Biz Tips: What’s the Difference between Multichannel and Omnichannel Marketing?
GROWTH:
What’s the Difference between Multichannel and Omnichannel Marketing?
In today’s digital world, the landscape is evolving at an impossibly fast pace. New concepts and new terms are emerging to talk about completely new ways to market and reach our customers.
There’s been some confusion in all of this as new ideas are thrown into the collective thought cloud we all share, especially concerning multichannel and omnichannel marketing.
What does it all mean? What’s the difference? Are they just buzzwords? And if not, how can they add value to my marketing strategy?
I’m going to help answer these questions in this article by comparing and contrasting multichannel and omnichannel marketing:
What is Omnichannel Marketing?
Omnichannel marketing is a strategy that provides the customer with a completely unified experience from the first touchpoint to the last.
What does omnichannel mean? This means that no matter what channel the customer uses to connect with a brand, that channel will provide a customized, relevant message to that customer. Each of these channels works side-by-side to update customer data as that customer moves through their purchase journey.
This creates a unified voice, message, and experience for your customer with your brand.
The consumer of 2019 is easily distracted and impatient. No judgment, I’m the exact same way. If a brand fails to hold my attention for longer than 3 seconds, I’m gone to the next thing in my endless list of things to think about.
Your customers are no different, and likely, neither are you.
Your channels are there to help you. If they communicate in between themselves and update with more relevant messaging as your customer reacts and engages with them, you’ll hold their attention for much longer.
Then, if that’s omnichannel marketing, what’s multichannel marketing?
What’s Different Between Multichannel and Omnichannel Marketing?
First, we need to understand exactly what multichannel marketing is to grasp how it’s different from omnichannel marketing.
Think of multichannel marketing as a large octopus. The head is the brand, and the tentacles reach out to several different channels to get a message out.
However, none of those tentacles communicate with others. The brand knows what each of them is doing, but one tentacle handling Facebook, for example, doesn’t know what another tentacle handling Google is up to.
In contrast with omnichannel marketing, which is more like an interlocking web. Each channel responds to the way that a customer engages with another, and the rest of them adapt accordingly.