Omnichannel vs Multichannel Marketing: A Comprehensive Comparison

The omnichannel approach in marketing has become quite popular over the course of the past 5 years. The early adopters have demonstrated great results, and now, many businesses want to test the new strategies. Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to differentiating omnichannel vs multichannel marketing.

This guide will help you understand the differences between the two approaches and provide the answers to the following questions:

• What is multichannel marketing?
• What are the key features and benefits of multichannel marketing?
• What is omnichannel marketing?
• What are the key features and benefits of omnichannel marketing?
• What is the difference between omnichannel and multichannel marketing?
• What are some examples of multichannel and omnichannel marketing?

What is Multichannel Marketing?

To understand the multichannel marketing definition, we need to understand the current state of the buyer's journey.

With the development of IT and the Internet, businesses have acquired an increasing number of channels to connect with their potential and existing customers. It might seem that the increase in communication channels would endorse engagement and conversions and make it easier for companies to sell products.

In reality, the number of touchpoints necessary to complete a sale has increased over the past decade. The most cited number is 8 However, many sales experts emphasize that it depends on many factors such as industry, sales cycle length, product complexity, etc. In certain cases, they need anywhere between 20 to 50 touchpoints to close the deal.

Furthermore, buyer journeys have become more complex, with people easily hopping from social media to online search to telephone calls. According to the 2023 Salesforce Research, 71% of customers prefer interacting with vendors on various channels, depending on the circumstances. 

On top of that, they expect to seamlessly switch between different touchpoints. This is true for both B2C and B2B customers.

Summing up, a business that wants to engage and convert leads is forced to increase the number of communication channels with potential customers. In other words, they need multichannel marketing.

Key Features 

There are several features that define multichannel marketing:

1. Use of multiple channels

Rather than having just a website or just social media, business creates touchpoints across multiple marketing channels that include:

• Website
• SEO
• PPC
• Offline ads
• Email marketing
• Cold outreach
• Social media 
• Local SEO & Google Business Profile
• Webinars
• Offline events
• Industry-specific channels, e.g., e-detailing.

The choice of your channels heavily depends on your target audience, industry, and business model. For example, B2B businesses rarely create social media accounts outside LinkedIn. At the same time, cold calling is almost obsolete in B2C.

If you’re new to multichannel, you might need to test different channels to understand what works for you and what doesn’t.

2. Each channel has its own strategy

Companies create individual strategies for each channel. In some cases, these strategies are planned and implemented by different teams with minimal communication between them. Since each channel performs individually, its performance is tracked separately.

3. Repeated messaging

The marketing team keeps a close look to ensure brand consistency across all the channels, which often translates into similar messages that a potential customer reads over and over on various touchpoints. The messaging most often revolves around the brand, product/service, and benefits for the potential customer. However, it remains depersonalized.

Benefits of Multichannel

Multichannel marketing can bring a lot of advantages to the business, including:

1. Audience Reach

More channels mean that your brand can reach more potential clients.

2. Engagement

Since you target people on their preferred channels, they are more open to engagement with your brand.

3. Retargeting

Multichannel enables you to retarget your potential customers later via different channels to test if it works better for them.

4. Customer data

The more channels you have, the more customer data you can gather.

5. Brand awareness

Expanding your online presence to multiple channels gives you an opportunity to increase impressions and brand awareness.

6. Conversions

Greater reach and engagement translate into higher conversion rates and, ultimately, larger revenues.

Challenges Associated With Multichannel Marketing

Multichannel marketing is a great approach, however, it has its own challenges:

1. Customer experience

As a single buyer goes from one channel to another, their customer experience is disrupted. More often than not, they will see messaging that is not consistent with their buyer journey stage. For example, a potential customer has received an email and wants to know more about the product. They go to the website and see similar information on the landing page. Not finding the necessary insights, they either have to manually search for it or bounce back.

2. Tracking, Analytics & Decision Making

In multichannel, it’s really hard to track a single customer journey, which makes it hard to understand which channel works best. This is especially critical for B2B companies with longer sales cycles and complex products and services. A single buyer can interact with a business multiple times on various platforms before they convert. Marketing will usually attribute the lead to the channel where they converted, “blind” to previous touchpoints.

3. Lack of personalisation

According to the same Salesforce research we cited at the beginning of this section, 78% of B2B customers expect that the vendor immediately adapts to their needs and preferences. Multichannel struggles to provide the necessary level of personalization since the lead is often “lost” as they transition between channels.

What is Omnichannel Marketing?

To understand the definition of omnichannel marketing, you need to understand the challenges of the multichannel approach that we discussed in the previous section of this guide. These are disrupted buyer journeys, a lack of personalization, repeated messaging, and an inability to track and attribute leads correctly.

For a long period of time, marketers were looking for ways to efficiently address these challenges. The solution was simple: create a holistic buyer journey across multiple channels, i.e., omnichannel marketing.

Key Features

To better understand omnichannel marketing, let’s take a closer look at the key features of this approach.

1. One integral strategy

The marketing team creates a strategy that encompasses all the chosen channels. They can add more channels as the company and its offering progress, and new technologies and capabilities emerge.

2. Buyer journey

The omnichannel approach requires the transformation of the buyer's journey into a consistent series of touchpoints. The content isn’t duplicated across all channels. Instead, each new message adds more information and value to the user. Think about it as a learning journey, where each channel performs in unison with others.

3. Personalization

The customer is at the center of the omnichannel marketing strategy. That’s why highly personalized messaging and experience are the keys to success. Instead of delivering generic information, each communication caters to the unique needs and expectations of the customer.

4. Tracking & Analytics

Since channels work together in a single system, each buyer's journey is tracked and analysed. As a result, the company gets high-quality data about its customers and their unique needs. Customer insights help boost personalisation even more, as well as make data-driven marketing decisions, improving your omnichannel strategy.

5. Technology

Unified channel performance, personalization, and tracking require specific technologies. You’ll need a solution that either has the necessary functionality to control your marketing channels or has integrations with your MarTech stack. You’ll also need a tool that will be able to analyze large volumes of data and provide customer insights. You may learn more about digital maturity from our Webinar with our Marketing Expert, Laura Kennedy

Benefits of OmniChannel 

Omnichannel benefits are similar to multichannel marketing:

• Greater audience reach
• Enhanced engagement
• Easier retargeting
• Increased brand awareness
• Bigger conversions
• Better customer data & insights

Apart from that, it provides a better customer experience via personalization and better tracking capabilities.

Challenges and Complexities of Omnichannel Marketing

While omnichannel marketing seems to be an advanced version of multichannel marketing, it also has its unique challenges.

Budget

Omnichannel marketing relies on expensive technologies. Not all companies are ready to make significant investments, especially if they aren’t sure they will achieve the desired results.

Expertise

Headhunting and hiring might take a while and contribute to the significant expenses. The approach is relatively new, and there aren’t many talents out there who have experience in creating and implementing omnichannel approaches.

Workload

Even a single-channel strategy requires a lot of fine-tuning to make it work. Now, you have several channels that should work in unison and deliver a seamless experience for potential buyers. That’s a lot of work to make it work.

Team readiness

Transitioning to a channel requires a cultural shift within a marketing team. Not all people are ready for the change in their mindset and work processes. Some marketers can be surprisingly rigid in their views on how things should be done.

Key Differences Between Omnichannel and Multichannel Marketing

This section is a summary of the key differences between multichannel and omnichannel.

1. Buyer journey progression

The primary difference between multichannel and omnichannel is how your potential customer transitions between channels and stages of their buyer journey. 

Omnichannel carefully guides the buyer and shapes their journey with carefully orchestrated messaging and interlinking. For example, a potential buyer sees the banner ad on LinkedIn, clicks on it, and goes to the landing page that provides insight on the topic. On the same page, they see a link to gated content, which they download, and in a couple of days, they receive an invite to a webinar in their email. 

In Multichannel, buyer journey progression is less controlled and more chaotic. Buyer transitions between channels sporadically, often staying at the same stage of the buyer journey for a long period of time.

2. Personalisation

Omnichannel strategy delivers more personalized messaging due to better сabilities to track buyers’ behaviour, as well as learn their preferences and needs. In a multichannel approach, a buyer usually reads similar messages that don't necessarily meet their needs.

3. Data

In omnichannel, data is consolidated, and buyer behaviour is analyzed across all channels as a single event. In multichannel, the interaction of the buyer on different channels is analyzed as different events. The data lacks integrity and depth.

When to Choose Multichannel vs Omnichannel Marketing

In our meetings with our clients, we see many companies that struggle when it comes to the choice: omni vs multichannel. Indeed, without experience in building marketing strategies in both approaches, it might be hard to understand what is the perfect fit for your company.

Some omnichannel evangelists emphasize that their approach is always the best choice for your business. However, that’s not always the case. Businesses can really struggle if they decide to introduce the approach in their marketing strategy when they aren’t ready.

There are several signs that omnichannel will not be the best match for your company:

1. You lack data about your target audience and their behaviour.
2. Your marketing team is small, and employees are overwhelmed.
3. You do not have a budget for omnichannel solutions.
4. You do not have an omnichannel champion on your marketing team.
5. You do not have much experience with multichannel.

If you want to start multichannel or omnichannel marketing but lack experience and in-house expertise, NANOBOT can help you build a holistic omnichannel strategy.

Book a Free Consultation 

Real-Life Examples of Omnichannel and Multichannel Marketing

This section will help you understand how omnichannel and multichannel approaches can be used in real life.

Multichannel Marketing Campaign to raise awareness about an established RX Drug (Cardiology) in Germany

 Target Audience:

Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) – General Practitioners, Specialists in Cardiology 

Campaign Objectives

• Strengthen brand presence among HCPs
• Drive prescription intent through medical education and peer engagement
• Ensure full compliance with German regulations

Channels &Tactics

1. Digital

• Targeted Email Campaigns → Scientific updates, case studies, and webinar invitations
• HCP Portal/Website → Exclusive access to clinical data, e-learning, and FAQs
• Programmatic Advertising (DocCheck & Medscape) → Display ads targeting HCPs

2. Medical Education & Peer Engagement

• Webinars & Virtual Symposia → Hosted by KOLs, focusing on real-world evidence
• Accredited CME (Continuing Medical Education) Modules → Online certification courses

3. Sales & Rep Engagement

• Rep-triggered Emails → Personalized follow-ups with HCPs post-meetings
• eDetailing & Remote Engagement → Digital detailing via Veeva Engage
• In-Person Congresses & Conferences → Presence at major EU Cardiology German medical events

How would an omnichannel campaign differ?

1. AI-Driven Personalization & Predictive Targeting

• Dynamic Email Sequences – If an HCP engages with a scientific article, they receive follow-up invitations to a related webinar.
• Trigger-Based Communication – If an HCP attends a webinar, the sales rep receives a notification to follow up with tailored content.

2. Smart Sales Engagement (Rep + Digital Hybrid)

• Rep-Triggered Veeva CRM Emails – Sales reps send HCPs personalized messages based on past interactions.
• eDetailing Integration – If an HCP views certain slides during an eDetailing session, they later receive an email with additional studies.

3. Unified HCP Portal & Self-Service Hub

• Single Sign-On (SSO) for HCPs – One portal connects all digital touchpoints: e-learning, webinars, scientific content.
• Chatbots & AI Assistants – Provide real-time responses and suggest relevant content.

Summarizing, here are the key Differences from Multichannel:

• Personalized & Data-Driven → AI-driven HCP engagement based on real-time behavior
• Seamless Integration → HCPs experience a connected journey across touchpoints
• Adaptive Content → Messaging adapts dynamically based on HCP interactions
• Consistent Brand Experience → Harmonized content across digital, face-to-face, and traditional channels

Concluding thoughts

Both multichannel and omnichannel marketing use multiple channels to reach the Target Audience. The key difference is the focus and customer journey. In omnichannel, focus shifts from the brand to the customer through personalization of messages. The customer journey isn’t disrupted with the transition between channels, and each new touchpoint is the continuation of the dialogue rather than a disconnected message.

Omnichannel marketing heavily relies on technology and requires a unified strategy for all channels. At the same time, it yields great results, boosting engagement, conversion, and retention.

Building omnichannel marketing requires experience and expertise that few pharma companies have in-house. That’s why many companies rely on Pharma Marketing Agencies like NANOBOT to drive results.

Ready to build your omnichannel marketing and transform how your company communicates with your target audience?

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