You’re probably doing Omnichannel wrong…
…Omnichannel and omniexperience are not the same thing and often times the two are used interchangeably.
Most omnichannel approaches don’t render a cohesive omni experience and that can kill your marketing efforts.
Enter the guys from Bedhead Marketing.
In this episode, Bedhead Marketing Co-Founders, Brandon Bain and Stephen Ferguson, discuss amplifying your omnichannel approach and taking your marketing to the next level and making your hard work pay off.
Tangible Takeaways:
– How to give customers continuity of experience from website to your social media platforms to your physical store location;
– Explaining the “why” behind why what’s done is done and how that differs between bigger and smaller retailers; and
– How VRS is the next cool kid on the block and how you can integrate it into your online presence.
Need More Marketing Ideas?
Check out how virtual room scenes are converting higher sales in the online shopping experience.
FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Mark Kinsley: You probably heard about omnichannel, but what is the omni experience and how can it catapult your business forward? If you’re not thinking in these lines, you need to be the fan marketing show starts right now.
Mark Kinsley: Welcome to the Fan Marketing Show Strategies, tips, and ideas to help retailers and brands grow their furniture, appliances, and mattress business.
And the dynamic duo from Bedhead Marketing is here on the show. Brandon has been on the show once before. Now we have Brandon Bain and Steven Ferguson. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here to share your expertise and your darn good looks and those beautiful
Stephen Ferguson: shirts. Thanks bud. Appreciate
Brandon Bain: it. Oh no.
So we
Stephen Ferguson: welcome that hat and shirt combo you got going on Mr. Kinsley, but we gotta try .
Mark Kinsley: Yeah,
Adrienne Woods: yeah. I’m the only one that looks normal here. I’m the only sane, normal looking person on this podcast today. Came into
that.
Mark Kinsley: You could have just stopped at saying, I’m the only sane person on this podcast, . That’s fair.
That’s
Stephen Ferguson: absolutely fair. Thinking of Omni, we’re talking about balance, balance
Adrienne Woods: in the world, but there’s three to one and so I don’t know that we get balanced here, but it’ll be a fun episode.
Stephen Ferguson: That much I know It takes one woman to balance out these three guys.
Mark Kinsley: we are so thankful for your Adrian, and we’re always thankful for the brilliant trivia questions. You start off the show with. She play along with us here cuz Adrian’s gonna tee us up with a trivia question and then we’ll answer it at the end of the show. So keep listening cuz there’s gonna be some gold in this episode as well.
So what’s our trivia question for today? I don’t even know. Okay.
Adrienne Woods: He doesn’t know. So Steven, I know you haven’t been on the podcast before, but I have to let you know that your partnering crime got the correct answer on the last episode he was on. So no pressure. Well, but we’re gonna score not Brandon is the smartest guy.
That’s not surpris. Oh, well. Okay. There you go. All right. What percentage of consumers conduct a search for a business after seeing their ad? Okay, I’m gonna give you three options. Don’t, don’t gimme the answers. So think about it as we go through the show, and then at the end we will, we’ll rope it back in, but what percentage of consumers conduct a search for a business after seeing their ad?
Is it 43% of consumers, 39% of consumers, or 27% of consumer? So just be
Mark Kinsley: okay. All those numbers are pretty high. So that indicates that people are doing searches based on your brand. I think that’s why, you know, during Superbowl commercials, this is a marketing show. You had, you know, Bitcoin, I think, or Coinbase, that came out with that traveling QR code that went all over the screen and people were scanning it and they basically shut down their entire site.
So, you know, one of the things we talked about in the. Um, in, in tighter circles is this idea that your TV commercial is really designed to get people to go to your website. It’s not to come into your store, buy something, it’s to go to your website. So funneling people in that direction, encouraging that direction, giving them an easy path, uh, you know, something you definitely need to consider, especially since so much of your shopping starts online these days.
Okay guys, let’s get into some omni experience. Content here. Okay, so first of all, what, what is omni experience? We, I’ve heard of omnichannel where you, you shop online, you can shop the same way in store. Maybe you can shop through your mobile device the same as you can shop through desktop and physical environment.
What does omni experience and why does it matter?
Stephen Ferguson: Why should we care? But think you actually started going down this path and didn’t even realize it. You talk about, you know, TV advertisement sending you to the website, and then in our industry, everybody’s trying to get people from the. To the store. You know, like it’s, it’s really helping the customer get full circle to make a purchase.
But before we really dive deep into that Mark, I would say, Brandon, you should, uh, Brandon’s like, you don’t know he is got a philosophy degree and he’s like, you know, Latin master, what does mean? I don’t even know. What does the word come from? Like, I dunno. It’s just a cool industry, bro. Are you on me or not?
Man. Do you, do you work out, bro? You.
Brandon Bain: Yeah. Do you, do you even omni, um, , so yeah, the, the word itself comes from a Latin word, Omnis, O M n I S. Um, and it literally translates into all like, literally all, but um, what we’re seeing now is like this kind of reinterpretation of omni and more like continuity in a shopping experience, right?
So it’s not just that you are, you do have a website, you do have an ad, you do. It’s like, yeah, we have all of the channels, but. The continuity is the same, the same sort of feeling and emotion and pricing strategy and sales strategy is, is contiguous through all those. So I think that’s the reinterpretation of
Stephen Ferguson: omnichannel.
If you didn’t know Brandon’s nickname is Webster, cuz he just can word you got, just ask, let’s say where it comes from. That’s interesting. You’re
Adrienne Woods: the phone a friend on who wants to be a millionaire and that’s what
Brandon Bain: wins people money. Too much.
Adrienne Woods: It’s a good place to be, Brandon. It’s a good place to be. .
Stephen Ferguson: So what is Omni?
It’s all, that’s what it is. It’s everything. It’s everything. What do you, what do you wanna go with that Mark? We can go anywhere We, because it’s all things. I, I, yeah.
Mark Kinsley: This is very meta. Um, so let’s dial it in a little bit here. So we have actionable takeaways cuz you know, this is the fan marketing show. We wanna make sure that people can harness some of this information and apply it.
So here’s, here’s where I think we should go with this. When you’re talking about omnichannel, Table stakes early on was really around this idea of being able to sell in all channels. Now, omni experience is the evolution of that idea, and just as Brandon outlined, you want to give people a continuity of experience from the time they go on your website or the fi, the time they find you in social all the way through until the time they come into your store.
And I remember talking to Jen Danko from Nationwide Marketing Group, uh, on a podcast in the past. And she was really emphasizing this idea that if you were gonna offer certain items in store, you needed to offer them online. Okay. Sounds obvious. Let me be more specific. If you had the ability to upcharge somebody for delivery outside of a 50 mile radius, if you’re doing that in the store, you should have a checkbox on your.
If you’re consistently as part of your sales process offering bed frames or headboards or sleep accessories, for example, then that needed to be part of your upsell strategy online, not just the experience you created in store. So when I think of omni experience, it’s creating those type of conditions so that if somebody does that transaction online and then they come into your store six months later and do another transac, They feel something very similar happened.
And when, let’s, let’s talk about the why behind that. Why should that matter? Why should somebody invest in that direction?
Stephen Ferguson: I love what you’re asking, and this actually reminds me of my time as a mattress firm because, You know, as we grew, as big as we got in those last few years that I was there, Omni was the hot topic of the entire corporate office.
And now that I’m working with smaller retailers and manufacturers, it’s a different experience, right? There’s different needs, there’s steps to getting what you’re talking about. And the why behind all of that truly is honestly what’s needed in our industry more than anything. And one of our, our, our big, you know, hot topics at Bedhead is cleaning up our.
Right. I mean, the experience that you know, an associate can give in a store. To them in this industry. And that’s not normal in any other industry. You know, what other big box retailer can you walk into and just start negotiating, right? That that’s what throws off the, uh, omni experience capabilities in our industry is the power to the associates to do the weird mattress man discount.
Like we joke about it, but it’s a real thing. And a lot of consumers know, a lot of consumers don’t know, and you don’t get that same experience online. You don’t get the same specials in promos because it’s all different. You may not even have the same products online, uh, much less your same approach.
Even an overall experience of how you educate a consumer on how to buy a bed online. Do they get to go through some sort of comfort, experience or mapping system to help them experience how to buy a bed properly? You know, firm beds sell more online than they do in store because in store they get educated on pressure relief.
Online firm is the number one word attached to mattress when searching with Google, right? That’s what people think for, cuz they are looking for support. They’re not necessarily. For the comfort side of it, they don’t comprehend that because there’s a lack of education online. So to me, Omni has a beginning and an.
The beginning for every retailer that we work with is to go, okay, you sell beds in store. Now let’s sell beds online. Like, that’s step one. Like have a have a a, a Shopify account, you know, and do a e-commerce, an e-commerce, uh, platform. The ultimate is giving the consumer the exact same experience on every platform, and that includes selling on Amazon all the way through selling in your store.
Third party everyth. Direct to consumer social media, not just same products and same prices, but the same experience and potentially even showing them something virtually in store. So Brandon, you know, created this whole VRS system. I think you guys did an episode on that. Um, that’s really cool. Right? And to me, that’s the ultimate, omni experience.
We always said, I just wish online could become as good as it is in store. Well, now we’re going, I hope online, in store can be as good as what we’re doing online because we can do things in the virtual store you can’t do in a physical store. So how do you actually show the consumer the exact same equal experience on all platforms is the ultimate goal that we believe Bedhead has got some really cool solutions.
Mark Kinsley: Let me, let me make a distinction here because on the episode, Brandon, when we talked about vrs, which stands for virtual room setting. So in this virtual room setting, go back and listen to that episode because it gives you real insights into where things are headed and where things are in many capacities.
So Brandon, one of the things we talked about on that, Surrounded your ability to actually go beyond the physical retail environment and create this whole world that complimented maybe your, on your, your in-store experience. So now we’re talking about omni experience. We’re talking about creating similar conditions.
We’re talking about making it match. So now all of a sudden we’re throwing a wrench in the gears a little bit. Walk me through. Expanding your showroom online, doing things differently online, enhancing it online. How, how do we make these things match up on our head and hold hands?
Brandon Bain: That’s a good question.
Um, I think that if you think of the term omnichannel, in my mind, the idea is more of a philosophy. Than an execution strategy, because we know that every platform is gonna have its differences. We know that , you know, talking to a human and touching a bed is going to be different than buying a bed online.
Like we get that. Um, however, um, what you wanna do is be able to accentuate those, those value props for whatever platform it. But maintain the brand continuity and the messaging and the deliverables through all of the channels. So if you’re saying to me specifically, well, should we make a room that’s different than our showroom?
Um, you know, it, I think it would depend on the application, but, uh, certainly you can make a room that looks exactly like your showroom. So when someone says, Hey, the bed here in the back, I wanna see this one . Right? It was online. I went through my virtual room and I went to the back and I love that one. I just wanna feel it.
Okay, here it is. That would be a, an incredible. Omnichannel execution from, you know, creating this similar experience. But then you also have to say, well, we can only afford this much of a showroom. What if we had a showroom that was twice as big? Right. , wouldn’t it be cooler? Then you have that opportunity as well.
So I think it’s a
Stephen Ferguson: balance. If I could add to that, I think sometimes it’s all about getting started. I think there’s some advancements that, um, we’ve achieved in vrs that I haven’t seen anywhere else. For instance, in a. What makes a difference, like ticket average, right? Online versus in store is a dramatic difference.
So you have to stop and say, in this industry, the specifically the mattress industry, why is it so dramatically different? And there’s, there’s not one answer. When, when, when KPIs are dramatically different. It’s always multiple things, right? It’s never just one thing. So you have to think of, of all of.
Number one, do you, do you actually present everything to the consumer online that you do in store? Because when you go from PDP page to PDP page to PDP page, all you’re doing is looking for a mattress as a consumer shopping versus in a store, you mattress shop, but you have an associate there. So like the associate interaction is not only just gonna help you pick the right bed, but they’re also gonna pillow fit you right, and educate you on why your, your head has to be comfortable.
If your head’s not comfortable, nothing else is right. If your head’s not cool, nothing else is, you need the pillow folks. Does that happen? No. So you missed that pillow cell. Well, you can’t take this bed home and not keep it clean. You gotta put a protector on it. What associate doesn’t have an epic mattress protector presentation.
Attachment rate is over 50% in the industry. It used to be over 70%. I don’t know what changed. Uh, but the fact is we are gonna educate the consumer on why to attach a protector and not to mention they’re gonna get some amazing adjustable base presentation that’s gonna increase the ticket, 500 plus dollars.
Um, every single time. So I think there’s a whole thing that we have figured out with vrs that we can put associate in a room, in a vrs that educates you. We can actually have that AI generated where you can ask them questions and they can answer back. We have the ability to show you pillows and fit you for pillows through the vrs.
We can show adjustable basis how they function, not just a base, but all the differences in the bases. So when you give them a free one online, what’s your step up rate? All you free mattress. Uh, you know, uh, adjustable base giveaways in this industry. What’s your step up rate online? Do you even have a step up rate, or is it like a hundred percent?
Take the free base. We have the ability to educate the consumer on the differences in all those. And not always to the vrs. There’s multiple ways that we can do that. That creates an omni experience that’s gonna dramatically change your ticket average to to be more comparable to online and in store. And I think that KPI alone, that ticket average kpi, the closer you get, it shows you with your lag indicator, what your lead stuff is happening in your platform to make sure that they’re equal in an omni.
Mark Kinsley: And when you go through this exercise and you actually have to communicate these value propositions online, when you actually have to structure this thinking online to introduce the pillow, to make sure and introduce a mattress protector, to not give away basis for free. That is gonna inform what you do in store and probably refine that process so that you can make the match as closely as possible.
What I hear you guys saying, and it’s been awesome having you on the show, we’re gonna do another one, I think. Um, so I want you guys back. What I’m hearing you say though is when you create the omni experience, It’s not necessarily about making everything match up looks wise, one to one, and it’s all perfect.
It’s about concentrating on the right experiences you create online and the experiences that you want to demonstrate and create in store, and making those principle based decisions match up. And Brandon, of course, you started talking philosophy again. You started out with Omni and then you got back. I knew you were gonna bring it back up.
I see what you’re doing,
Stephen Ferguson: Awesome, guys.
Mark Kinsley: Hey, where, real quick before we get to the tribute question, where can people, uh, get in, get in touch with, uh, the Bedhead crew?
Stephen Ferguson: Where can they go? Hmm. How about bedhead marketing.com? That sounds like a good spot to go to.
Mark Kinsley: Oh, I like that. I like that. You can do it. You can check out all their cool work they’re doing.
All right, Adrian, hit us with that trivia question again.
Adrienne Woods: Okay. And Steven’s the one answering. Just gotta make sure, I know you direct this to, can I call a friend or, or, yeah, maybe you can throw a friend, Brandon. Brandon can also bail you out here. Cause you might get it wrong, but he’ll get it right. What percent of consumers conduct a search for a business after seeing their ad?
Is it 43%? 39% or 27% of consumers. What’s your initial gut reaction? Steven?
Stephen Ferguson: Give me the numbers one more time.
Adrienne Woods: 43%, 39%, or 27%.
Stephen Ferguson: They’re all so close to each other. Um,
Brandon Bain: I know it makes
Stephen Ferguson: it fun. I think we’re making an assumption that every single ad people. Like for sure. Go and look at it. I don’t, I think there’s, there’s like, okay, if they’re interested in the product, then their first thing they’re gonna do is Google this particular company and
Mark Kinsley: try.
I had a lot of questions about the trivia question as well. Y’all over
Adrienne Woods: complicate these trivia questions. Well, we have to think
Stephen Ferguson: through them so we get ’em right. Um, oh
Mark Kinsley: my gosh. Yeah. Are we talking about like, did they get a, did they get seven frequency on the message before the consumer actually, have they seen the ad multiple times?
It just seen to add one
Adrienne Woods: time. I didn’t, I didn’t read the whole article. Okay. I just pulled this snippet.
Mark Kinsley: I just, I just read it and tweeted the whole, like, I saw it headline, you know, it’s like
Adrienne Woods: the Bible. I picked out what I wanted and I ignored the rest. So yeah. There you go.
Stephen Ferguson: Let’s go down that rabbit hole.
Oh, please. Philosophy, huh? I’m gonna go with
Mark Kinsley: 36. You’re gonna go with 30?
Adrienne Woods: That’s what he said. It was 39%. Are you good with that? Not number? Yeah. The one that was close to 40, 39%. Brandon, what do you
Stephen Ferguson: think? So I was wrong.
Brandon Bain: Dang it. So I would say it’s probably lower, and I would say it’s probably much lower than the numbers you have there because we’re inundated with so many impressions, what we call an ad.
It could be a social media posting. Theoretically that can be down in the point, point something percent. So I’ll go with whatever your lowest number is.
Adrienne Woods: 27%. Is that what you wanna go with? Yeah. Okay. Okay. One of you is right. I’ll just
Stephen Ferguson: point it out. Yeah, we know which point. Thank you, .
Adrienne Woods: You’re welcome. It’s Brandon.
He is right. It’s 27%. It’s three for three.
Stephen Ferguson: See this way it’s three for three baby. With the right people, you know like
Adrienne Woods: That’s true. Is so true. Coworkers. Yes. I’ll, I’ll look into like all the caveats and the disclaimers y’all talked about, and I will circle back with you. Okay.
Mark Kinsley: Gosh. All right. Hey, I’m gonna, I’m gonna mix it up here a little bit as, as we close it out.
So, uh, Brandon, you’re No, you, since you got it right, I’m gonna give this to you, so you’re just gonna fill in the blank. So first of all, yes. If you got a marketing tip that’s worked for you, uh, hit us up. Go over to fam.news, text us on our podium number. It’s kind of cool. You can text us through the website.
It’s in the bottom right and. Topics you want us to tackle, you want us to get you in touch with, with Brandon and Steven from Bedhead Marketing. Happy to do it. And guys, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. And be sure to subscribe because you never wanna miss an idea that could make you a marketing rockstar, marketing rockstar with a sweet beard.
And join us each and every week as we bring you more fam marketing magic .
Adrienne Woods: See you guys.
