Multichannel. Omnichannel. These two terms are often thrown around in the digital marketing industry, and it’s common to need clarification. However, noting the difference between the two can significantly impact getting the most out of your company’s investment. Mitto, an omnichannel marketing solution, helps brands understand the difference between the two but also helps them know which solution suits their company.
Multichannel marketing involves a brand or company using several communication tools to reach their customers, as does omnichannel marketing. The difference is that omnichannel marketing uses different platforms on one channel, so the brand operating the other communication apps can do so seamlessly without a break in tone or timing.
If you’re new to this type of communication, you may be thinking, “What’s the difference? If I use SMS, email, social media, and messaging apps, does it matter whether I do it in a multichannel or omnichannel setting?”
The answer to this question is nuanced: but while there may be instances in which unassisted multichannel marketing is effective, for most large, modern brands, an omnichannel solutions provider like Mitto is the best way to engage all communication platforms for maximum ROI.
The Case For Integrating Apps
Let’s turn to single-channel communication strategy to understand why omnichannel integration makes such a vast difference. Single-channel marketing involves selling products or services through a single platform, like a website or social media platform. Single-channel commerce is excellent for a small business for several reasons.
- Cost. The cost of maintaining a single-channel platform for sales is much less than maintaining several of these platforms. This can be perfect for getting your shop off the ground without funneling extra money into a “caretaking” platform.
- Less Time Spent On Apps. If you’re a sales team of one, keeping an eye on multiple platforms can take a lot of work. Having just one or two mitigates missed messages and optimizes the time you have.
- Easier to personalize with a smaller team. If you are a one-person team, you also have less time to personalize a website or platform.
However, for most businesses, there are more optimized ways to market and stay in touch with customers than single-channel. Between single-channel and omnichannel lies multichannel, which is the next step for growing businesses. Multichannel commerce allows businesses to interact with their customers through many different channels, including SMS, messaging app, email, phone, and more. Multichannel has its perks for brand messaging. It can allow a company to:
- Increase brand awareness
- Create more opportunities for consumers to reach out to the brand
- Track company metrics in a simple way
There are some downsides to multichannel marketing, however.
- No continuity between apps. A customer may message on multiple apps, and there is no record of that available to two people working on a customer service issue.
- Potential missed messages. Companies may only receive messages if all accounts are managed cohesively.
For companies with a more significant presence to remain competitive in a global market saturated with competitors, they must ensure their commerce issues are insignificant compared to their competitors. In an interview with Martech, Ilja Gorelik – COO and co-founder of Mitto— mentioned how good customer service via omnichannel messaging can make a huge difference.
“Good customer support is an effective marketing strategy — American consumers said they are more likely to talk publicly about ‘good’ support experiences than ‘poor’ ones — 65% compared to 29%. What all of this reveals is that customer engagement can be challenging and complex. “
A way to maintain the perks of multichannel messaging without as many costs is to turn to an omnichannel marketing solutions provider like Mitto.
Connecting With Global Markets
Statistics from a recent Mitto study show that omnichannel marketing is a must-have for brands with a global presence. These stats show that the way people communicate across our globe is varied so differently that more than one method of communication can be the best way to reach out to all customers.
The study done by Mitto showed that social media contact is the preferred method of communication for customers in the United States through social media applications. However, break out of the US and head to Asia, South America, or Africa, and brands encounter countries that prefer chat apps. Still, other countries prefer SMS. On those apps, the types of content and communication consumers expect to see vary vastly. For example, 70% of those surveyed enjoyed getting promo codes, whereas customer support and order updates through those apps only reached just over 50%.
Combine that with statistics that show that over half of the consumers surveyed in that study cite a brand’s social media presence as their influence to purchase, and you can see how powerful choosing the proper method of communication can be. Utilizing an application-to-person messaging technology, like Mitto’s A2P tech, can assist brands in making a choice that best addresses their consumers’ needs.
So, How Do I Use The Tools At My Disposal?
So many tools, so little time. How can brands best use multichannel and omnichannel tech to serve their needs and customers? It all comes down to synthesizing the customer care consumers get across all platforms. That way, regardless of whether they text a chatbot or call a helpline, they feel they are getting the same quality of service with one consistent brand voice.
Ilja Gorelik spoke about how omnichannel platform providers like Mitto can make a huge difference when it comes to the customer experience:
“As marketers add new digital channels, I am more concerned with educating on the importance of taking an omnichannel, not multichannel, approach. Brands need to speak to customers wherever they are – be it via SMS, Chat Apps, or others – with a single consistent voice; otherwise, they risk losing them and their revenue. Therefore, seamlessly combining multiple digital channels will become a foundational element to unify customers’ touch points across all channels.”
Some takeaways from how Mitto implements omnichannel messaging on their platform:
- Offer a variety of communication channels for your customers. Even within a country, customers communicate very differently from one another due to ability, timing, and personal preference. You can make or break a relationship with a client simply by utilizing a preferred messaging platform.
- Offer a quick turnaround on time to respond. A recent poll found that nearly 40% of those polled say that waiting more than 5 minutes for a response from a brand is unacceptable. Even if a quick fix on a customer issue isn’t possible, an answer from the brand showing that they are on the case is well-perceived among consumers.
- Offer solutions to modern problems. Omnichannel solutions for healthcare show where omnichannel can help solve modern customers’ issues. Customers often utilize SMS for things like care follow-ups, appointment reminders, medication refills, and more.
Whether you utilize omnichannel or multichannel messaging solutions for your mid to large-sized company is up to your brand. However, employing a streamlined omnichannel messaging solution like Mitto can mitigate customer pain points, optimize their experience, and ultimately save money and time for all involved.
