Omnichannel vs Multichannel: Which Is The Right Marketing Automation Strategy for Superior Customer Retention?

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Brands often find themselves torn between committing to an omnichannel marketing strategy or a multichannel one. 

However, as far as the marketing automation and customer retention strategies are concerned, the choice is not too hard.  

This blog will learn about the differences between omnichannel and multichannel marketing, the pros of each, and which one is best suited for marketing automation and superior customer retention. 

Let us get going!

What is Omnichannel Personalization?

Omnichannel personalization is simply a data-driven marketing effort. It provides a personalized experience to your customers via a given channel based on the data collected from the users’ behavior on other channels. Thus, e-retail brands can collect user data from anywhere and leverage it to provide a personalized experience to their customers via different touchpoints.  

Capturing, engaging, and delivering a consistent customer experience across all the channels is crucial for e-commerce brands. Omnichannel personalization solves this. 

Here are some examples of omnichannel personalization by e-commerce brands for a better understanding.

  1. A customer visits an online clothes store and expresses interest in a pair of jeans. The customer, however, leaves the website without purchasing that item. The brand then retargets the same customer via Facebook with a discount offer. The customer makes the purchase.
  2. An online sports equipment retail brand might integrate its mobile app with a fitness tracker to enable its users to monitor their activity. They then use this data to drive product recommendations – on the website and in-store.
  3. An online shoe retail brand might collect customer data from in-store & online purchases. They can then create a loyalty program based on the data and leverage their CRM to drive more sales.

Difference Between Omnichannel Marketing & Multichannel Marketing

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A lot of people confuse multi-channel marketing with omnichannel marketing. However, these two are different from each other. 

Multi-channel marketing is business-centric. Multi-channel marketing is simply about how an e-commerce brand interacts and engages customers via different channels – and each channel is independent of the other. E.g., a customer might give their information to the company via SMS. But, when they interact with another touchpoint of the brand, say a social messenger, they will have to provide their information again for that channel. 

Omnichannel marketing is customer-centric. It brings all the customer touchpoints together. With it, each interaction is communicated and coordinated across all the channels. So, a consumer could be shopping for an item in the store one minute and making the purchase off an email alert announcing a sale based on browsing history.

“Thus, an omnichannel marketing strategy covers multi-channel marketing, but multi-channel marketing does not necessarily imply omnichannel marketing.”  

Why is Omnichannel Personalization a Go-to Strategy for E-commerce Brands?

A Mckinsey report states that e-commerce brands can achieve a 5 to 15 percent revenue increase with omnichannel personalization at scale. This is not just true for their customers’ online journeys but also for store walk-ins. Needless to say, omnichannel marketing is crucial for digital retail brands because of the following reasons;

Consistent & Seamless Personalization Experience

A brand that deploys omnichannel personalization at scale enjoys one benefit more than its rivals. Everyone in the company knows about all the customers’ interactions and the breadcrumb trail of their activities and actions. This gives the brands an edge to serve their customers one-on-one contextually.

Building a Long-term Customer Base for the Brand (Enhanced Customer Lifetime Value)

The success of e-commerce brands ultimately boils down to the size of their loyal customer base. Without personalization at disposal and a unified communication strategy, turning first-time buyers into loyal customers becomes a tedious task. However, omnichannel personalization is known to show a 90 percent higher customer retention rate than single channels. 

Thus, an omnichannel strategy can be a core asset for the long-term business viability of your brand. 

Benefits of Omnichannel Personalized Marketing for Digital Retail Brands

Higher Average Order Value

A unified personalization strategy at scale allows e-retail brands to amplify their customers’ shopping cart activity. As a result, such brands can always put their customers back on the purchase journey (without worrying about new acquisitions too much!) and increase average order value with targeted offers, intelligent product recommendations, and merchandising. 

One-on-one Customer Engagement

Almost 70 percent of online smartphone users are likely to buy from a brand that helps them easily find answers to their questions. With a website and mobile experience sync, e-commerce brands can leverage one-on-one customer experience to resolve queries faster, enhance customer experience, loyalty and purchases. 

Higher Conversions and ROI

It is an observed trend that personalization at scale can yield a 5x to 8x ROI on a brand’s marketing spend. With dynamic content based on customer behavior, clickstream data, context, product recommendations, and exclusive personalized offers, digital retail brands can significantly boost their overall conversion rates. 

Marketing Automation for Superior Customer Retention: Omnichannel or Multichannel?

Marketing Automation workflows can be applied to either multichannel or omnichannel marketing strategies. However, there are a few rudimentary differences that arise. 

First, any multichannel marketing strategy can use automation workflows – but with obvious limits. For instance, being powered by siloed customer data, multichannel marketing can be automated for email engagement when customers visit their site. But, it cannot leverage robust RFM analysis and customer behavioral analytics that are possible only with data collation, which omnichannel marketing leverages very well. 

Second, multichannel marketing is not scalable concerning Customer Experience. You can increase subscribers and compensate for churn rates via different channels but cannot deploy a unified marketing strategy. This is where omnichannel marketing automation comes in to support your unified strategy that can be scaled as you grow. 

The Verdict

Omnichannel marketing, obviously, stands out in terms of value for marketing automation. 

It considers all the customer data from different channels, support brand consistency, and is scalable vis-a-vis customer experience. 

Wigzo can help you take off your omnichannel e-commerce strategy by bolstering your customer list, customer data and deploying end-to-end channel automation – no matter where your customers are. 

Take Wigzo for a free spin today!

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Kaberi Gogoi

Kaberi Gogoi

Kaberi is currently working with Wigzo and has a 6+ years of expertise in devising result-focused digital strategies and campaigns. During her leisure time, she enjoys shopping for plants and pottery. Linkedin

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