The Omni-Channel Marketing Challenge
How consumer expectations present both challenge and opportunity for the modern marketer
Marketing today is very different to the environment of 25 years ago. Traditional channels such as TV, radio, and print media are now outnumbered by a growing list of digital outlets, creating a diverse, yet fragmented, landscape that can be incredibly difficult to navigate.
The Omni-Channel Experience
With modern customers using a multitude of devices, platforms and physical environments to interact with brands, the challenge of the Omni-channel XP lies in delivering a seamless, consistent experience across all these touchpoints. This requires careful management and integration of data from multiple sources, communication tools, and messaging.
The ideal omni-channel experience involves a high degree of personalisation across some channels, whilst non-direct channels provide relevant supporting communications.
For example, if a customer has been searching for a particular product and added it to their online basket on a computer, that should equally show in their basket if they go on to the site on mobile. Based on their behaviour online it may be that they can be served with relevant adverts online or served relevant offers on email. Equally, brand messaging, tone and visuals should be representative and consistent in-store and online.
We'll take a brief look at the role each channel plays in delivering a consistent, omni-channel experience.
Organic Social Media:
Organic platforms have become essential for building brand presence, engaging audiences, and fostering communities in a brand’s demographic. Organic content relies heavily on creativity, storytelling, engagement, and consistency to stand out in crowded feeds.
Paid Social Media:
Social media feels like a very consumer-driven platform, but beneath the surface lies a complex network of paid advertising that offers precise targeting for brands to reach specific demographics with highly tailored content. Retargeting plays a significant role in this process too, tracking data of users and funnelling them towards content based on their interaction history. Targeted advertising of this type can play a significant role in delivering an impactful omni-channel experience.
Paid Search Engine Marketing (SEM):
Ranking highly on Google is great, but with so many platforms providing content to search engines, it was only a matter of time before those coveted top spots were monetised. Search Engine Marketing gives instant visibility on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), allowing brands to bid for common search terms and keywords in busy marketplaces. It’s also the best way to capture intent-driven traffic, as opposed to the net-casting style of advertising.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO):
The existence of paid SEM doesn’t lessen the importance of SEO. Much more than keyword stuffing, it involved technical website optimisation, content strategies, and enhancements to the user experience to rank higher in search results. In most marketing scenarios, driving traffic to a website is the key action, so having a strong website that captures organic search as well as directed visitors is key.
Aligning website content with activity across other channels is another key approach to delivering a seamless, cross channel user experience.
Display Advertising:
Driven off data from digital footprints, these adverts are key to targeting consumers based on their preferences. They offer retargeting opportunities too, derived from freely given data or data mined from a user’s browsing history and behaviour.
Email Marketing:
Behaviour-driven email marketing tailors email content and timing based on a recipient’s actions, preferences, and behaviours by tracking and analysing user behaviour across different touchpoints such as website visits, app usage, and email interactions. Automated workflows and triggers are set up to funnel recipients down a user journey, and dynamic personalisation can add a level of customisation to make emails feel even more relevant and engaging.
When executed well, this can play an important role in an omni-channel experience and drive a high level of conversions.
Webinars and Virtual Events:
These channels exploded during the pandemic and remain vital for B2B marketers. They provide a platform for thought leadership, direct engagement, and lead generation. Whereas before they were the output of niche channels such as Twitch, Zoom, GoTo Webinar, etc, where an intermediate understanding of recording and streaming technology was required, most online social platforms now offer integrated ‘live’ features, making it much easier to produce content such as this.
Digital PR:
In a world driven by online interactions, PR has expanded to include influencer marketing, social listening, and securing coverage on digital media outlets.
According to Traackr, 63% of consumers say they are more likely to buy a product if it's recommended to them by a social media influencer they trust.
Again, aligning the messaging tone of Digital PR with other messaging is a strong way of reinforcing your brand’s value and reassuring your prospects and customers who are considering your products and services.
A Demanding Landscape
For today’s marketers, the challenge lies in orchestrating campaigns across these growing channels. While each channel offers unique benefits and opportunities, they also demand alignment, specialised content, tailored strategies, and constant monitoring to ensure effectiveness.
Despite the advancements of digital content creation, the need to produce this quantity of material remains a significant challenge. Marketers must also navigate the technical demands of each platform, rising audience expectations, increasing competition, and shrinking budgets.
What’s the solution?
In our latest guide, The Modern Marketing Playbook, we address the many nuanced challenges facing modern marketers, including the Omni-channel experience, as part of the Digital Efficiency Paradox. Whilst looking deeply into the many facets of the Digital Efficiency Paradox, we also lay out several solutions which can help marketing teams overcome these obstacles, and succeed in 2025 by producing more creative, to better standards, with less budget. To read more about how to overcome the Digital Efficiency Paradox, contact us to receive your copy of The Modern Marketing Playbook.
Lawrence Palmer and Jonathan Cox discuss the Modern Marketing Playbook.
To hear more about the Digital Efficiency Paradox, and further discussion on The Modern Marketing Playbook, watch back our LinkedIn Live fireside chatWebinar on Wednesday 29th January at 12.30pm, with our MD Lawrence Palmer, and Marketing Director Jonathan Cox.