online Shopper Report suggests Millennials shop in store as much as previous generations and 66% of Gen Z prefer stores (For more details, see the Shopping Habits of Millennials).
Manufacturers who focus exclusively online without a cross-channel sales platform are missing out on building their sales momentum in a channel where 90% of sales occur and not adapting to evolving consumer behavior. Most consumers path to purchase involves physical retail as part of the experience. Whoever is best able to meet consumer expectations and provide the best shopping experience online, in-store, and everywhere between are going to be the winners in today’s ultra-competitive retail environment.
4) Direct to Consumer About to Get Expensive
Setting up, paying monthly subscriptions, generating content, paying for adverts to draw in traffic, heightened consumer expectations of free shipping both ways to compete with brick and mortar is making direct to consumer sales more expensive.
Although high margins and not having to put more effort into developing relationships with retailers sounds great on the onset, the get rich quick scheme is anything but defensible. As more consumers start their search on Amazon, more companies consider an online approach, your company will have to pay more to grab consumer attention in this noisy environment. It’s also only getting worse as online customer acquisition costs, shipping, and other associated costs with rising customer expectations make it even harder.
5) Build Loyalty with Your Key Customers
Is 10% of the market worth upsetting your largest retail customers? Many manufacturers are enamoured with online sales but introducing an online channel would introduce conflict with their dealer network. A cross-channel sales platform is more collaborative in nature that aids you and your network to grab more sales, move more inventory, and push more consumers along the path to purchase however they want to transact.
By working together sharing customer data and sales across channel it improves the working relationship between manufacturer and retailer. Rather than fighting over the pie, better discussions can be had about how to grow the pie to obtain more consumers by better supporting them before, during, and after purchase with what we call retail as a service.
Closing Thoughts
To encompass the most amount of consumers, and attract those that spend the most a cross-channel sales approach is required. In developing a cross-channel sales approach it will allow you to fine-tune your marketing spend to maximize your return, lower acquisition costs, and sell more.
