Omni-Channel vs Multi-channel Marketing – What’s the Difference?
Multi-channel and omnichannel marketing is generally quite similar concepts, and on the surface, they seem to imply the same thing: marketing to consumers through a variety of channels. In fact, multi-channel and omnichannel marketing is quite different in terms of their overall focus and how they address business problems.
Multi-channel marketing can be described as the implementation of a variety of marketing channels for marketing a single product. While a single-channel strategy might focus only on retail stores, or only on social media advertisement, a multi-channel strategy blends a variety of distribution and promotional channels into the overall marketing plan.
The goal of multi-channel marketing is to facilitate consumer choice. Marketing to consumers through multiple channels aims to facilitate transactions wherever it is most convenient for the customer, be it in a retail store, by ordering a product online, or through a mail-order catalog. On the promotional side, a multi-channel marketing strategy could include social media, pay-per-click advertising, and SEO as channels for marketing to prospects.
Omni-channel marketing takes the multi-channel marketing approach a step further. Omni-channel represents an effort to provide a seamless and integrated customer experience across channels. Omni-channel marketers leverage user behavior tracking to monitor customer interactions with each marketing touchpoint and provide content and resources that move the prospect towards completing a transaction.
The goal here is not to allow customers a choice between channels, but to provide a seamless experience as the customer moves between channels.
In a sense, omnichannel marketing is a modernized approach to multi-channel marketing that is optimized for the behavior of today’s consumers.
