What is Omnichannel Marketing?
Omnichannel marketing is a multichannel approach that allows companies to advertise across all channels and devices, providing a seamless consumer experience.
In a world where customers search across multiple devices, such as mobile, desktop and Connected TV (CTV), omnichannel marketing is a way to reach consumers on each device and market accordingly. For example, a consumer may see a display ad on mobile, and then receive a more in-depth ad on their desktop, where they can more easily research the product for further information.
Omnichannel vs Multichannel Marketing
Omnichannel vs multichannel marketing are closely related terms, but they shouldn’t be used interchangeably. In the simplest terms, multichannel marketing is more siloed than omnichannel marketing. It uses a variety of marketing channels to engage customers, like out-of-home advertising and CTV ads, but each experience is singular. One channel does not integrate or depend on the other, and that is the difference between omnichannel and multichannel marketing.
An omnichannel approach to marketing creates a unified experience for the customer. All marketing channels, across all stages of the funnel, work together in a thoughtful and strategic way. For example, if a company sends a direct mail ad, the messages each person gets is informed by prior engagements and purchases. A more simple example is showing a user a retargeting ad, rather than a generic brand ad.
Benefits of Omnichannel Marketing
Customers’ expectations of their favorite brands continues to increase, and as a result, companies are starting to see the benefits of omnichannel marketing, both at the campaign level, and in overall business results.
Some of the most important advantages to omnichannel marketing include:
- Better customer experience. Customers engage with brands across a growing number of screens, locations, and voices. When those different touchpoints are ignored by sales reps or marketing tactics, customers feel unimportant and start to look for other options. Omnichannel marketing ensures that each customer relationship is deepened with every engagement.
- Consistent and accurate brand recognition. In a crowded market, companies must find a way to stand out and be remembered. Omnichannel marketing strategies ensure that the same messages are pulled across all marketing tactics at every stage of the funnel—a crucial element to increasing brand awareness and driving real business results.
- More relevant reporting. Omnichannel marketing makes attribution and performance reporting much easier and more comprehensive. Instead of looking at disparate numbers and trying to fill in knowledge gaps, omnichannel marketing makes it easy to build insightful, actionable reports.
- Increased real business results. All these benefits of omnichannel marketing, ultimately, lead to increases in the real business results companies need, like in-store visits, conversions, and purchases. Read our complete guide to Return on Ad Spend to learn more about ROAS meaning, how to calculate ROAS & the ROAS definition in marketing.
How To Build an Omnichannel Marketing Campaign
An omnichannel marketing strategy requires thorough planning and constant updating, but there are a few steps that any marketer can use to get started. Here are the steps:
- Determine the channels you will use. Figure out where your audience is, the devices and channels that they interact with your brand, and how you will leverage each to build your omnichannel marketing strategy.
- Build your customer personas. Omnichannel marketing strategies are built on personalization and context. That starts with identifying your target personas and building out their unique customer experiences.
- Map customer journey and touchpoints. As you map each touchpoint across all channels, ensure that you’re clearly defining audience segments. Targeting and audience data are the key to successful omnichannel marketing campaigns.
- Measure and prioritize. The last step is to launch your campaigns, measure performance, and continue to prioritize what works best for your company’s goals and your customers’ experience.
Omnichannel Marketing and GroundTruth
GroundTruth helps marketers and advertisers implement their omnichannel marketing campaigns with first-party, cookieless data that uses real-world behavior rather than interests and online browsing. As a media platform, we support all channels, including mobile, DOOH, direct mail, CTV, and more.
Omnichannel marketing gives a brand flexibility to provide the correct messaging on the correct channel.