Omnichannel vs Multichannel in 2026: What B2B Sales Leaders Must Know to Stay Ahead

Introduction

Omnichannel strategy has become a critical focus for B2B sales and marketing leaders in 2026. Buyers today are more digitally driven and channel-agnostic than ever – in fact, B2B customers now regularly use ten or more channels to interact with suppliers (1). This shift means that understanding omnichannel vs multichannel marketing is no longer optional; it’s essential for staying ahead of the competition. In this article, we’ll break down the key differences between omnichannel and multichannel approaches, their impact on customer experience, examples, pros and cons, the technology and tools required, and how to choose the right strategy for your business. By the end, you’ll see why we at Martal believe a well-executed omnichannel approach is the future of B2B sales outreach – and how we help our clients achieve it.

What is the Difference Between Omnichannel and Multichannel Marketing?

At first glance, omnichannel and multichannel marketing might sound similar – both involve engaging customers across multiple channels (email, phone, social media, events, etc.). However, omnichannel versus multichannel is more than a semantic nuance. The two approaches differ fundamentally in integration, focus, and the customer experience they deliver. Below are the key differences in how they operate and what that means for your marketing:

• Integration of Channels: Multichannel marketing uses multiple channels to reach customers, but those channels often operate in silos with little coordination. Each channel might have its own strategy and data. Omnichannel marketing, on the other hand, integrates all customer touchpoints to provide a seamless, unified experience. Every channel is connected – online or offline – so the customer can move between them without friction. For example, in an omnichannel model a prospect could download a whitepaper on your website, then get a an email follow-up referencing that download, and later chat with your team on LinkedIn without having to re-introduce themselves. All interactions feed into a single customer view.
  
• Focal Point (Customer vs Channel): Omnichannel marketing is customer-centric, meaning it starts with the customer’s needs and ensures consistent messaging across channels to meet those needs. In contrast, multichannel marketing is often channel- or product-centric – each channel is optimized to promote the product or content within that silo, potentially leading to disjointed messaging. An easy way to remember this: omnichannel focuses on the customer journey, whereas multichannel focuses on the channels themselves. Omnichannel asks “what experience does our customer have as they hop between touchpoints?”, while multichannel asks “how can we use Channel X or Y to broadcast our message?”.
  
• Consistency of Message and Experience: Because omnichannel approaches unify channels, they deliver a consistent message and brand experience everywhere. Whether a prospect sees your ad on LinkedIn, opens your email, or speaks to your sales rep, the core messaging and information align. Multichannel approaches may present inconsistent styles or information on different platforms – for instance, a social media ad might look and feel completely different from an email newsletter, potentially confusing customers. In omnichannel, any differences in content are intentional (tailored to the channel format) but still part of one coherent narrative.
  
• Use of Data & Personalization: Omnichannel strategies typically rely on integrated customer data – often through a central CRM or customer data platform – to personalize interactions across all channels in real time. If a customer interacts with your chatbot and then calls your sales team, an omnichannel system ensures the caller doesn’t have to repeat the information they already gave to the bot. Multichannel strategies, without that integration, struggle to share data between channels. Personalization might exist within each channel (e.g. tailored email content), but it’s not carried over when the customer switches channels, leading to repetitive or irrelevant communications.
  
• Measurement & KPIs: In a multichannel approach, success is often measured per channel – e.g. email open rates, social media clicks, phone call conversions – with no unified view of the customer’s overall journey. Omnichannel approaches emphasize omnichannel measurement – tracking customer behavior across channels to gauge overall engagement and impact on pipeline or sales. This means looking at omnichannel KPIs like customer retention rate, lifetime value, multi-touch attribution to revenue, and conversion rates that account for the combined influence of all touchpoints. (For instance, a key omnichannel KPI might be how many leads engaged with three or more channels and their conversion rate, versus single-channel leads.) We’ll discuss specific metrics later, but it’s important to note that omnichannel requires more advanced analytics to measure effectively.
  

To summarize these differences, here’s a quick comparison table highlighting multichannel vs omnichannel:

As you can see, both omnichannel and multichannel marketing involve using multiple platforms to reach prospects, but only omnichannel knits those platforms together into one cohesive system. This distinction has profound implications for customer experience and ultimately your sales results – which we explore next.

How Does Omnichannel Marketing vs Multichannel Marketing Impact Customer Experience?

From the customer’s perspective, the contrast between a multichannel and an omnichannel approach is like night and day. In a multichannel model, the customer experience can feel fragmented: every time they engage on a new channel, it’s as if they’re interacting with a different company or starting a new conversation. In an omnichannel model, the experience is unified and continuous – it feels like one ongoing conversation with the same brand, no matter the channel.

In a multichannel experience, customers often encounter friction. For example, a prospect might see an ad for your B2B service on LinkedIn and click through to your website. Later, they call your sales line – but the rep who answers has no context that the prospect visited the site or what information they looked at. The prospect may have to re-explain their interests or needs from scratch. If they then receive an email newsletter, it might promote a product they’ve already told the sales rep isn’t relevant, because that channel’s content isn’t aware of their earlier conversation. This disjointed approach can frustrate busy decision-makers. In fact, research shows that customers want the ability to engage seamlessly with brands across multiple channels without having to repeat themselves. A disjointed multichannel approach fails to deliver that, potentially driving prospects away.

In an omnichannel customer experience, all interactions are connected, resulting in a smoother journey. If the same prospect clicks a LinkedIn ad and visits your website, an omnichannel system would log that activity. When they call in, the rep can see what pages the prospect viewed and tailor the conversation accordingly (e.g. “I see you were interested in our solution for fintech – do you have any questions about how our pricing works for that use case?”). If the prospect later gets an email or LinkedIn message, it will be aligned with their interests, referencing earlier touchpoints instead of generic boilerplate. This consistency makes the buyer’s life easier and builds trust. They feel the company “knows them” and values their time.

Not surprisingly, a well-executed omnichannel approach significantly improves customer satisfaction and loyalty. Key omnichannel statistics illustrate that companies with strong omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain on average 89% of their customers, while companies with weak omnichannel strategies retain only 33% (2). That’s a huge gap in loyalty, directly tied to the quality of the experience. When customers experience a seamless journey – say, receiving helpful, relevant touchpoints at each stage of their decision process – they are far more likely to stick with your brand. In B2B sales, where purchase cycles are long and relationships matter, this retention edge is critical.

Furthermore, customers increasingly expect an omnichannel experience. In the wake of the pandemic and the rise of digital-native millennials in decision-making roles, buyers are comfortable toggling between channels (web, email, video call, phone, chat) as it suits them. They don’t want to be forced into one channel or repeat information. According to McKinsey’s 2021 B2B Pulse survey, 94% of B2B decision makers say the new omnichannel sales model is as effective or more effective than the old face-to-face model (3) – mainly because it provides the convenience and flexibility modern customers demand. In other words, omnichannel is delivering a customer experience that buyers prefer and find effective.

On the other hand, a fragmented approach risks losing business. If a prospect encounters inconsistent info or has to restart conversations, they may disengage or even turn to a competitor who offers a smoother process. Remember that buyers have options: one study found eight in ten B2B decision makers would actively look for a new supplier if their needs aren’t met (for example, if a supplier doesn’t offer the convenient engagement channels or guarantees they expect). Delivering a cohesive experience across channels is one way to meet those needs and keep prospects in your funnel.

In summary, customer experience is the big winner in an omnichannel vs. multichannel comparison. Omnichannel ensures the experience is richer, more consistent, and more convenient, which in turn drives higher satisfaction, trust, and loyalty. Multichannel might get you presence in many places, but if those touchpoints aren’t talking to each other, the experience can feel “broken” from the customer’s view – and a broken experience is a lost sale.

What are Examples of Omnichannel vs Multichannel Approaches?

To make these concepts more concrete, let’s look at examples of omnichannel and multichannel approaches in action. Comparing omnichannel vs multichannel examples will illustrate how each approach plays out in successful marketing campaigns and what B2B sales leaders can learn from them.

Multichannel marketing example: HSBC’s WhatsApp campaign (single-channel focus in a multi-channel strategy)

Even within a multichannel strategy, businesses often find that certain channels work better for their audience – and they can focus on those for better results. A good example of multichannel marketing done right is HSBC’s mobile messaging campaign. HSBC experimented with various digital channels and discovered that many of their banking customers preferred using WhatsApp for communication. They capitalized on this by developing an AI-powered chatbot on WhatsApp that allowed customers to do personalized credit simulations (e.g. to calculate a loan) right within the chat. The content and experience were tailored to user preferences on that channel.

This campaign was part of a broader multichannel approach (HSBC still used email, web, physical branches, etc.), but by meeting customers on their preferred channel and optimizing that channel’s experience, they achieved impressive results. In other words, HSBC’s multichannel strategy here was to be present on multiple platforms, then double down on the one channel that got the best engagement. It wasn’t a fully integrated omnichannel journey (it was largely a self-contained WhatsApp experience), but it shows that even a multichannel effort can yield great outcomes if you leverage each channel’s strengths. The key takeaway for B2B leaders: know where your customers like to engage (be it LinkedIn, email, phone, etc.) and make sure you have a strong presence and optimized content on those multiple channels – that’s the essence of multichannel marketing.

Omnichannel marketing example: Nissan’s integrated customer journey (coordinated cross-channel campaign)

Now contrast that with an omnichannel marketing example from the automotive industry that highlights integration. Nissan, the global car manufacturer, found traditional single-channel outreach was losing effectiveness and decided to reinvent their customer engagement via an omnichannel strategy. They used a marketing automation platform (Adobe Campaign) to orchestrate personalized, cross-channel marketing campaigns using data from their CRM. For instance, when a customer bought a car, Nissan would enter them into a coordinated sequence of messages: a welcome email, followed by timed service reminders via SMS or app notification, new feature introductions via social media, and even weather-related maintenance tips via text (e.g. “Snow is coming, so you may need to change your tires”). All these touchpoints were synchronized – if the customer responded or took an action, that data informed the next interaction, regardless of channel.

The results of Nissan’s omnichannel engagement were remarkable. By delivering the right message on the right channel at the right time consistently, Nissan quadrupled customer engagement and achieved an 80% conversion rate in their targeted campaigns (4). Such a high conversion would have been impossible without an integrated approach; it was the seamless hand-off between channels and the personalization (powered by unified data) that drove customers to act. For B2B companies, Nissan’s example can be translated into an account-based marketing context: imagine coordinating email, LinkedIn, retargeting ads, and sales calls so that a prospect gets a cohesive story. For instance, a B2B omnichannel journey might look like this: a prospect attends your webinar (event channel), afterwards they receive a personalized email with content related to that webinar, then your SDR connects on LinkedIn referencing their webinar participation, and a week later the prospect sees a targeted ad reinforcing the key solution points they heard. Finally, when they show high intent (e.g. clicking the ad or visiting your pricing page), your salesperson gives them a call equipped with full context of all these interactions. This kind of integrated, omnichannel sequence mirrors what Nissan did, and it dramatically increases the chances of moving the prospect toward a sale because it keeps them engaged through a cohesive narrative.

These examples highlight the core difference: the HSBC case targeted one channel extremely effectively as part of a multichannel mix (great for short-term conversions on that channel), whereas Nissan built a network of channels working together, yielding a sustained lift in engagement and conversion. Both approaches can work, but omnichannel marketing delivers a more holistic impact, especially for longer B2B sales cycles where nurturing over time is critical.

One more thing to note: omnichannel doesn’t mean you must use every channel on earth. It means whatever channels you do use are connected. You can run an omnichannel strategy using just a few channels (e.g. email, LinkedIn, and phone) if those are what your buyers use – the important part is ensuring those touchpoints share data and context. Conversely, a multichannel strategy could involve many channels, but if they don’t inform each other, the benefit of the breadth is limited. As you consider these examples, think about your own business: Are your current marketing and sales channels harmonized, or is your customer having separate siloed experiences? The answer will tell you if you’re closer to multichannel or omnichannel today.

Pros and cons of each approach

Both multichannel and omnichannel approaches have their advantages and drawbacks. The best choice for your organization depends on factors like your budget, resources, customer expectations, and strategic goals. Let’s break down the pros and cons of each approach:

Pros of multichannel marketing

• Wider Reach and Presence: A multichannel strategy ensures you have a presence on the platforms your customers frequent. By being on multiple channels (e.g. email, social media, events, cold calling), you increase the odds of connecting with customers where they are most comfortable. This can help you cast a wider net and generate awareness among a broad audience.
  
• Channel Optimization: Because each channel is managed separately in multichannel marketing, teams can focus on optimizing content for each specific channel. For instance, your social media team can create engaging LinkedIn posts while your email team crafts high-converting email sequences, each playing to the strengths of their medium. You can tailor messaging format and tone to fit each channel’s audience and context (as long as the overall branding stays reasonably consistent).
  
• Simple Setup (Lower Complexity): Multichannel efforts can often be executed with existing tools and without heavy integration. You can start using an additional channel quickly without overhauling your tech stack. This makes multichannel relatively easier and cheaper to implement initially than a fully integrated omnichannel system. For a small team, it might be feasible to manually coordinate a couple of channels without needing advanced software.
  
• Test and Learn: If you’re experimenting with new tactics, a multichannel approach lets you test channels independently. You might try a direct marketing campaign while also running LinkedIn ads, and measure which channel performs better for your target audience. This can inform where to invest more. Many companies use multichannel outreach to gather performance data per channel before deciding if deeper integration (omnichannel) is worth it.
  

Cons of multichannel marketing

• Siloed Customer Experience: The biggest con is that channels in a multichannel setup may not share information, leading to a disjointed customer experience (as discussed earlier). A customer might get repetitive messages or inconsistent information, which can frustrate them and diminish your brand’s credibility. Siloed channels mean your team might inadvertently treat the same person as a “new” lead on each channel.
  
• Difficulty Tracking & Attribution: It can be difficult to track and measure performance across the entire customer journey in a pure multichannel approach. You’ll see how each individual channel performs (email open rates, event leads, etc.), but you might miss the holistic view – for example, realizing that a combination of a LinkedIn touch + an email is what actually drove a conversion. This can lead to suboptimal budget allocation because you might give credit to the last touch or the most obvious channel and undervalue others that assisted the sale.
  
• Operational Inefficiencies: Running separate strategies on each channel can lead to duplicated efforts and higher operational load. Different teams or departments might be creating similar content or reaching out to the same customer without knowing it. This lack of coordination is inefficient and can increase marketing costs. It also makes scaling more challenging – the more channels you add, the more complex separate management becomes.
  
• Product-Centric Mentality: As noted, multichannel tends to be channel- or product-centric. The risk is that marketers focus too much on pumping out promotions through each channel, rather than solving customer needs. This can result in a lot of activity (emails sent, ads shown) that doesn’t actually move the needle on customer engagement quality. In B2B sales, where personalization and relevance are key, a purely product-centric blast across channels may not resonate with decision makers.
  

Pros of omnichannel marketing

• Seamless Customer Experience: The hallmark of omnichannel is a smooth, uninterrupted customer journey. Prospects can jump from reading your blog to chatting with a rep to attending a webinar, all without feeling lost or having to repeat themselves. This creates a convenient and positive experience that can differentiate you from competitors. A seamless experience often translates to higher customer satisfaction and trust, which in B2B can mean better relationships and more referrals.
  
• Higher Engagement & Loyalty: By meeting customers wherever they are and providing relevant interactions, omnichannel strategies typically see higher overall engagement. Customers engaged on multiple channels tend to interact more and progress further down the funnel. They also tend to buy more and stay longer. For example, omnichannel shoppers have been shown to have higher lifetime value – one study found shoppers who used multiple channels had a 30% higher lifetime value than those who used only a single channel (5). Moreover, companies with extremely strong omnichannel customer engagement see significantly higher revenue growth (9.5% YoY increase) compared to those with weak engagement (3.4%) (6). The improved loyalty and spend are big pros.
  
• Personalization at Scale: Omnichannel approaches leverage integrated data, enabling personalized and context-aware messaging across touchpoints. You can deliver the right content at the right time on the right channel, which greatly increases relevance. In complex B2B sales, this personalization (e.g. referencing a prospect’s specific pain point consistently across emails and calls) can accelerate deal cycles and improve win rates. Modern omnichannel programs often use AI and automation to help personalize interactions at scale – something much harder to do when channels are disconnected.
  
• Unified Analytics and Insights: Because omnichannel funnels data into one system, you gain better analytics and customer insights. You can track the full buyer’s journey and see which combinations of touches tend to lead to sales, calculate multi-touch attribution, and understand customer behavior more deeply. These insights inform strategy – for example, you might discover that a prospect who attends a webinar and engages with two other content pieces is 5x more likely to book a meeting. With that knowledge, you can adjust your tactics or allocate budget more effectively. In short, omnichannel gives you a clearer ROI picture for your marketing and sales efforts.
  
• Competitive Advantage in 2026: As of 2026, many companies are still catching up to true omnichannel execution. Adopting it now can be a competitive differentiator. It enables you to provide the level of service and responsiveness modern B2B buyers expect (who, after all, are spoiled by seamless B2C experiences in their personal lives). Companies that master omnichannel can outperform competitors who are stuck in silos, by capturing customers that others might lose due to poor experience.
  

Cons of omnichannel marketing

• Higher Implementation Cost and Complexity: The biggest drawback is that true omnichannel marketing requires significant investment in technology and infrastructure. You need to integrate systems (CRM, marketing automation, social, chat, phone logs, possibly a customer data platform) so they talk to each other. This can involve purchasing new omnichannel software platforms or hiring technical expertise to connect existing tools. There’s also a need for data cleaning and maintenance to ensure the single customer view is accurate. All of this can be expensive and time-consuming, which might be daunting for small or mid-sized teams.
  
• Organizational Change Needed: Omnichannel isn’t just a tech project; it often requires breaking down organizational silos. Marketing, sales, customer success, etc., need to collaborate very closely and share data. In some cases, roles or processes have to be redefined around the customer journey rather than channel-specific duties. This cultural and process change can be challenging. Companies with rigid department walls or legacy processes might struggle to implement an omnichannel approach smoothly.
  
• Complex Measurement and Attribution: While omnichannel gives better overall insight, setting up attribution models that credit all touches and agreeing on omnichannel KPIs can be complex. Teams must decide how to measure success when multiple channels contribute. For instance, how do you attribute a closed B2B deal that had 15 touchpoints across sales and marketing? Omnichannel measurement requires more sophisticated analytics, and there can be a learning curve to trust and act on those insights (versus simpler single-touch metrics).
  
• Maintenance and Consistency Challenges: Running an omnichannel operation means you must keep all channels updated and in sync. Content needs to be consistent across platforms, which requires strong content governance and coordination. If something changes (say your value proposition or a product detail), all channels need to reflect that update. This adds ongoing maintenance effort. Additionally, personalization algorithms and workflows need continuous tuning – omnichannel is not a “set and forget” strategy; it demands constant attention to ensure every part is working in harmony.
  
• Potential for Over-Engineering: There’s a risk that in striving for integration, companies might over-engineer the experience. Not every customer needs or wants highly orchestrated interactions at every turn – some may find it intrusive if done poorly (for example, feeling “tracked” by too much personalization). Omnichannel done right should feel helpful, not creepy. This requires finesse and the right balance of automation and human touch, which can be a con if teams err on the side of too many automated messages across channels.
  

In summary, multichannel vs omnichannel involves a trade-off between simplicity and power. Multichannel is easier to start and manage but comes at the cost of a fragmented experience and less insight into customer behavior. Omnichannel unlocks a superior customer experience and better results but asks for more resources, alignment, and ongoing management. Many B2B organizations start multichannel and evolve toward omnichannel as they grow and as customer expectations rise.

Technology and tools for omnichannel vs multichannel

Implementing either approach requires the right tools, but an omnichannel strategy especially leans on technology to bring everything together. Let’s look at what tech stack and tools are typically used for multichannel versus omnichannel marketing, and how they differ.

Multichannel technology: In a basic multichannel setup, you might use separate tools for each channel without heavy integration. For example, your team could use an email marketing platform (like Mailchimp or HubSpot) to send email campaigns, a social media scheduling tool to post on LinkedIn/Twitter, a CRM for sales calls, and perhaps an event management tool for webinars. These might not automatically sync data with each other – and that’s okay in a simple multichannel approach. The emphasis is on having the capability to operate in each channel, rather than unifying them. You’ll track email metrics within the email tool, social engagement within the social tool, etc. Many B2B teams start this way because it’s relatively straightforward – essentially, a collection of point solutions.

One of the challenges of omnichannel marketing is accurately measuring performance across multiple channels. Without integration, if you want to see a customer’s entire journey, you may have to manually pull reports from each system and piece it together (e.g. using spreadsheets). This is where multichannel approaches can hit limits – when you have more than a few channels or a large volume of leads, manual tracking becomes untenable. At that point, many companies look toward omnichannel software solutions.

Omnichannel technology: An omnichannel strategy relies on a more unified tech ecosystem. Key components often include:

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system: A robust CRM (like Salesforce, HubSpot CRM, etc.) acts as the central database for all customer interactions. In omnichannel, the CRM is typically integrated with all your other tools so that it can record email opens, website visits, call notes, LinkedIn messages, and more in one place. This provides the “single source of truth” on each prospect.
  
• Marketing Automation and Journey Orchestration: Tools that go beyond single-channel automation. For example, platforms like Adobe Campaign, Oracle Eloqua, HubSpot, or specialized omnichannel marketing automation software allow you to create workflows that span channels. You can design a campaign that, say, sends an email, waits to see if the contact clicks a link, then adds them to a LinkedIn retargeting audience or triggers an SMS, etc., all automatically. These systems rely on event triggers and shared data to coordinate messaging across channels.
  
• Customer Data Platform (CDP): For larger organizations or those with lots of data sources, a CDP can be useful. It ingests data from multiple sources (website analytics, CRM, support tickets, etc.) and creates unified customer profiles. This helps in identity resolution (figuring out that John Doe who downloaded a whitepaper is the same John D. in your email list and J.Doe on your webinar – combining those into one profile). CDPs are an enabling technology for omnichannel personalization and analytics.
  
• Analytics and Attribution Tools: To handle omnichannel measurement, companies often deploy advanced analytics solutions or leverage features in CRMs/automation platforms that track multi-touch attribution. For example, software that assigns revenue credit to all touches in a deal, or that can visualize a customer’s path (first touch, lead creation, opportunity, deal, etc. with all marketing and sales touches in between). These tools help calculate omnichannel KPIs like the overall conversion rate of an integrated campaign, the average number of touches before conversion, or performance by journey stage.
  
• Channel-specific tools with integrations: You will still have channel tools (email sender, social media platform, calling software, chatbots, etc.), but in an omnichannel setup, you choose tools that can integrate via APIs or native connectors. For instance, using a webinar platform that connects to your CRM so attendee data flows in, or a LinkedIn Sales Navigator integrated with your CRM to log messages. Integration might be direct or through middleware (like Zapier or custom integrations). The goal is that data from each channel tool doesn’t stay locked in that tool – it feeds back to the central system.
  
• AI and Personalization Engines: An emerging category of tools uses artificial intelligence to optimize omnichannel interactions. AI can analyze customer data to determine the best next touch or to personalize content (as we at Martal do using AI for prospect insights). Examples include AI chatbots that escalate to human with context, or AI-based send-time optimization for emails to each contact, etc. While not strictly required, these tools enhance an omnichannel program by adding scalability to personalization efforts.
  

From a technology perspective, moving from multichannel to omnichannel often means shifting from a collection of disconnected tools to an integrated platform. It doesn’t necessarily mean one single software does everything, but rather that your various systems are talking to each other. For example, when a prospect fills out a form on your website, in an omnichannel setup that event might simultaneously (a) trigger a personalized email via marketing automation, (b) create a task in the CRM for an SDR to call them, and (c) add the contact to a nurture list for a future webinar invite – all based on unified rules.

Implementing such integration can be complex. Many companies choose to work with experienced partners or omnichannel marketing companies (agencies or consultants) to get the tech stack right. It’s also wise to adopt a phased approach: integrate two or three crucial channels first (often email, CRM, and website tracking), then add others like social and phone.

Key tools for B2B omnichannel outreach typically include a CRM, an email/marketing automation platform, a social outreach tool (for LinkedIn etc.), analytics dashboards, and sometimes outbound calling software – all tied together. Additionally, omnichannel software solutions may come as part of sales engagement platforms that allow sequences combining email, call, and LinkedIn steps in one interface (Salesloft and Outreach.io are examples used in sales development teams). These platforms effectively enforce an omnichannel cadence by scheduling different touch types in one sequence.

It’s worth noting that technology is a means to an end. Buying fancy omnichannel tools won’t automatically create an omnichannel strategy – you also need the strategy and content to use them effectively. That said, without the right tools, an omnichannel vision is nearly impossible to execute in practice. Conversely, if you are sticking with a simpler multichannel approach due to budget, you can still adopt some integration gradually (for example, even using something like Google Analytics UTM parameters to track if an email led someone to your site and then tying that to a CRM lead source – it’s rudimentary but a start at connecting data).

In summary, for multichannel you can often rely on basic tools for each channel and manual coordination. For omnichannel, plan to invest in an integrated system – CRM at the core, plus automation and data integration – to unify your efforts. The technology you choose should align with the channels your customers use and your goals for personalization and measurement. In the next section, we’ll discuss how to decide which approach (and thus which level of tech) makes sense for your business right now.

How to choose the right approach for your business

Every business will need to find its own balance in the omnichannel vs. multichannel question. The right approach depends on your customers’ expectations, your team’s resources, and strategic priorities. Here are some guidelines to help you choose:

When should you choose multichannel?

If you are early in your sales and marketing maturity or limited in budget, multichannel marketing is a great starting point. You should lean towards multichannel if:

• You can’t invest in heavy infrastructure yet. Multichannel is more accessible for small teams or those without a big tech budget. If purchasing a complex marketing automation platform or CRM integration is not feasible, it’s perfectly fine to start with simpler tools and just ensure you are present on the key channels. As one industry note puts it, multichannel efforts don’t require the level of spend that a full omnichannel e-commerce setup does, making it a cheaper way to increase your reach without breaking the bank.
  
• Your primary goal is expanding reach. If your immediate need is to get in front of more prospects and build top-of-funnel awareness, multichannel can accomplish that by spreading your message across platforms. For example, a startup trying to generate buzz might do outreach email marketing, social posts, and events separately just to maximize eyeballs. Integration is less critical at this stage than visibility.
  
• You’re testing new strategies or markets. Multichannel is useful when you want to experiment with different channels or messages to see what resonates. Because it allows channel-by-channel focus, you can more easily run pilot campaigns on one channel at a time. For instance, you might test a new outbound call script via cold calling while separately trialing LinkedIn ads to gauge which drives better lead quality before linking them together.
  
• Your customer journey is simple or high-touch. Some businesses naturally have a simpler funnel or rely on personal touch at each stage (e.g. a boutique B2B consultancy that gets most leads via referrals and just uses a bit of email and LinkedIn for nurturing). If the number of touchpoints is low, a full omnichannel orchestration might be overkill. A basic multichannel presence could suffice to support the sales process, since much of the work is 1-on-1 anyway.
  

In these scenarios, focusing on doing multichannel well – engaging customers on their preferred channels and tailoring content per channel – can yield strong results. Just be mindful of the cons we discussed: try to minimize customer friction by internally communicating across teams. Even if you don’t have full tech integration, you can have weekly syncs between, say, your sales and marketing teams to share what each is doing on various channels for key accounts.

Multichannel is often a stepping stone. Many companies will start here and then progressively move to omnichannel as they grow and see the need for more integration.

When should you choose omnichannel?

You should consider investing in an omnichannel strategy when delivering a cohesive customer experience becomes critical to achieving your goals. Signs that it’s time to go omnichannel include:

• Customer expectations for seamless experience. If your customers engage with you on multiple fronts (which is increasingly common in B2B) and expect a unified experience, you likely need omnichannel. For example, if you serve enterprise clients with long buying cycles, those clients might download content, talk to multiple reps, attend events, etc. They will assume you have a 360° view of them. To meet such expectations and avoid looking disorganized, an omnichannel approach is important. In general, if you hear complaints of customers having to repeat themselves or confusion from inconsistent info, that’s a clear signal to integrate.
  
• Desire to build stronger customer relationships. Omnichannel shines at building relationships and engagement. If your strategy is account-based marketing (ABM) or you’re focusing on upselling existing clients, providing personalized, cross-channel touches can significantly improve results. Choose omnichannel when you want to prioritize the quality of interactions over quantity. It’s particularly powerful for complex sales where trust and education over time are needed – omnichannel lets you nurture leads with a narrative that unfolds across channels.
  
• Sufficient scale and resources. Implementing omnichannel makes sense when you have (or plan to have) the resources to manage it. This might mean you have a marketing ops person, a tech budget for integrations, and buy-in from leadership to break silos. If you’re at a stage where you can allocate budget to a new CRM or data platform and dedicate time to strategy, then moving to omnichannel can unlock the next level of performance. Also, consider the scale of your customer base – if you’re dealing with hundreds or thousands of leads monthly, manual coordination won’t cut it; omnichannel systems will help you manage volume without dropping the personalization.
  
• Complex buyer’s journey with multiple touchpoints. If you’ve mapped your customer journey and see that it typically involves numerous touchpoints across different channels (as many B2B journeys do), omnichannel will help guide customers through that journey more effectively. For instance, a tech solution purchase might involve a prospect interacting with your content on your website, third-party analyst sites, social media, attending a demo, and several calls – orchestrating these in a cohesive way (with consistent messaging and timing) can be the difference between a closed deal or a lost one. When the journey is multi-step and multi-channel by nature, omnichannel is the right approach to manage and optimize that journey.
  

In short, choose omnichannel when you are ready to put the customer at the center of your strategy across all touchpoints. As one expert insight puts it, a brand should opt for omnichannel when they have the ability to prioritize a cohesive experience everywhere the customer interacts, focusing on building stronger connections rather than just broadcasting messages. It’s an investment, but one that pays off in higher conversion and loyalty when done well.

Keep in mind, this isn’t necessarily an either-or forever. You might adopt omnichannel for certain high-value segments or outbound campaigns while still doing basic multichannel for others. For example, you could run an omnichannel ABM program for your top 50 target accounts (with highly coordinated personal touches) and maintain a multichannel drip campaign for lower-tier leads. That’s a valid approach to gradually expand omnichannel capabilities.

Finally, involve your sales and marketing leadership together in this decision. Omnichannel often requires aligning these departments (and others like customer success). The question isn’t just a marketing tactic – it’s a go-to-market strategy. Ensure everyone is on board with the approach you choose, because as we like to say: an omnichannel strategy in name only (without true sales and marketing alignment and integration) won’t yield omnichannel results.

How Martal Helps You Execute a High-Performing Omnichannel Strategy

At Martal Group, we have embraced omnichannel because we’ve seen firsthand how much more effective it is in today’s B2B sales landscape. As a leading B2B sales and lead generation agency, we specialize in omnichannel outreach – and we help our clients implement and execute high-performing omnichannel programs without the usual headaches. Here’s how we do it and how “we” approach omnichannel for our customers:

1. Integrating multiple outbound channels in one campaign: We coordinate cold email, phone (cold calling), LinkedIn outreach, and more into unified sequences so prospects hear a consistent story across touchpoints. Rather than relying on one channel, our team designs outreach cadences that might start with a warm-up email, follow up with a LinkedIn message referencing that email, and then a phone call – all timed appropriately. Each interaction builds on the previous one. By managing all these channels for you, we ensure nothing falls through the cracks. For example, if a prospect clicks a link in an email but doesn’t reply, our system flags that and our outsourced SDRs will follow up on LinkedIn or with a call, armed with the knowledge of what interested that prospect. We’ve found this integrated approach dramatically increases response rates and meeting bookings compared to single-channel efforts. 

2. Consistent messaging and personalization: As an extension of your team, we maintain a unified message across all outreach. Our content team crafts value propositions and pain-point-driven messaging that is used in emails, call scripts, LinkedIn messages, etc., creating a seamless narrative. Prospects get a cohesive experience – for instance, if we’re targeting a VP of Sales, all touches might revolve around a specific challenge (say, pipeline generation in Q1) with tailored language. We use personalization extensively, referencing details like the prospect’s industry or recent company news, to show that we understand their context. Martal’s approach is to treat each prospect as a “market of one,” using data and research to customize outreach at scale. This customer-centric ethos is core to omnichannel success and is something we instill in every campaign.

3. Leveraging technology and AI: We have invested in the software and AI tools that make omnichannel efficient. Our team uses advanced sales engagement platforms that allow orchestrating multi-touch sequences and tracking responses in one place. We also incorporate AI for tasks like intent signal analysis and send-time optimization. For example, our AI SDR platform might identify that a certain prospect is more likely to engage on LinkedIn (based on their activity patterns), so we’ll prioritize that channel for initial contact. Or if AI flags that a prospect visited our client’s pricing page, we can trigger an immediate personalized reach-out. By combining human expertise with technology, we react in real-time to buyer behavior – a hallmark of high-performing omnichannel programs. We handle the complexity of tool integration and data analysis behind the scenes, so our clients benefit from the results (more leads, faster conversions) without having to build that infrastructure themselves.

4. Continuous optimization and training: Omnichannel is not a set-it-and-forget-it tactic, so we continuously refine campaigns. We track which messages and channels are getting the best engagement and adjust strategies accordingly. Because Martal operates across various industries and campaigns, we bring a wealth of benchmarking data – if we see, for instance, that video messages on LinkedIn are getting a higher reply rate in one campaign, we can apply that learning to others when appropriate. Additionally, we offer B2B sales training through our Martal Academy to help internal sales teams embrace omnichannel techniques. We train SDRs and sales reps on how to use multiple channels synergistically (for example, how to reference an email in a call, or how to use LinkedIn insights to warm up an email outreach). By upleveling your team’s skills and mindset, we ensure the omnichannel strategy is executed consistently, whether by our staff or yours.

5. End-to-end coverage and appointment setting: Martal’s services cover the entire outbound lead generation cycle – from initial prospect identification to booking qualified appointments. A big part of a successful omnichannel program is timely follow-up and nurturing, and we handle that. If a prospect engages on one channel but isn’t ready, we nurture them across others until they are sales-ready. Our appointment setting service means once a prospect signals interest (explicitly or via behavior), we move quickly to get them on a call with our client’s sales team, coordinating calendars and prep. This ensures that the hard work of multi-channel engagement translates into concrete opportunities. For clients, it feels like their sales pipeline is being magically filled from all directions – but behind the scenes, it’s our orchestrated omnichannel engine at work.

In all these efforts, we avoid being “salesy” or overly promotional. Our tone (even as we write this blog) remains professional and value-driven. We believe omnichannel outreach should provide value at every touch – sharing insights, answering questions, demonstrating credibility – not just pushing for a sale. This philosophy is baked into Martal’s approach. Our goal is to help clients accelerate B2B growth by combining the scale of multichannel outreach with the personal touch of a single coherent conversation.

By partnering with Martal, B2B companies can tap into our proven omnichannel playbooks without having to build everything from scratch. We’ve spent over a decade perfecting how to blend cold email, LinkedIn, calls, content, and more into effective cadences. The result: our clients see higher lead volumes, better conversion rates, and ultimately more revenue – all while their prospects enjoy a seamless experience interacting with their brand. That’s the power of omnichannel, and we’re proud to execute it as “we” on behalf of our clients every day.

Ready to elevate your B2B sales outreach? At Martal, we help you harness the power of omnichannel – from cold email and LinkedIn to calls and AI-driven personalization – all integrated into a high-performing strategy. If you’re looking to boost lead generation and appointment setting with a seamless, multi-touch approach, book a consultation to learn how we can become your omnichannel sales partner. Let’s turn your multi-channel efforts into a truly omnichannel revenue engine and keep your sales pipeline ahead of the curve.

References

1. McKInsey & Company
2. Forbes
3. McKinsey & Company – B2B Sales – Omnichannel
4. Sinch
5. Think with Google
6. Markopolo