The language we use to define our problems often influences the outcome.  Although it may seem semantical to worry about the difference between multi and cross-channel, the implications are actually pretty significant.

Multichannel generally applies to the ability to deliver messages to customers via any of the myriad channels.  This is the basic cost of admission in our digital, social media world where alternatives are always just a click away.  What this doesn’t address, however, is the synchronization of those efforts.

Looking at the future of marketing, marketers ability to drive performance and accountability will be tied to their ability to manage to channel, content, and customer.  A multichannel approach is great for managing to the channel level, but starts to fall apart at the content and certainly customer level.

Cross-channel marketing is about putting the customer at the center of the campaign and insuring you can deliver content that is all relatable to a customer.  While this is somewhat easy to describe, it is much more difficult in practice to execute.

Integrated, cross-channel marketing is clearly the future for marketing automation.  To fulfill its potential, however, these tools will need to evolve to reach new heights.  Start to look for the ability to listen, learn, understand, and plan all from within one application.

While multichannel isn’t bad, what you want is cross-channel.

Agree?  Disagree? Let me know your thoughts.

About Marcus Tewksbury

Marcus Tewksbury has written 12 post in this blog.

Marcus is a respected author, speaker, and thought leader on optimizing marketing organizations to most efficiently, and effectively create value added experiences for high worth customers; a process that he has termed Customer Relationship Marketing, or CRM(arketing).

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