Knowing where to start and how to structure a plan is often the most difficult part of planning, especially if you aren’t experienced in creating plans. You may already have one plan or several in place and will be thinking you don't need an omnichannel marketing plan on top of that.
Depending on the type and scale of business, you may have all kinds of different plans in place - both business-wide and for individual channels where different people are responsible for each. For example:
That’s a lot of plans and a lot of complexity. All these plans can overlap and even pull in different directions. Omnichannel planning allows you to collate the most important parts of all your individual channel plans into one omnichannel marketing plan. We recommend using the RACE Framework to structure your plan, as it tracks the omnichannel customer journey through Reach, Act, Convert and Engage.
An omnichannel marketing plan is a marketing communications plan which integrates optimzed marketing channel activity across the customer journey. It focuses on selecting the inbound marketing techniques, content types, and channels that will drive customer acquisition for defined product categories.
When integrating multi-channel offline and online activities, you need to consider all the touchpoints across the whole customer journey. These are shown in our customer lifecycle chart below, which in itself shows the need for a multichannel plan - all these activities need to be planned in where relevant.
Integration is what makes an omnichannel marketing communications plan essential. It can help in different situations. For example,
The global pandemic has forced marketers to adapt and change their marketing planning to remain relevant in today's digital disruption and effectively acquire and retain customers in a challenging environment.
In my latest webinar, 10 omnichannel Strategy Essentials, I'll be recommending a strategic review process for businesses to compete through more effective integrated marketing communications.
The webinar covers:
You may be wondering how this differs from a Digital marketing specific plan that we often feature on Smart Insights. Well, these have an important role when a business is transforming and you're creating a long-term roadmap of digital marketing investments and changes to resources and process.
However, digital plans have the disadvantage that they may limit the integration of marketing activities. We know from our research, that integration is a major challenge marketers face. Once a business has created and implemented a digital marketing plan and digital transformation is underway, digital marketing shouldn’t be seen as something separate. Instead, it should be integrated.
Our Digital Transformation Learning Path supports managers and their teams to upskill and optimize their digital marketing strategies whilst streamlining and transforming 'digital' approaches across the business.
You can use the market map model, coined in Dr. Dave Chaffey's book Digital Marketing Strategy: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. You can get to grips with this model and what market mapping can mean for your omnichannel marketing strategy in the Assess audience customer journeys module of our RACE Practical Digital Strategy Learning Path.
Omnichannel planning tends to be well-established in developed digital marketing teams in industries such as E-commerce, or other businesses with a strong online presence. Other industries, such as manufacturing, are embracing the opportunities omnichannel brings for digital marketing optimization for growth.
For more examples of the latest omnichannel techniques from different sectors, don't forget to tune into my latest webinar 10 omnichannel strategy essentials available watch on-demand right now.
Finally, when creating your omnichannel marketing plan, always have in your mind that a successful plan needs the following:
Good luck!
By Dave Chaffey
Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.
This blog post has been tagged with:
ChannelChannelsMarketing planMarketing planningMultichannelMultichannel marketing planOmnichannel retailTurbocharge your results with this toolkit containing 11 resources
The Digital Marketing Strategy And Planning toolkit contains:
Start your Digital Marketing Plan today with our Free membership.
Recommended Blog Posts
Audit your digital media effectiveness to build stronger campaigns and an efficient marketing funnel Reviewing your use of digital media is a crucial starting point for creating or optimizing your digital marketing strategy. But how do you tune in and …..
Are you practicing always-on marketing, and if not, why not? In the pre-digital era, marketing activities were planned in campaign ‘bursts’ around new product launches and promotions. My belief is that to be effective, digital marketing needs a change in …..
Use our updated digital marketing tools infographic to audit the types of marketing technology you use As marketers today, we’re fortunate to have a huge number of free and low-cost digital marketing tools to give us insight into our customers, …..
