In the retailing space, the term “omni channel retailing” is beginning to redefine the needed outcome of multi-channel or all channel marketing to be inclusive and seamless across mobile, social, in-store, and digital.

According to Forrester Research, by 2016 over 44% of total retail sales will be impacted by the web.  This online to offline purchase experience demands that retailers create an engagement experience that supports online’s ability to drive commerce.

For many merchants, as the consumer jumps channels or devices, they lose the ability to track and measure the performance of their efforts.  This creates an interesting challenge and opportunity for affiliate marketing publishers and merchants.

The challenge is to create positive brand engagement across these channels while providing expanded distribution and attribution.  This requires building affiliate solutions that drive commerce through omni channel retailing strategies that puts the consumer first in the purchase path.

When applying this strategy to affiliate marketing, one concern is to ensure you drive both online and offline redemption and attribution.  Obviously, you do not want to cannibalize your existing sales, but at PepperJam Exchange, we’ve seen growth in both sectors when applying omni-channel practices to a clients campaign.  We have developed online to in-store and peer to peer solutions that empowered our merchants to grow their online affiliate revenue while adding a significant amount of incremental revenue from an in-store or social channel campaign.

Changing the Game

When you start talking online and offline performance marketing strategies, it has potential to create a circling of the wagons response from your teams.  Each has the need and passion for self-preservation because individuals and teams focus on how they’ll reach the consumer.

The multi-channel marketer focuses on reaching the most consumers via search, or reaching the most consumers via email, driving the most eCommerce sales or the most foot traffic into their store.  The focus is more on solving the problems of your individual teams and not on solving the problems of your consumers.

This is why omni channel retailing has the ability to transform your business as it places the consumer at the center of the equation.  The consumer is looking for your brand in search engines, engaging with you via email subscription, searching for products or promotions on their phone, and then either purchasing online or walking in-store to purchase.

If you haven’t yet, you should start thinking about how your business can support the omni channel consumer.  Developing this experience for your customers isn’t easy and will take strong leadership to break down the walls of department silos, but isn’t change the thing that makes life interesting?

Contact PepperJam Exchange to learn more about our omni channel retailing solutions developed for affiliate marketers.

Posted by gdavis