By Guest Contributor Marilia Dimitriou
In the competitive world of eCommerce, businesses have strived to increase their brand awareness, lead generation, and conversions. To do that, brands have used both omnichannel and multichannel marketing tactics to bring more customers on board. Omnichannel and multichannel marketing, though, are two terms that people often confuse. While they sound alike, omnichannel and multichannel marketing have very different objectives.
To find out which strategy suits your business, you first need to know each strategy’s unique approach. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the key difference between these two strategies and what’s best for you.
What is Omnichannel Marketing?
As an approach, omnichannel marketing puts your customer at the centre of your business. According to the definition, omnichannel marketing is all about creating a seamless experience across multiple channels. To have an omnichannel strategy in place, you need to integrate your digital channels and unify your teams. Keep in mind that omnichannel marketing is all about targeting your customers during their nonlinear journey through various channels like your website, mobile, and social media.
To give you an idea of how omnichannel works, let’s see an example from Starbucks. The brand has turned its rewards app into a powerful tool that allows customers to reload their cards through mobile, desktop, or in-store. What distinguishes the app, though, is the real-time update occurring simultaneously across every channel. Starbucks’ rewards app is a great example of how an integrated omnichannel strategy can provide excellent customer experiences and save customers from an embarrassing moment.
Key Difference Between Omnichannel and Multichannel
Compared to omnichannel, multichannel marketing is a more straightforward approach where a brand is present on multiple channels. However, while omnichannel focused on an integrated strategy, every channel in multichannel marketing is separate from the other. As you can see in the depiction below, each channel has its own approach, targeting the customer from very different points.
Customers can interact with any channel they like, both direct and indirect, to get a step closer to conversion.
For instance, you can create an email campaign to target your subscribers and increase your lead generation.
If you still haven’t picked an email marketing platform, you can always choose from the available free email marketing services out there and set your email strategy in motion.
Email is one of the most important channels you’ll need to target your customers when you run a multi-channel strategy along with social media platforms and web push notifications.
Omnichannel or Multichannel Marketing?
Choosing the right strategy for your business is crucial to meet your goals faster. Multichannel and omnichannel marketing can help you attract your customers’ attention by leveraging a plethora of channels. However, while you can leverage both, choosing a strategy that focuses on the customer rather than your business will help you promote customer retention and advocacy. Creating an effective omnichannel strategy that will make your customer the centre of your business will give you more loyal customers.
Keep in mind that creating an omnichannel strategy requires time and effort, so if this is your first time implementing it, you should consider starting with multichannel first and then slowly adopt an omnichannel approach.
How Omnichannel Benefits Your Business
- Better Customer Relationships
Omnichannel marketing will give you the opportunity to target your customer better through customer data analysis. Understanding customer behavior will assist your segmentation efforts and increase your personalization. With omnichannel, you can also leverage data to create tailored campaigns with relevant products instead of promoting items they’ve already purchased. Showing them the right message at the right time will create solid bonds with your audience that will lead to more conversions and happy customers.
- Increased Efficiency and Productivity
Omnichannel is all about the successful synergy between your departments. The flow of data between your sales, marketing, and customer support teams will allow them to target customers better and increase their productivity. What’s more, by setting common goals, you’ll promote teamwork, exchange valuable information, and work together to keep your company thriving. To get started, you need to break down the organizational silo first. By doing so, you’ll unify your teams’ efforts and deliver better experiences to your customers.
- Improved Brand Awareness
Delivering a unified message across multiple channels will help your brand improve its visibility. A seamless experience offered by an omnichannel marketing strategy will give your customer the same experience regardless of channel or device. Consequently, you’ll manage to get one step closer to acquiring customer loyalty and higher conversion rates. For instance, if your customer has recently bought a new hat, you can create cross-selling social ads to boost your lead generation on social media and excite them with additional products.
- Better Customer Service
Apart from collecting valuable data and personalizing your content, omnichannel marketing will pave the road for better customer service. According to statistics, 90% of consumers expect a unified experience across all platforms. However, brands don’t always deliver it to them. Now, imagine a customer contacting your brand through live chat and then through Facebook.
If your Facebook representative isn’t aware of your customer’s problem the second time they seek assistance, your customer might feel annoyed. Knowing your customers’ problems regardless of the channel will help you provide them with great customer service. This way, you’ll earn their trust and turn them into loyal supporters of your business.
Takeaway
Embracing the omnichannel approach might be time-consuming and will require you to make changes in your organizational structure. Nevertheless, by implementing an omnichannel strategy and putting your customer at the heart of your business will allow you to target them better. Knowing what omnichannel entails is crucial to change the business-centric multichannel approach and have customers who will support you throughout their journey.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marilia Dimitriou is a Creative Writer working for email marketing automation software Moosend. Her passion for writing has made her find new ways to combine the art of Creative Writing with SEO Copywriting. When she’s not writing articles, you’ll find her enthusing over marketing tech and automation.
Web: https://moosend.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marilia-dimitriou-gr
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