Distinguishing Multichannel Marketing with Omnichannel Marketing

With new technology and the evolution of techniques in how we do marketing, multichannel marketing and omnichannel marketing are becoming commonplace.

 

Even when both focus on the use of multiple channels to reach consumers, omnichannel marketing and multichannel marketing are two distinct marketing strategies.

 

Difference Between Multichannel and Omnichannel Marketing

 

With the lines so blurred, it is difficult to distinguish between the two. Let us start with their definitions.

 

Multichannel Marketing

Multichannel marketing is the ability of the marketer to interact with customers on different platforms. It can be a website, print ad, a promotional event, or word-of-mouth.

 

Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing is the multichannel sales approach to provide customers with an integrated shopping experience. The experience is strived and kept to be seamless.

 

Approaches for multichannel marketing and omnichannel marketing are different. The omnichannel marketing puts the customer at the core to provide a unified experience at every touchpoint.

 

Here are the four key differences between the two:

 

1. Channel vs Customer

Multichannel marketing aims to get the word out via as many numbers of channels as possible to get most customer engagements. In omnichannel marketing, the approach is to inter-relate every channel to engage customers with the best to offer an enjoyable overall experience.

 

1. Consistency vs Engagement

Omnichannel focuses on the customer’s experience, and thus, it is consistent. The strategy is diligent in ensuring that the customers receive the same experience through each channel.

 

1. Effort vs Effortless

Omnichannel marketing makes efforts towards understanding how to discard effort from the user experience. Omnichannel uses data to understand the effort the user is putting and strives to remove it.

 

Conclusion

 

There are no drawbacks as such in either of the approaches. While omnichannel may come out as the best marketing approach, having and enabling multiple channels can be helpful when they are connected.

 

Multichannel marketing gives a tad superior performance as the channel likely stands alone, and touchpoints are single and measurable. While mostly all brands are pushing actively for omnichannel marketing, each interaction customer has with a brand can spot their exact stage in the customer journey.

 

Thus, omnichannel and multichannel marketing are both separate strategies that aim to reach consumers by taking help of multiple channels. Marketers must focus on making omnichannel efforts to increase customer retention and revenue.