What Best Next Omnichannel Communication means and why you should care?

Wouldn’t it be better to target a customer on the device or channel that they’re currently using? Best Next Omnichannel Communication is the ability for marketers to accurately deliver a message to a specific customer in the channel they are currently using. It requires an ability to determine which channel the customer will be using and then to be able to deliver a message in that channel.

This is powerful stuff for marketers.

Think about it. At different points of the day I’m far more engaged with one channel than any others. From the moment I wake up to starting work, my iPhone is my primary channel. Then once I start work my laptop is the focus. Specifically Outlook for work emails. At lunch time I may continue using the laptop but may begin using different web based channels for personal email and social. In the evenings, it’s all about season 3 of Suits on Netflix.

Why does this matter?

This matters as a point of efficiency.

If email drops in at the wrong point in the day, it’s going to get buried in my inbox and never opened. I tend to do big daily purges of newsletters and marketing content.

Similarly it makes more sense to pay more for social adverts at times of the day when the target audience is likely to be using that channel.

The cost of ensuring that your brand message constantly appears on all channels may appear low providing that on aggregate you still get a positive ROI…

But it’s the lost opportunity that we don’t measure which is the factor. The opportunity to surprise and delight a customer by getting them a message on the right channel and at the right moment:

The SMS offer just before they walk into store.

An email with a whitepaper just as they sit down to eat lunch.

Adverts in the evening when they’re watching their favourite shows.

Solving this challenge isn’t purely a technological challenge. It requires courageous change to centrally control all marketing channels by pulling down siloes, political structures and legacy processes.

The question really is whether you have the stamina and strength to make the vision on best next omnichannel communications a reality. Something that no mid-large sized organisation has yet to do.

Thanks to Patrick Spenner for the inspiration on this post: http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickspenner/2015/04/07/highlights-from-martech-san-francisco/