23 February 2018
Back to BlogThe Importance of Omnichannel Consistency
Brand consistency is key to ensuring your business is successful in selling across multiple channels. Consumers should be able to identify your brand through your logo, colour choice and tone of voice, and thus if there is no consistency in your marketing materials or sales channels, you are likely to lose the trust of your consumer. Understandably, for larger businesses that operate in various countries, multiple time zones and sell across a wide range of channels, it can be difficult to ensure a level of consistency, particularly because extra manpower can often result in less stability. However, there are a few ways you can ensure all your sales channels maintain the same branding to ensure a cohesive customer experience.
Produce Brand Guidelines
Visual design elements are of course an important part of producing familiarity and confidence in your brand. As a consumer bounces from channel to channel, they expect to go through the same experience, seeing the same elements time and time again. This also includes your interaction style and tone of voice, which should be the same across all channels. Consumers take one interaction as part of their whole user experience with a company, so ensure this is done right across all channels.
Manage Your Materials
Get organised and make sure all your assets and marketing materials are hosted on a centralised platform. Everything should be clearly labelled so that accessing and distributing the correct assets to the right channel, is easily done in order to avoid mistakes.
Cohesive Navigation
Though you may think certain devices may be used for specific functions, this is not always the case. For example, not everyone owns a desktop computer, so they may do all of their internet browsing via a mobile or tablet. This means it’s not only important for your websites to be responsive, but to also keep a cohesive navigation across all channels. For example, if a dress in the store is in the workwear section, a customer would expect to find it in the same location online. Without this level of consistency, consumers will start to become frustrated and tired of your brand.
Integrated Backend Systems
Regardless of how many sales channels you have, consumers see you as one business with one inventory, which means they expect real-time, consistent and precise information across all of your channels. In order to do this, you will need an integrated backend system, such as Linnworks, that will ensure all your data, including stock levels, are up to date. It’s important you choose an eCommerce platform that will be able to manage this type of integration; BigCommerce’s API makes it incredibly easy to sell in various stores and marketplaces down to its many one-click integrations, so is a great choice for eCommerce businesses big or small.
For more information on omnichannel consistency, branding or the various eCommerce systems we partner with, get in touch with us today!