With so much to gain, it's a little surprising that more businesses aren't further along the omnichannel roadmap, that is, until you start to add up all the costs, effort, and potential roadblocks involved in creating a seamless customer shopping experience.

You need to answer some key questions: what is your overall goal? Are you too focused on only gaining new customers? Does your strategy dedicate enough attention to retaining the customers you already have? Which team members will be the most effective for each area of the transition to a unified omnichannel strategy? Which systems need to be integrated, and which should you upgrade or retire?

The answers to these questions become your omnichannel marketing roadmap. Without an actionable plan, you have no way to communicate to your company and the teams involved about where to start, what the goal is for each stage, and what comes next. Your ultimate goal is to put the customer first, and the omnichannel roadmap is the key to reaching that destination.