If you’re looking to take your business to the next level with a slick marketing strategy across a number of platforms, you may well have heard discussions around choosing between an omnichannel and multichannel approach.
Both require different levels of spending and planning on your part but can be utilized to attract new eyes to your products and services, as well as convert interested parties into paying customers.
Here we look at how each approach works and which one can be used to effectively get your businesses in front of more people.
The Differences between Omnichannel and Multichannel Marketing
Before we delve into how each approach works, it makes sense to fully understand what each term means.
Multichannel Marketing
If you hold a presence across multiple channels – social media, email, web store – you can utilize each one as a marketing tool to sell your products and services to prospective customers.
In a multichannel approach, each of these outlets operates independently of the others. For example, if a customer is targeted by an email ad, they may then have the same offer served to them on their social media feed.
Studies suggest that modern consumers expect consistency across as many as 20 channels from brands, so if you can crack a multichannel approach, it could well lead to big business wins.
Omnichannel Marketing
An omnichannel approach does not mean favoring one platform over all others.
Instead, each potential customer is treated as an individual with the actions they take then influencing the next steps of your marketing campaign.
This may be a personalized email offer, which is followed up by Facebook ads that hit the interests they have listed on the platform.
For each action, a pre-set reaction is programmed in order to try and convert as many potential customers as possible using a fully integrated and seamless approach from channel to channel.
Why omnichannel marketing is a better option?
It’s clear that personalized approaches are the future of marketing. More and more consumers in lower age brackets align themselves to brands that share their personal values or can demonstrate a commitment to offering something of tangible benefit – not just the latest product off the manufacturing line.
This is what plays into the hands of the omnichannel approach, with users being guided through a series of messages that speak directly to them as an individual and not as part of a crowded space.
This can be achieved online by using customer data to harness a personalized experience; developing an eCommerce site that not only shows the products on sale but one that offers a personalized shopping experience. Using the expertise of an eCommerce agency will enable your business to keep ahead of the competition whilst providing an enhanced personalized user experience.
Combined with exceptional service from customer support, both online and in a brick-and-mortar location, the benefits of an omnichannel approach can be huge.
When a multichannel approach is best
Although the futureproofing benefits of an omnichannel strategy are abundantly clear, that is not to completely discount the advantages of multichannel schemes.
Multichannel approaches are easier to track, as each channel is in its own silo, interacting with customers in its own way.
If you don’t have the budget to bring external help onboard, it may be wise to develop your style with a multichannel approach yourself.
They are still highly effecting frameworks for attracting new customers to your business and that uptick in revenue could even be put towards trialing an omnichannel approach in the future.
