Omnichannel vs. multichannel marketing: Which is better for your business?

When it comes to marketing lingo, you’ve likely heard the terms “omnichannel” and “multichannel” used at one point or another, perhaps even interchangeably.

Both of these terms are very similar in what they define, emphasizing customer engagement through multiple marketing channels to increase conversion rates, get more sales, and grow your business.

While these terms may sound similar, it’s essential to understand that their definitions are not truly the same – there is a distinct difference between omnichannel and multichannel, as well as the technologies and strategies required to implement them.

We’re going to discuss the importance of implementing either a multichannel or omnichannel marketing strategy into your business and explore the factors that must be considered when choosing which strategy to pursue.

What does multichannel mean?

Multichannel marketing is defined as a business strategy that involves blending the customer experience of a specific brand across multiple channels, allowing customers to choose which channel they’d like to engage with.

An example of multichannel marketing would be a business that sells through its website e-commerce store while simultaneously allowing customers to buy its products on Amazon, Facebook, or Pinterest “buyable pins.” Each channel is different from the others, and each has a distinct customer experience.

What does omnichannel mean?

Omnichannel marketing is defined as a business strategy where customers have a seamless experience between multiple channels, no matter which channel they choose to engage in. Customers will see uniform branding and messaging, whether they interact through their desktop computer, in person, or on their mobile device.

An omnichannel strategy removes all boundaries between different marketing and sales channels, creating an integrated, unified strategy that feels like a complete whole.

How are multichannel and omnichannel marketing different?

Multichannel marketing blends a customer’s experience across multiple different channels, but each individual channel is not necessarily connected or integrated with the others. A multichannel approach could include distinct and separate email campaigns, billboards, display ads, TV ads, print media, and social media posts.

On the other hand, Omnichannel marketing is an evolved version of a multichannel strategy where the customer experience is unified with a singular, coherent message or concept across every single channel. When a customer sees marketing material for an omnichannel brand, they can seamlessly jump between any media type or channel without experiencing any disconnects or “breaks” in their buying journey.

For many brands and enterprise e-commerce businesses today, an omnichannel strategy should be the ultimate end goal. In short, taking the jump from multichannel to omnichannel requires implementing the technologies and systems required to create a unified brand image and navigation experience that customers can appreciate.

Essentials of an omnichannel marketing strategy

If a business seeks to implement an effective omnichannel marketing strategy, it must first ensure that the appropriate technologies and systems are in place to support a seamless unification across multiple distinct channels.

This section will explore how data collection, data integration, analytics, audience segmentation, customer journey mapping, design and delivery, and testing and optimization all contribute to the implementation of omnichannel marketing.

Data collection

Accurate customer tracking and data collection are at the heart of every successful omnichannel marketing strategy. In order to create a unified experience for customers across multiple channels, you must have the ability to identify each customer on these unique channels and then serve them content, advertisements, messages, or other information that is the same across every channel they may visit or use to come in contact with your brand.

An excellent example of data collection technology requirements would be when a customer is transitioning from your website to your email list to a search engine where you serve them ads related to the specific products or services they browsed on your primary website at an earlier time or date. Depending on the platform or marketing channel in question, you’ll likely be required to retrieve or send first-party data in order to track your customers across multiple channels.

Keeping an eye on customers and serving them a unified experience builds trust in your brand and allows you to understand your loyal buyers more than they understand themselves.

Data integration

A successful omnichannel strategy requires you to keep a close eye on your customers, prospects, and loyal buyers, knowing exactly when customer behaviors shift and making decisions based on hard facts and data rather than “hunches” or “conjectures.”

To achieve this reliably, your business needs access to all of your data on demand for analysis, analytics, and smarter decision-making. If you can see what’s happening with your customers and identify trends earlier than the competition, you’ll be well-positioned to take the lead in your marketplace or industry.

Using a customer data platform (CDP) is a surefire way to organize all of your customer data across multiple platforms and keep track of the customer behaviors that matter most to your bottom line.

Analytics

While real-time data integration is essential for maintaining a close eye on customer behaviors and ensuring your strategy is working as intended, data analytics can give your company the extra “boost” it needs to understand your customers at a deeper level.

Data can provide actionable insights about your customers and show you exactly what is in demand right now. By jumping on new customer trends or experimenting with specific features that users seem more attracted to, you’ll gradually be building your company into something your loyal customers love and cherish. Getting direct customer feedback through analyzed data is a great way to understand the pain points of your customers and build the solutions they desperately need to move forward.

Audience segmentation

Offering relevant content to your customers is absolutely essential if you want to maintain a strong, positive relationship with your most loyal advocates. These days, anything that’s not deemed perfectly relevant is quickly relegated to “spam.”

Audience segmentation helps you avoid this problem by mapping users into “segments” or “buckets” that are based on their past interests, interactions, or purchasing habits. If a particular user likes to purchase lawn care products, for example, they can be added to the “landscaping” segment and sent relevant information about this topic in the future.

The most efficient way to build a highly targeted audience is by segmenting your users and sending them the content they crave and yearn to hear about every single day.

Customer journey mapping

Understanding your customers better than they understand themselves is the key to building a long-term successful business that can thrive in any environment. Fortunately, the audience insights and real-time data available to us today allow us to accurately map the customer journey and refine our strategies as we go along.

When we see how our customers behave when involved in the buying process, we can see what objections they have, where they get stuck, the features they choose the most, and much more. All of this information can be used to learn more about our ideal customers and then use this information to map a customer journey that’s based on reality rather than conjecture.

Audience insights can be used to create an incredibly accurate customer journey map, letting you understand your customers in greater detail and ensure that you’re giving them exactly what they’re looking for.

Design and delivery

The design and delivery of your content and messaging online are one of the first things your prospects or potential customers will see when interacting with your brand. In order to be successful in the omnichannel marketing world, you have to ensure that your design and delivery are on point and as relevant to your audience as possible.

Using marketing tools such as Lytics, your business can personalize your website experience in hours and treat every single one of your visitors like a VIP. By including targeted content, you’ll increase site engagement and make it much easier for prospects to trust you.

Testing and optimization

No omnichannel is ever truly complete, especially when there are a seemingly infinite number of variables that can be tested and compared with one another. Testing and continuous optimization are needed in any omnichannel strategy that wants to stick around long-term.

If you’re constantly testing different variables, making optimizations based on your discoveries, and making improvements to your products or services based on real customer and testing feedback, you’re likely well on your way to becoming an industry leader – even if you don’t know it yet.

Is multichannel or omnichannel better for your business?

When discussing multichannel vs. omnichannel, it’s important to remember that omnichannel is a scaled-up, seamless version of multichannel marketing. Even though both terms rely on the same principles of customer experience, omnichannel marketing is the ideal solution for businesses and enterprises who want to scale up and massively increase customer engagement across multiple unique channels.

In short, multichannel marketing can be the perfect solution if you’re a small business that runs a small, manageable operation. If all you need is the ability to reach your customers across different channels without seamless unification, a multichannel approach should be considered.

For enterprise e-commerce businesses and larger operations, striving for omnichannel competency should be the primary goal, especially if you want to maintain a consistent brand image and reputation no matter which platform your customer is on.