Perfect Harmony: Blending Omnichannel Marketing and SEM

For companies doing multichannel marketing, there may be one person who focuses on in-store signage and print ads, one who writes blogs and e-newsletters, another who works on the website, and yet another who works strictly on social media. Everyone has their own goal and their own measure of success.

Understanding Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing, on the other hand, brings those marketing channels together, creating a synchronized brand and experience to consumers across a variety of channels. Together they weave a customer-centric web, knowing that consumers often use channels simultaneously. For example:

• Comparing prices on their smartphones while they’re standing in a store shopping for items.
• Reading their friends’ reviews of a product on Facebook while they’re searching the web for the best price on their laptops.
• Using their tablets to search for promotional codes while they’re on the checkout page of an ecommerce site on their desktops at work.

Blending Omnichannel Marketing and SEM 

Beyond simply using search engine optimization to push a website to the top of Google rankings, search engine marketing can benefit all of a brand’s marketing channels.

SEM distributes its efforts to help consumers find information on their terms, rather than the other way around. SEM follows a plan and executes a strategy that will best respond to the customers’ needs and actions, including:

• Providing valuable information to a consumer based on his or her search terms.
• Improving search engine rankings via paid campaigns..
• Determining keywords and integrating them into a call to action.

Need an example? When a consumer buys a camera through a digital ad after searching for one on his or her smartphone that was all prompted by seeing an ad for one on Facebook– that’s blending omni-channel marketing and SEM.

Blending omnichannel marketing and SEM will create a seamless experience for consumers, which boosts brand exposure, builds trust, and improves return on investment.