Omnichannel sales is a strategy that integrates all of a company's channels, such as physical stores, websites, and mobile apps, to provide customers with a seamless and unified buying experience. The goal is to allow customers to move between different touchpoints, like starting a purchase on their phone and completing it in-store, without any friction or interruption. This approach ensures a consistent experience across all platforms, from product information to customer support.
Adopting an omnichannel sales strategy offers significant advantages that go beyond just being present on multiple platforms. It creates a cohesive ecosystem that benefits both the customer and the business's bottom line. Key benefits include:
This is how you can build a cohesive omnichannel strategy.
While both strategies use multiple platforms to engage customers, their approach and impact differ significantly.
While omnichannel sales offer significant rewards, the path to implementation is filled with complex challenges. Successfully creating a unified customer experience requires overcoming significant technical and organizational hurdles that can strain resources and test a company's agility.
The future of omnichannel sales is driven by artificial intelligence and automation. These technologies enable hyper-personalized experiences by tailoring interactions to individual customer needs. AI-powered chatbots and self-service tools will become standard, offering instant support and streamlining the journey.
The line between digital and physical retail will also continue to blur. More online brands will open brick-and-mortar stores to create connected shopping experiences. Mobile apps will be crucial in bridging these channels, enhancing in-store visits with digital features.
How is omnichannel different from multichannel?
Multichannel means using several independent channels, while omnichannel integrates them to create one seamless customer journey. The key is the unified experience, where data and context follow the customer from one touchpoint to the next.
Is an omnichannel strategy only for large enterprises?
Not exclusively. While resource-intensive, smaller businesses can apply omnichannel principles by integrating their most critical channels first. The focus is on creating a cohesive experience where it matters most to your specific customer base.
What is the most critical first step in implementation?
The first step is mapping the customer journey. By understanding how customers interact with your brand across all touchpoints, you can identify key integration points and prioritize your efforts for the greatest impact on their experience.
The marketing mix is the set of marketing tools a company uses to sell products, defined by the 4Ps: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.
Loss aversion is our tendency to feel the sting of a loss more acutely than the pleasure of an equivalent gain.
Lead Velocity Rate (LVR) is the growth rate of your qualified leads, measured month-over-month. It's a key indicator of future revenue.
A Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is a concise statement that clearly communicates the unique benefit a customer gets from your product or service.
User testing involves observing real users interact with a product to identify usability issues and improve the overall user experience.
Revenue forecasting is the process of estimating a company's future revenue, using historical data and market trends to guide strategic planning.
Generic keywords are broad search terms that lack specific details like brand or location. They attract a wide audience with less specific intent.
Webhooks are automated messages sent by an app when a specific event occurs. They push real-time data to another app's unique URL.
Account-based advertising is a hyper-focused B2B strategy that targets key accounts with personalized ads across multiple channels.
Direct-to-consumer (D2C) is a sales strategy where a brand sells its products directly to end customers, bypassing any third-party retailers.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are measurable values that demonstrate how effectively a company is achieving its key business objectives.
Intent-based leads are potential customers whose online actions—like searches or content engagement—signal a clear interest in buying a solution.
Channel marketing is a strategy where a company sells its products or services through third-party partners, like resellers or affiliates.
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Trigger marketing uses customer actions or events to automatically send highly relevant, personalized messages at the perfect moment.
Pipeline management is the process of tracking and managing potential customers as they move through the different stages of your sales process.
A drip campaign is a series of automated messages sent to prospects or customers over time to nurture leads and drive engagement.
A draw on commission is an advance payment a salesperson receives against future earnings, which is later repaid from earned commissions.
Data-driven marketing uses customer data to inform marketing decisions, optimize campaigns, and deliver personalized experiences to consumers.
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Performance monitoring involves collecting and analyzing data to track a system's operational health and efficiency, ensuring it meets set standards.
Net new business is revenue from customers who have never purchased from your company before. It’s a crucial indicator of sustainable growth.
SPIN selling is a sales technique using a sequence of questions—Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-Payoff—to uncover a buyer's needs.
Hot leads are prospective customers who have shown significant interest and are ready to buy, making them a top priority for sales teams.
Overcoming objections is the process of addressing and resolving a prospect's concerns or hesitations to move a sale forward.
Sales team management is the process of leading, coaching, and motivating a sales team to achieve its sales goals and drive revenue growth.
Retargeting marketing is a digital advertising strategy that targets users who have previously interacted with your website or brand online.
The buyer's journey maps the path a potential customer takes, from first becoming aware of a problem to making a final purchase decision.
Outside sales reps sell products/services in person, traveling to meet clients and close deals face-to-face, outside of a traditional office.
OAuth is an open standard for access delegation. It lets you grant apps access to your data on other services without sharing your password.
Cloud storage is a service model where data is stored on remote servers and accessed from the internet, rather than on a local drive.
Lead scraping is the process of automatically extracting contact information and other relevant data about potential customers from online sources.
Scalability is a company's ability to handle increased workloads or market demands without a drop in performance or a spike in costs.
Customer Retention Cost (CRC) is the total amount a company spends to keep an existing customer over a certain period of time.
Ad-hoc reporting is the creation of one-off reports to answer specific business questions as they arise, providing instant, targeted insights.
The decision stage is where a well-researched buyer chooses a vendor. They compare specific products and pricing before making their final purchase.
Deal flow refers to the stream of business proposals and investment opportunities that a company or investor receives.
An AI sales script generator is a tool that uses artificial intelligence to create personalized sales scripts for any outreach scenario.
Lead scoring is the process of assigning points to leads based on their attributes and actions to determine their sales-readiness.
On-Target Earnings (OTE) is a salesperson's total potential pay, combining base salary and commission for hitting their sales quota.
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Cross-selling is a sales tactic of encouraging customers to purchase products or services that are related to what they're already buying.
Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) measures the mean annual growth of an investment over a specified period of time longer than one year.
Corporate identity is the visual and verbal persona of a company, encompassing its logo, color palette, communication style, and core values.
Event marketing is a strategy where brands engage directly with target audiences through live events like trade shows, conferences, or webinars.
Stress testing is a type of software testing that determines a system's robustness by pushing it beyond its normal operational capacity.
Email engagement measures how your audience interacts with your emails. It includes key actions like opens, clicks, replies, and forwards.
Sales prospecting techniques are methods used by sales teams to identify, contact, and qualify potential customers, also known as prospects.
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A Data Management Platform (DMP) is a tech platform used to collect and manage data, mainly for digital marketing and advertising campaigns.
A Representational State Transfer (REST) API is a web service that uses a simple, stateless architecture for systems to communicate online.
Regression testing ensures that new code changes don’t negatively impact existing features. It's a key step to maintain software quality after updates.
Customer loyalty is a customer’s devotion to a brand, shown by their repeat purchases and engagement, driven by positive experiences and trust.
Lead scoring models rank prospects by assigning points for their behaviors and demographics, helping sales teams prioritize their outreach.
Low-hanging fruit are the most obvious and easy-to-tackle tasks or goals that provide a quick, valuable return for minimal effort.
Real-time data is information processed and made available almost instantaneously, enabling immediate analysis and decision-making.
Database management is the process of organizing, storing, and maintaining data in a database to ensure its accuracy, security, and availability.
A data pipeline is a set of automated processes that move raw data from various sources to a destination for storage and analysis.
A sales methodology is the framework that guides how your sales team approaches the entire sales process, from prospecting to closing deals.
The customer lifecycle is the journey a person takes from first becoming aware of your brand to becoming a loyal, repeat customer.
Average Revenue per User (ARPU) is a key performance indicator that calculates the average revenue generated from each user or subscriber.
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Virtual selling is the process of selling to customers remotely using technology like video calls, rather than meeting them in person.
An enterprise is a large-scale organization, often a corporation, defined by its complex structure and substantial number of employees.
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Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) is the predictable income a company expects to receive from its customers over a one-year period.
Siloed describes the isolation of data, teams, or systems within a company, which blocks collaboration and creates operational bottlenecks.
A landing page is a standalone web page created for a marketing campaign. It’s where a visitor “lands” after clicking an ad or email link.
Warm outreach is contacting prospects with whom you have a pre-existing connection, like a mutual contact, making your message more personal and effective.
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A System of Record (SoR) is the authoritative data source for a specific type of data. It acts as the single source of truth for an organization.
Closed opportunities are potential deals that have concluded. They are categorized as either 'closed-won' (a sale was made) or 'closed-lost'.
A sales dashboard is a visual tool that centralizes and displays key sales data, metrics, and KPIs to help teams track performance and goals.
The sales pipeline velocity formula is a key metric that measures how quickly deals move through your pipeline and turn into revenue.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) software helps teams coordinate personalized marketing and sales efforts to land high-value customer accounts.
Win/Loss Analysis is the process of systematically tracking and analyzing the reasons why you win or lose deals with prospective customers.
A Proof of Concept (PoC) is a small exercise to test whether a business idea or project is technically feasible and has real-world potential.
API security is the practice of protecting application programming interfaces from attacks, preventing data breaches and unauthorized access.
An Operational CRM is a system that automates and improves customer-facing business processes like sales, marketing, and customer service.
A cold email is an initial outreach sent to a potential customer with whom you've had no prior contact, aiming to introduce your business.
A Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) is a prospect vetted by marketing and sales, deemed ready for a direct sales pitch after showing intent to buy.
Closing ratio is a key sales metric that shows the percentage of leads or proposals that result in a successful sale.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is the predictable, recurring income a business expects to receive each month from all active subscriptions.
Marketing Operations (MOps) is the engine of a marketing team, managing the technology, processes, and people to run campaigns effectively.
X-Sell, or cross-selling, is a sales strategy of selling additional, related products or services to an existing customer base.
Sales prospecting software automates the process of finding, contacting, and tracking potential customers to help sales teams build their pipeline.
An objection is an explicit expression by a prospect that presents a barrier to moving forward in the sales process.
De-duping, or data deduplication, is the process of eliminating duplicate copies of data within a dataset to improve accuracy and save space.
A weighted pipeline forecasts sales revenue by assigning a closing probability to each deal based on its stage in the sales funnel.
Sales productivity is the measure of a sales team's efficiency, focusing on maximizing revenue generation while minimizing the resources spent.
Functional testing verifies that software performs its intended functions as specified in the requirements, ensuring it works as users expect.