Strategic Marketing: Searching for the “Omnified” Experience

Marketing strategies are continuing to constantly evolve. Correspondingly, the engagement strategies also need to undergo transformation in order to respond to the growing demand for integrated and personalised experiences. At the core of this context lies the ongoing debate between the Omnichannel and Unified Communication concepts.

In order to place these concepts in a chronological order, we may consider that the Unified concept was the first to appear in response to corporate needs, and especially the retail market, to integrate the different communications and sales channels. Should we travel back to the closing decades of the last century, we may perfectly understand the need for businesses to evolve towards integrating the different communications technologies into a unified system and that correspondingly reflects the respective company’s marketing strategy.

We are now heading into the first decade of the 21st century and the new challenges that were then appearing for Marketing and Communications Agencies.The prospect of interconnecting the different client contact channels, such as physical stores, websites, mobile apps, social networks and others, in an integrated fashion, began to gain ground in this period. There emerged the Omnichannel concept to convey a more consistent and uniform experience for consumers who were seeking greater convenience, personalisation and fluidity in their interactions with brands.

While the Omnichannel strives to establish the perfect experience for clients through the different channels, the Unified Commerce approach seeks to unify internal and external, physical and digital, processes and provide an integrated client experience in which all the different sales channels are interconnected. However, we believe that currently, in developing a Growth Marketing strategy, these two concepts do not enter into mutual competition.

Today, in any marketing strategy, the conceptual base for application to the rationale has to be that of “Omnified” communication. The “Omnified” concept proposes a hybrid approach that reflects the synergies between the two strategies described above. In the Omnified strategy,  the continued client experience gets combined with the internal procedures for communications, commercialisation and loyalty building.

This strategic approach underpins a seamless and consistent experience for clients while also ensuring the company operates as a unified entity across every marketing related aspect. It is the convergence between the Omichannel and Unified approaches that produces the competitive advantages for contemporary brands.