Omnichannel Marketing: What Is It and How Does It Work?

8 Min Read

The digitization of marketing has forever changed the way that brands interact with consumers. In the traditional marketing ecosystem, advertisers had limited opportunities and capability to measure consumer responses to content and inform future campaigns; today, marketers can measure just about everything, from views and reach to clicks and conversions.

The digital marketing revolution has also paved the way for new approaches to marketing as a whole. If you want your brand to thrive today, you need to implement a robust omnichannel marketing strategy that engages and captivates audiences across multiple touch points at once.

What Is Omnichannel Marketing?

Omnichannel marketing is a strategy that integrates various marketing touchpoints into a holistic, cohesive customer journey. Its goal is to give consumers a consistent, high-quality ad experience across all channels, including social media, websites, ads on both traditional and Connected TV (CTV), and in-person interactions.

Omnichannel vs. Multichannel Marketing

What’s the difference between omnichannel marketing and multichannel marketing? At first glance, the two may look like they’re one and the same, but multichannel marketing simply refers to using more than one channel to build a brand and advertise to customers.

Virtually every brand uses a multichannel approach these days — comprising things like social media, TV, and paid search ads — but multichannel marketing lacks cohesion; each channel is siloed and managed differently, which can lead to inconsistencies in content quality and brand messaging. In multichannel marketing, many channels may be in use, but they may not be coordinated as parts of a greater whole strategy — if channels are trees, you may be missing the forest.

How Does Omnichannel Marketing Work?

In contrast to multichannel marketing, omnichannel marketing uses data and analytics to understand customer behavior and preferences across all channels. These insights allow brands to create targeted, consistent experiences that resonate with customers, no matter how they interact with them.

According to most estimates, it takes somewhere between five and eight interactions to drive a conversion. Omnichannel marketing acknowledges that fact and strives to ensure that each touchpoint builds on the next.

For instance, let’s say a customer discovers your brand through CTV advertising or OTT advertising, then turns to social media to learn more about your company, then heads to your website to make a purchase.

In this case, omnichannel marketing allows you to deliver a consistent and on-brand experience across each touchpoint. However, if your brand is not already making use of an omnichannel marketing strategy, there may be unnecessary friction or brand inconsistencies from channel to channel, which could reduce the chances of conversion.

Benefits of Omnichannel Marketing

According to Forbes, single-channel campaigns saw an engagement rate of 5.4% in 2019, while omnichannel campaigns generated an engagement rate of 18.96%. With that being said, an omnichannel marketing strategy will allow you to nurture a lead across multiple touchpoints and keep customers on the path to conversion.

Additionally, omnichannel marketing allows you to align your strategy with the preferences of customers more effectively. For instance, McKinsey reported that 60 to 70% of consumers research products and shop both online and in stores. An omnichannel approach allows consumers to seamlessly transition from channel to channel while immersing themselves in your brand.

Omnichannel Marketing Strategy: 7 Tips for Success

Now that you’re ready to create an omnichannel marketing strategy that engages consumers and gets you noticed, follow these seven practical tips to accelerate your efforts:

1. Master Personalization

At the heart of any omnichannel marketing strategy is personalization. It’s all about meeting consumers on their terms, presenting a compelling value proposition, and making it easy to learn about your products and services via their preferred channels. Tailor experiences and communications to individual customer preferences, and then watch the leads pile up. Purpose-built creative, for example, can help you speak to specific audience segments instead of throwing a general message against the wall and seeing if it sticks.

2. Implement Cross-Channel Consistency

Ensure your brand message and aesthetic are uniform across all channels. Not a single channel or piece of content should feel like an afterthought; each must exhibit consistent quality, tone, and brand voice. An ad you run on Instagram Stories, for example, should have the same look, feel, and personality as a commercial you run on Connected TV, even if they’re designed for different mediums.

3. Customer Journey Mapping

Understand and map out the various paths customers take to purchase. Identify your most important channels and prioritize them in your omnichannel marketing strategy; in addition, pinpoint any points of friction that may be causing prospects to leave the sales funnel or delay a purchase. The goal is to understand what stands in the way of improved conversions and higher revenue.

4. Data-Driven Decision Making

Omnichannel marketing requires a data-driven approach to inform strategies and decisions. Analyze the preferences of your target audience to identify which channels are most popular among key segments; once you know where your audience members gather and how they prefer to interact with your brand, you can allocate your resources accordingly. (If your brand is geared toward an older audience, for example, you might end up seeing better numbers on Facebook and Connected TV than you do on Snapchat and TikTok, which would tell you to scale back your Snapchat and TikTok ad spend and reallocate the difference to campaigns on those stronger channels.)

5. Seamless Integration

Remember, an omnichannel marketing strategy needs to be holistic; to achieve a unified marketing presence, you’ll need to think about all of your channels and platforms as parts of a whole. Each channel should contribute and feed traffic into the next, with the ultimate goal being to drive a conversion.

6. Integrate Automation

Omnichannel marketing campaigns are incredibly complex and can, therefore, quickly become unmanageable, especially if you rely solely on manual processes. Take advantage of automation tools whenever possible; automating things like reporting, campaign optimization, and ad spend management will help you focus on the more dynamic aspects of omnichannel marketing, like content creation.

7. Test, Measure, and Optimize

Omnichannel marketing isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor; you must continuously test new content, measure your results, and optimize campaigns to achieve your brand-building goals. If a piece of content is underperforming, fix or get rid of it; if a specific channel is driving exceptional results, allocate additional resources to that medium.

Omnichannel Marketing Examples

Below are a few real-world examples of brands that have mastered the art of omnichannel marketing:

Amazon

Amazon uses its online platform, mobile app, and Alexa-integrated devices to create seamless shopping experiences. Most importantly, though, is that consumer actions carry over from one channel to the next. If a user asks Alexa to add an item to their shopping cart, the product will be visible the next time they open the Amazon app or log onto the Amazon desktop site.

Starbucks

Starbucks integrates its mobile app with in-store experiences, offering mobile orders, payments, and rewards. The gamification aspect of Starbucks’ model is particularly useful, as it incentivizes consumers to spend more to rack up points.

Nike

Nike excels at blending in-person and digital experiences. Consumers can connect with the brand online or via its mobile app, then head into their local retail store to browse products or complete their purchases.

Omnichannel Attribution, Explained

When you adopt an omnichannel marketing strategy, you’ll need to revamp your attribution model, or create a custom attribution model, so you can pinpoint where your conversions are coming from. There are several different attribution models you can leverage, which include the following:

• First-touch Attribution: the first touchpoint receives 100% credit for the conversion.
• Last-touch Attribution: the last channel a consumer interacts with is credited with the sale.
• Multi-touch Attribution: credit is divided among all channels.

Whereas first- and last-touch attribution models are total inverses of one another, a multi-touch attribution model sees all interactions as important and divides the credit for conversion among every channel.

For instance, if a customer interacted with your brand on five different channels before a purchase, each channel would receive a certain percentage of the credit, totaling up to 100%.

Trends in Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing isn’t exactly a new concept, but it is still evolving. That said, three trends are currently reshaping the omnichannel marketing landscape:

Increased Use of AI and Machine Learning

Today’s consumers crave personalization, and in response, brands are making use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies to deliver more personalized experiences to consumers. As such, by adopting an AI-powered omnichannel marketing solution, you can deliver the level of customization that consumers want.

The Rise of Voice and Visual Searches

Apple’s Siri is a prime example of voice search in action, but it is by no means the only name in the game; numerous devices support voice searching, allowing consumers to effortlessly learn more about products, add items to their shopping carts, and make purchases.

Focus on Mobile-First Strategies

According to Statista, 58.67% of global internet traffic originated from mobile devices in 2023. With mobile usage continuing to grow, brands are adopting mobile-first strategies so that they can meet consumers on their terms.

Every Omnichannel Strategy Needs Performance TV

No omnichannel marketing strategy can be truly complete without Performance TV, because it creates a halo effect that supports social and paid search, too. When you add CTV to your marketing mix, other performance marketing channels will experience a notable improvement.

For instance, we found that our customers enjoyed a conversion rate increase of 8.52% on paid social and 22.27% on paid search 90 days after adding CTV to their marketing strategy.

Omnichannel Marketing: Final Thoughts

Adopting an omnichannel marketing strategy is no longer optional. If you want to nurture leads, connect with consumers, and drive conversions with consistency, you must provide audiences with a holistic, multi-touchpoint experience. When you’re ready to make your brand-building strategy omnichannel, MNTN will be here to help.

Our CTV platform provides the insights, control, and customization necessary to engage and captivate consumers, and our cutting-edge technologies, such as Verified Visits™, audience targeting, automated optimization, and reporting functionalities, will bring your omnichannel vision to life. Book a demo today to learn more.