It is a common approach for businesses to utilise several platforms where they can sell their products and services, especially if the platform is free to use or affordable, including social media sites and e-commerce platforms.
By using sites and platforms that many people already find convenient to use, this strategy helps businesses increase their visibility and maximise their reach by simply looking for places where potential customers can easily find them.
When these platforms are decoupled and independent from each other, this approach is usually called Multichannel. This is a huge step from the traditional ways of advertising, such as paper and television ads, since these platforms would often allow businesses to understand their consumers and gain feedback.
However, by using multiple platforms, businesses immediately give themselves another set of challenges that can potentially impede them in terms of costs and maintenance. More often, businesses that employ this strategy would have to maintain consistency in all platforms they use.
This is when the Omni channel strategy comes in, and it is possibly one of the strategies that businesses would take once they decide to scale up and play on a bigger field.
Both the Omnichannel and Multichannel approaches utilise several mediums for product and service advertising. However, Omnichannel sets itself apart from Multichannel in terms of integration and coherence.
While Multichannel prioritises user convenience by using platforms that people find easy to use, Omnichannel is a lot more focused on user experience and behaviour. To see if the Omnichannel strategy will fit your business, we have to understand its advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages
An Omnichannel approach is perhaps one of the best ways to establish your brand and set yourself apart from your competitors. Instead of using pre-existing platforms to sell products and services, businesses can instead use mediums that are much more consistent to provide an immersive user experience.
Some businesses will often do this by formulating a good brand concept and a design system that includes a set of guidelines that will make their brand catchy and memorable. In this way, customers can intuitively recognise the brand the next time they see its advertisements.
To demonstrate this, we can take Google, for example. The reason why it is easy to recognise that a certain service is made by Google is that they adhere to a single design system called Material Design. They managed to maintain consistency by using the same design system across all their platforms.
However, it should be kept in mind that design is only supplementary for a successful omnichannel strategy. User experience is a lot more important, and this means your platforms should be easy and convenient to use on the user side. This can be done by having your platforms coordinate with one another.
Customers should have a smooth experience when using your platforms. They should be able to do the same things that they can do on one platform to your other platforms, regardless of whether they are using your mobile app, your desktop app, or your mobile application.
One way to check you have all channels integrated properly is to anticipate your customers and their expectations on your platform. If you think your users expect to be able to check their cart on the desktop and mobile app, your platform should be able to meet those expectations for their convenience and experience.
To close potential gaps in your strategy, you need to use intelligence as your arsenal. Make sure to give your platform the ability to observe user interaction and utilise it to give the user a more personalised experience. You can also use these interactions to determine if you are missing something.
With consistency and coordination, customers are much more likely to use your service again. According to a study, a huge percentage of B2B companies observed the effectiveness of omnichannel as a strategy for achieving customer retention.
Disadvantages
Unfortunately, the omnichannel strategy does not stop with a good branding concept alone. The success of this strategy lies in integration, which can be achieved by having all your channels coordinate with each other.
Transitioning to omnichannel may also be expensive. All teams must be well-informed about your brand guidelines and your strategy. It will take significant time and effort before your business can come up and execute a good omnichannel strategy.
Conclusion
While omnichannel has certain disadvantages, it is obviously a highly essential ingredient for a successful business. Even if your business uses a multichannel approach, you will probably need to transition to an omnichannel approach in the nearest future.
It is just important to keep in mind that coming up with a good omnichannel strategy takes time and effort. If done hastily, you might end up with channels that are inconsistent and uncoordinated, and using the strategy might only do more harm than good.