There was a time when if you had to purchase a product you had to go to the local store and select the one that suits you best from the available options. This was a time when customer interactions were limited to face-to-face communication making it easy for the businesses to track every customer-business relation from its first stages. The print media brought new possibilities and advertising and marketing saw great opportunities. But that wasn’t the end of it, the advent of electronic media- the radio, TV and especially the internet opened up a world of endless possibilities. The emergence of laptops and smart phones made ‘marketing’ a complex sector. Customer interactions took place from so many channels that to ensure a seamless experience to the customers became the greatest challenge of marketing. With the proliferation of touchpoints, emerged the ‘omni-channel marketing’ as a panacea for all marketing problems.
Multi-channel vs. Omni-channel
The terms multichannel and omni-channel are currently used synonymously by many, but a few experts beg to differ. Kentico claims that multichannel approach is more marketer-focused while omni-channel is customer-focused. Omni-channel approach is seen as a natural evolutionary outcome of multichannel marketing efforts and the difference between the two is worth mentioning. Multichannel approach is more tactical with separate marketing program planned and executed for each channel. The problem is that this is company’s perspective resulting in individual channels inadvertently competing with each other and creating serious problems. Omni-channel approach is strategic with coordinated and integrated channel efforts from the customer’s point of view thus preventing collision of objectives in multichannel approach.
Kentico and Omni-channel Marketing
Founded in 2004, Kentico integrates Content Management System (CMS), E-commerce and online marketing to provide an all-in-one business platform that can be used both on-premises or in the cloud. Kentico acknowledges the ever-increasing digital lifestyles of customers and the rise in the number of touchpoints and provides a marketing suite called Kentico Enterprise Marketing Solution (EMS) that fully optimizes the digital customer experiences across multiple channels. Kentico EMS offers multiple tools that are integrated to track and manage customer interactions across channels including website, online store, email, mobile app and social media.
All-in-one vs. Best-of-breed
To address the issue of multiple channels in marketing, you need to acquire data on all customer interactions at all touchpoints and come up with a single accessible up-to-date profile for each customer. This can be achieved through two ways.
One way is to find the most advanced tool in every field and integrate them all (best-of-breed). The other way is to choose a suite that gives already integrated ready-to-use marketing tools (all-in-one). Kentico offers all-in-one solution and here’s why it is better than the best-of-breed:
- Integration is already done in Kentico’s suite
- Consistency is ensured in all-in-one solution
- Maintenance of single product is easier
- Prices are low and predictable in all-in-one solutions
- Single vendor accounts for stability, security, performance and support in all-in-one solutions
The fully integrated solution from Kentico includes:
- Content Management
- Content Tracking and Management
- Lead Scoring
- Email Marketing
- Segmentation and Personalization
- Campaign Management
- Web Analytics
- Conversion Optimization
- Social Media Integration
- Mobile Marketing
Marketing Automation by Kentico ensures that right content is delivered and right sales activities are initiated throughout the multiple channels and stages of customer life cycle in a personalized manner to boost customer engagement and encourage customer loyalty and subsequently maximize the Return on Investment (ROI).
Kentico EMS: The Omni-channel Marketing Suite
Kentico EMS is the only marketing suite to be built entirely in house without relying any third parties and without vendor acquisitions. The marketing tools in this suite can be easily managed through a single, integrated, consistent and intuitive user interface via a single login to ensure a matchless user experience (UX).
Kentico EMS makes it possible for you to leverage the design and content from your business website for your ecommerce site, micro sites and blogs. It also provides powerful features such as Email marketing, Lead scoring, Segmentation and Personalization, A/B and MVT testing and Marketing Automation across all sites. A single Contact Management center stores all data and gives a remarkable overview of customers and easy execution of marketing and sales activities.
What is more interesting is that Kentico’s integration options include .NET API, REST API, Web Services, Kentico System Integration Bus, RSS and XML feeds. It also offers ready-to-go connectors to systems like Salesforce.com and SharePoint.
Kentico’s support team includes engineers who help you whenever you face a problem. These support engineers work closely with the team that built every component of the product making them highly professional at what they do.
Kentico informs you about the features, trials, roadmap and price on their website itself so that as businessmen you can have knowledge about what the product does and what it costs you and thereby be assured that you are taking no unnecessary risk. The futuristic-principles that offer speed, sophistication and support for any ambitious brand makes Kentico EMS one of a kind.
If you would like to know more about this, please send an e-mail to services@suyati.com