Today, E&J Gallo visited UMD AMA for an Omnichannel Marketing Workshop and Competition! Before the competition starts, Kelly and Christina share insights and information regarding omnichannel marketing.
Omnichannel is defined as a multichannel sales approach that provides the consumer with an integrated shopping experience. The main concept is following the path to purchase, the customer’s journey to buy the product.
Path to Purchase
Living: How do consumers see the products in their everyday lives? How can they be introduced to the products?
Looking: Customers are curious about the products, conducting research, and asking others about the product.
Buying: When the customer puts the item in their cart and purchases it.
To achieve this path to purchase, companies use some techniques to get customers to live, look, and buy!
Key Tactics
Public relations is having a positive public image/reviews from third-party sources. This can be positive or negative as companies do not have control over what other parties say about their products. Companies need to keep up to date with PR efforts as it can be important to know if certain products are trending and prepare stock.
Social Ad Targeting & Influencer Marketing is important in the current social media age. Ads on social media can be sponsored content purchased from social media sites or can be paid posts by influencers. Both have benefits and can lead to more visibility for the products and start customers on the path to purchase.
Podcasts are a great way to get more customers. E&J Gallo uses podcasts for some of their products such as Pink Whitney, which is a partnership with New Amsterdam Vodka, and Spittin’ Chiclets, a Barstool Sports Podcast. The podcast promotes the spirit and this informs the fans of Barstool Sports and Spittin’ Chiclets about the product.
Engaging your customers where they live their lives is crucial. Meeting customers where they are is the most effective and natural way to begin the path to purchase.
After informing the members about omnichannel marketing, Kelly and Christina share a brand-new product from E&J Gallo that is being released this summer! While it cannot be disclosed here on the blog, our members (who are 21+) are so excited about this new beverage!
The challenge in the meeting today is to promote the new product! The AMA members are split into five groups, each with a different focus on developing omnichannel marketing strategies for this product.
While the specific AMA-zing strategies the members came up with cannot be shared at risk of exposing the new product, here are some of the main ideas:
Creating a podcast incorporating the product’s brand identity.
Creating a social media account where recipes, product Q&A videos, and other specialized content are posted.
Sending PR packages to influencers and journalists.
Thank you to Kelly and Christine from E&J Gallo for coming out to share some awesome information about omnichannel marketing and the exciting new product that will be released this summer! Thank you to our members, who had so many creative ideas!
If you are interested in internships or post-grad opportunities with E&J Gallo, contact David Black.
-Maeve Smarick