The omnipresence revolution: pioneering success in today's market

We live in a time where change can seem like the only constant. As we continue to see the landscape of the modern sales market evolve, some interesting questions are coming to the forefront. For businesses to succeed today, do they need to shift focus from being simply present to achieving true omnipresence? Do the old methods of single-channel approach still work? Do the benefits of a multi-channel approach outweigh the costs of such a strategy?

The omnipresence revolution is emerging as the secret weapon of forward-thinking businesses who are reshaping industries and redefining success. Imagine a business world where your brand is everywhere your customers are. With market competitiveness at an all-time high, it seems every business is chasing the same elusive dream of omnipresence. But is the omni-channel sales approach the answer to growing your brand and delivering ultimate success?

For most companies, a world where your brand seamlessly weaves itself into the fabric of your customers' lives, being there when they need it, where they need it, across multiple channels and touchpoints, would be a thing of perfection. The brand would fast become a recognised name, on the tip of their customer’s tongues before they even realise it. This is the essence of the omnipresence approach. The concept is fast becoming the guiding light that businesses are using to lead them towards new success in today's dynamic marketplace.

Consumers are no longer passive spectators in the buying process. They are active participants, expecting personalised, timely, and consistent interactions with the brands they engage with. This demand for a holistic brand experience, irrespective of the channel or device, is what has thrust the idea of omnipresence and omni-channel approach into the forefront of modern business strategy.

What is omnipresence?

Omnipresence goes beyond mere visibility; it is the art and science of being everywhere your customers are, seamlessly and cohesively. It means ensuring that whether a customer interacts with your brand through a physical store, your website, a mobile app, social media, or even via a chatbot, the experience is consistent, relevant, and emotionally resonant. In essence, omnipresence blurs the lines between physical and digital realms, creating a unified brand experience everywhere your customer goes.

What is an omni-channel strategy?

An omni-channel strategy is a comprehensive approach that integrates and synchronises multiple sales and communication channels to provide customers with a seamless and consistent shopping experience. It acknowledges that consumers interact with businesses through various touchpoints, such as physical stores, websites, mobile apps, social media, email, and more.

An effective omni-channel strategy is the gateway to omnipresence and ensures that regardless of the channel a customer chooses, they encounter a unified brand experience, including consistent product information, pricing, promotions, and customer service. This strategy aims to enhance customer satisfaction, drive loyalty, and boost sales by meeting and exceeding customer expectations across all sales channels.

Why today's sales market needs a thorough approach

The rapid digitisation of commerce, the explosion of e-commerce platforms, and the widespread reliance on smartphones have brought about a permanent revolution in how consumers shop and make purchasing choices. Within this evolving landscape, omnipresence isn't just a buzzword or hot topic, it has become an essential strategic necessity.

In fact, when considering revenue through omni-channel versus single channel approaches, there’s hard evidence to suggest omni-channel is the way forward. Purchase frequency is a whopping 250% higher on omni-channel, while the average order value is 13% more per order compared to single channel. So, if you’re not yet embracing an omni-channel or omnipresence approach, you could be missing out. Here’s what you can expect from building your strategy around this principle:

• Consumer expectations – increasingly, consumers expect businesses to anticipate their needs and provide a seamless experience, regardless of the sales channel. Failing to meet these expectations can lead to customer dissatisfaction and attrition, and ultimately reduced revenue or even a less-than-rosy reputation.
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• Competitive advantage – omnipresence gives businesses a competitive edge, allowing them to differentiate themselves by offering a superior customer experience that spans both physical and digital realms. Rather than waiting for customers to come and find you, omnipresence means you’ll always be at the forefront, ahead of your complacent competition.
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• Data-driven insights – when your brand is everywhere your customer is, it becomes much easier to generate a wealth of data, which, when harnessed intelligently, can provide invaluable insights into your customer’s behaviour, preferences, and trends. This data can inform strategic decisions and can even help to drive innovation.
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• Brand loyalty – through consistent delivery on a company’s promises and communication, across all touchpoints, businesses can build trust and foster strong brand loyalty. When you can deliver a clear, consistent message, in the right place, and at the right time, your customer’s trust in you will grow. Being the reliable experts your customers view you as, will see you far.

Business landscape of the 2020s

Today, sales and marketing teams find themselves grappling with a range of new challenges thanks to rapid technological advancements, shifting consumer behaviours, and a globalised business environment. One of the primary challenges for revenue teams lies in the volume of data generated daily. This means whole teams are needed to collect and analyse the data effectively for businesses to derive actionable insights.

Not only this, but with the ongoing rise of e-commerce and digital platforms, the buying process has continued to evolve, necessitating a shift from traditional marketing tactics to a more personalised and digitally-driven approach. Today’s heightened customer expectations for seamless, omni-channel experiences mean that maintaining brand consistency across all of the various touchpoints is crucial. For the successful modern business, agility, adaptability, and the ability to leverage emerging technologies are increasingly important for sales and marketing teams aiming to thrive and drive success.

Take, Amazon, for example. Perhaps one of biggest global household names, Amazon has mastered the art of providing a seamless shopping experience across multiple channels and touchpoints, ensuring it’s always just at its customers’ fingertips. Here's how they do it:

• Online retail platform – Amazon's e-commerce platform is the cornerstone of its omni-channel strategy. Customers can browse and purchase a huge array of products online, enjoying a convenient and user-friendly shopping experience. Users can create shopping lists, save items to review again later, and can even register for gifting lists for events such as weddings, birthdays, or baby showers.
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• Mobile shopping – with a highly-rated mobile app that allows customers to shop on their smartphones and tablets, Amazon shoppers can buy while on the go. The app is complete with features like one-click ordering and voice-activated shopping through devices like Amazon Echo to make this as smooth and seamless an experience as possible.
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• Amazon Prime – arguably the one thing that gets shoppers coming back and back again, the Amazon Prime membership program integrates seamlessly with the online platform, offering benefits like free next-day shipping, access to Prime Video and Amazon Music Prime, as well as a number of exclusive deals. With free and faster delivery, Amazon Prime offers a service that will keep customers loyal and encourages repeat purchases by being the convenient choice for all those items you really need, like now – well, tomorrow will do.
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• Physical stores – Amazon has expanded its omni-channel presence with the addition of a bricks and mortar presence too. With the acquisition of Whole Foods Market and the introduction of Amazon Go stores, Amazon’s physical locations also offer customers the option to shop in-store or order online for delivery or pickup.

• ‍Voice commerce – through Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa, customers can make purchases and place orders using voice commands, further extending the convenience of their omni-channel strategy and allowing customers to also buy hands-free.
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• ‍Amazon Web Services (AWS) – moving beyond the everyday shopper, Amazon's cloud computing division, AWS, serves as a critical component of their omni-channel approach, providing the infrastructure and services that power the online platform and other digital services.
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• ‍Marketplace – with the addition of Amazon's marketplace to their suite of services, third-party sellers can now list and sell their products on the platform, creating a vast ecosystem of products and services for customers to choose from.
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• ‍Data and personalisation – joining the bandwagon of most other major high-street retailers, Amazon uses data analytics to personalise recommendations and product suggestions for its customers. This has the double benefit of not only enhancing the shopping experience for customers, but it’s also integral to driving and increasing sales.
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• ‍Amazon Fresh and Prime Now – for those customers also looking for an online grocery shopping experience, Amazon has the answer. Amazon Fresh and Prime Now provide grocery delivery and ultra-fast delivery options catering to customers' diverse needs and preferences. Providing you live in the right postcode, this service is one that’ll rival your regular Tesco delivery.

Through its extensive and integrated omni-channel approach, Amazon has become a global retail giant, offering customers a convenient, personalised, and reliable shopping experience, regardless of the channel they choose to engage with. This has made Amazon the first choice for millions of shoppers and keeps the company name at the forefront of their customer’s minds for a convenient and affordable solution.

Benefits of omnipresence

Omnipresence in business offers a multitude of benefits for sales and marketing teams, helping them enhance their strategies and drive success. For those companies embracing this multi-channel, omnipresent approach, a number of advantages can be expected:

• Innovation and growth – omnipresence encourages businesses to innovate continually and explore new avenues for growth. An agile company with a focus on adaptability and expansion is one that is always at the ready to listen to their customers and fulfil their unmet needs. Omnipresence and a mindset of long-term sustainable growth go hand in hand, as the business puts its presence and relevancy at the centre of its strategy.
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• Improved customer engagement – omnipresence allows sales and marketing teams to engage customers across multiple touchpoints, including physical stores, websites, social media, mobile apps, etc. This heightened engagement allows brands to foster stronger relationships and brand loyalty, encouraging customers to engage with them and return for future needs too.
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• Consistent brand experience – with a strong omnipresence, customers receive a consistent and cohesive brand experience, regardless of where or how they interact with the brand. This consistency builds trust and reinforces the brand's identity, leading to a positive reputation.
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• Data-driven insights – the omnipresence approach generates a wealth of data from various sources. Sales and marketing teams can use this data to gain deeper insights into customer behaviour, preferences, and trends, allowing for data-driven decision-making and personalised marketing campaigns. Personalisation is widely recognised for improving interaction and engagement, enabling companies to tailor their products, services, and marketing efforts to better meet customer needs.
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• Increased sales opportunities – it goes without saying that by being present in multiple channels and locations, businesses increase their opportunities for sales. Customers have the flexibility to make purchases through their preferred channels, which can lead to higher customer satisfaction and, therefore, higher conversion rates.
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• Enhanced customer support – for a truly omnipresent approach, customer support should also be considered. This allows businesses to provide consistent and timely assistance across various platforms, leading to faster issue resolution and improved customer satisfaction. By offering a superior, all-encompassing customer experience that sets them apart from competitors, companies adopting the omnipresence approach can also secure themselves a competitive advantage over their peers.
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• Increased reach – omnipresence transcends geographical boundaries, allowing businesses to reach a global audience. This is especially beneficial for e-commerce companies and those looking to expand internationally. For example, ASOS, a British online fashion and cosmetics retailer, expanded its global reach significantly without opening physical stores, by capitalising on a digital omnipresence approach.
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• Cost efficiency and resilience – While implementing an omnipresence strategy may require an initial investment, it can lead to major cost efficiencies in the long run. Streamlined processes and better targeting of marketing efforts can reduce wasteful spending, while businesses with an omnipresence strategy are often more resilient to economic downturns and market fluctuations. Their diversified presence helps them weather challenging times more effectively.

Omnipresence empowers sales and marketing teams to provide a seamless, engaging, and consistent customer experience, leading to improved customer satisfaction, increased sales, and a competitive edge. While it’s not the only approach, many in sales would argue it’s better to cover all bases than risk being overlooked on one approach.

With technological developments, such as the new iOS updates allowing customers to screen calls more effectively (and even permanently block you!), it’s clear that there are definite benefits to an omni-channel approach. When you have a range of different approaches that are complimentary to each other, many sales professionals would argue it’s short-sighted to ignore one to focus on another. As they say, it’s better to have belt and braces, than be caught out in an embarrassing situation.

Implementing the omnipresence approach

Implementing the omnipresence approach in your business involves creating a seamless and consistent brand experience across multiple channels and touchpoints. To do this effectively, we’ve identified ten key steps to take to ensure you’re really embracing omnipresence:

• Understand your audience – begin by thoroughly understanding your target audience, their preferences, behaviours, and pain points. Conducting market research will allow you to gather huge amounts of data that will help to inform your strategies.
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• Multi-channel strategy – it's essential to identify the relevant channels and touchpoints where your audience is to engage with them. You’ll need to consider physical stores, websites, mobile apps, social media, email, chatbots, and even word of mouth.
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• Consistent branding – maintain a consistent brand identity, including logos, colours, messaging, and tone of voice, across all channels. It's simply not enough to be everywhere your customers are – you also need to ensure they instantly recognise your brand, regardless of where they encounter it. This even extends to design – make sure your website and digital assets are all responsive and adapt to different devices (smartphones, tablets, desktops) for a consistent user experience.
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• Personalisation – use customer data to personalise interactions and recommendations. By tailoring your messaging and offerings you can ensure you’re always meeting each individual customer’s needs and preferences. When there’s a huge amount of competition in the marketplace, it’s important to make your customers feel like they’re important, not just another statistic.

• Customer journey mapping – to fully understand how to achieve an omnipresence approach, you’ll need to map out your customer journey across all channels to identify key touchpoints and interactions. By analysing where in the journey your customers may face friction or drop off, you can identify your weak points and can then focus on improving those areas.
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• Content strategy – you’ll need to develop a content strategy that aligns with your omnipresence approach. Create content that is relevant and engaging for each channel, keeping the unique characteristics of that platform and user expectations in mind. For example, on social media, you'll want to use concise and visually appealing content with hashtags for discoverability; while on a blog, provide more in-depth articles that delve into topics of interest to your audience, offering valuable insights and solutions.
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• Technology integrations – while this may be a costly part of the approach, investing in technology solutions that facilitate omnipresence, such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, Marketing Automation, and Customer Data Platforms (CDP), can be invaluable. These tools can help manage customer data, automate processes, and provide insights. With the right integrations you can ensure any spend on tech solutions works both ways, adding value for both you and your customers.
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• Feedback – because an omnipresence strategy requires ongoing maintenance, it’s important to continuously gather feedback from customers and monitor performance across channels. Use this data to make improvements and refine your omnipresence strategy as your brand and customer base continues to grow.
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• Measurement and KPIs – with constant feedback and data, establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) to track the effectiveness of your omnipresence strategy can provide valuable insights. By monitoring metrics such as customer engagement, conversion rates, and customer satisfaction, you can validate your success for different channels and adjust your strategy as necessary.
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• Scalability and Growth – it’s important to plan for scalability as your business grows. The omnipresence approach is designed to improve overall revenue, so you’ll also want to consider how you’ll expand your omnipresence approach to new markets or regions as your new strategy takes off.

Implementing an omnipresence approach is an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring and adjustment. By providing a seamless and consistent experience for your customers across all channels, you can build stronger relationships, increase customer loyalty, and drive business growth. With the overarching goal of increasing revenue and growing your business, it’s worth remembering that while this approach might be time-intensive, and sometimes a more costly strategy, the success it affords makes it well worth the investment.

Alternative approaches

While the omnipresence approach is effective for many businesses, it’s still not the choice for all. There are numerous alternative strategies and approaches that can be tailored to specific goals and circumstances. Here are some alternative strategies:

• Niche focus – for some businesses their very USP is that they are not everywhere but thrive by catering exclusively to a specific niche or target audience in (often) one place only. This approach allows for highly specialised products or services and can build a loyal customer base. Because the market they cater to is so niche, they will have a much smaller circle of competitors and customers will know where to go to find the solutions they’re looking for, without having to shop about.
  
  For example, Patagonia has developed its brand around its commitment to environmental and social responsibility. It engages with the community directly and has a relatively small number of retail locations compared to many other apparel brands. It focuses on selling directly to consumers through its own stores and website, allowing them to maintain control over their brand image and customer experience without pursuing an extensive network of third-party retailers.

• Single channel specialisation – some businesses, especially those in industries like luxury retail or hospitality, prioritise physical store experiences over digital channels. They invest heavily in creating exceptional in-person experiences to attract and retain customers. On the other end of the scale, companies such as Primark and Costco have also followed this model (until recent years), drawing their customers into physical stores from far and wide on the promise of great value and huge choice. Conversely, some companies have chosen to focus on e-commerce over a physical presence.
  
  For example, Etsy, an online marketplace, and Wayfair, an online furniture and home goods retailer, both have focused on a digital approach, saving on a physical space, and allowing them to climb to the top of their respective fields.
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• Local community engagement – businesses can also concentrate their efforts on building a strong presence within their local community. Ben & Jerry’s followed this ethos and developed an almost cult-like following by doing so. They place a focus on partnering with local organisations and initiatives in the communities where their manufacturing facilities and shops are located. They also support various local causes and host many of their events in their home state of Vermont.

• Marketplace participation – for many smaller businesses, a smart choice can be to sell their products or services through online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, or Etsy. By selling through an already established marketplace, rather than setting up their own website, these small businesses can benefit from a huge number of support systems. They can capitalise on Etsy's reputation as a trusted e-commerce platform (which can instil confidence in buyers), reduced marketing efforts (as sellers benefit from Etsy’s own marketing services including SEO, advertising, and promotional campaigns), and payment processing (further reducing the seller’s overheads, and simplifying the process for them).
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• Social media dominance – another tactic businesses are increasingly using is prioritising their social media platforms and making them their primary channel for engagement and sales. Influencer marketing and social advertising can be key components of this strategy and platforms such as Instagram are fast becoming an almost-marketplace for the brands relying on cult-type followings.

While there are many different approaches businesses can take to grow their outreach, increase their visibility, and boost their revenues, it's essential for each business to choose the strategy that aligns with their business goals, resources, and target audience best. It is critical to continually assess the effectiveness of any chosen strategy and adapt as needed to remain competitive and responsive to market changes and developing trends.

It’s perhaps worth noting that while many of the companies who chose one of these strategies do achieve success, it is still often through a multi-channel approach. While omnipresence isn’t necessarily the direct choice for these businesses, a clear move towards an increase in visibility and accessibility can still be seen with a multi-channel strategy.

Remember

The business environment is marked by constant change, driven by the continuing technological advancements, shifting consumer preferences, and global disruptions. Those companies that remain static and resistant to change risk becoming obsolete. Adaptability enables businesses to pivot swiftly in response to emerging challenges and opportunities, ensuring survival and their ongoing relevance. Innovation, on the other hand, drives growth and competitiveness in an already saturated market. It enables the development of new products, services, and processes, fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Harnessing adaptability and innovation allows companies to future-proof but also empowers them to thrive amidst uncertainty, forging a path to sustainable success.

One of the biggest challenges businesses of today face is the need to rise above the noise and set themselves apart from their competition. This is often the driving factor that leads companies to transform into an ever-present and influential force in the lives of their customers. The ability to seamlessly and consistently connect with your audience, wherever they may be, is the linchpin to entering a phase of growth. characterised by heightened visibility, trust, and improved customer relations.

The benefits of an omni-channel approach and omnipresence extend far beyond visibility; they include improved brand loyalty, adaptability, data-driven insights, and ultimately provide a competitive edge. Omnipresence is the bridge connecting businesses to their customers in an era marked by rapid digitalisation. It's the assurance that your brand is not just a fleeting presence but an enduring force that understands, anticipates, and meets the needs of your audience, wherever and whenever they need.

Selligence is a business intelligence platform that provides the leads that make sure you’re always reaching out with relevance. When communication is key to growth, it’s essential to not waste any opportunity to connect. Get in touch for a demo of the Selligence platform and start adding value to your outreach – whatever channel you choose!