A few years back, using just one channel such as email, cold calling or SMS was enough to connect with prospective leads. Fast forward to the current scenario. It is quite evident that single-channel outreach is no longer as effective as it used to be.
In the current B2B landscape, multichannel outreach, using multiple platforms such as LinkedIn, email, WhatsApp, text messages and cold calling is becoming the preferred approach. If cold calls are getting little or no response or your emails are getting lost in the inbox clutter, then it may make more sense to adopt a multichannel strategy.
Studies show that businesses using a multichannel approach achieve a significant increase of up to 287% in customer engagement, as well as higher annual revenue growth, compared to those using an omnichannel approach.
The debate of single channel vs multi channel outreach continues. Each of these approaches has its distinct advantages and drawbacks and as B2B businesses navigate through the dynamic and competitive landscape, the choice between these two approaches becomes vital for effective lead prospecting.
Benefits and Drawbacks of Omnichannel Outreach
The single-channel outreach approach emphasizes focusing resources and efforts on one specific channel.
Benefits
- Straightforward: The approach is simple and easy to follow, allowing you to focus all your efforts on a specific channel without any disruptions.
- Cost-Effective: Spending on a single channel helps prevent the budget from being spread too thin, ensuring a more focused and manageable budget allocation.
- Niche Know-How: Having a thorough understanding of a single channel enables you to become an expert and offer a competitive edge.
Drawbacks
- Not Reaching Everyone: Focusing on just a single channel may restrict your access to potential customers who may be interested in your offering, resulting in missed opportunities.
- Increased Risk: If the channel that you’ve chosen becomes less popular, then your entire lead generation strategy could be at risk.
- Missed Opportunities: All the prospective customers you want to reach via your outreach may not be in a single place. Focusing on one area may result in missed opportunities in others.
Benefits and Drawbacks of Multichannel Outreach
In contrast to the omnichannel outreach approach, multichannel prospecting uses several channels to reach out to prospective customers.
Benefits
- Wider Reach: Multichannel outreach offers more possibilities, allowing you to connect with a diverse target audience and more prospects.
- Adaptability: If one channel becomes weak or becomes less popular, then the other channels provide a safety net.
- Varied Target Audience: Using different channels can help attract varying demographics, ensuring that you can connect with a broader range of potential customers.
Drawbacks
- Increased Complexity: A multichannel approach means handling, managing, and optimizing several different channels that require more resources and effort.
- Strain on Resources: Using several channels means a greater need for more resources. This can become an expensive proposition and put strain on your limited finances.
- Challenging: Handling several channels all at once can become messy if not done properly. So, it is essential to maintain the right balance.
Reasons Why a Multichannel Outreach Approach Works
The multichannel outreach approach works because of the following reasons.
- By using different touch points across several platforms, businesses can reach more prospects and boost engagement. This increases the likelihood of moving the prospective customers down the funnel.
- It enables businesses to get the maximum value from their prospects. For example, combining LinkedIn outreach, email marketing, and cold calling can increase the number of meetings significantly, offering a more well-rounded and complete approach.
- Connecting with prospective customers where they spend most of their time and addressing their needs and preferences can enhance the chances of a beneficial interaction.
- Enables businesses to highlight the features, benefits, and impact of their product/service from different angles to give a complete picture of their offering, addressing the varied needs and interests of the target audience.
- It allows businesses to diversify their outreach channels and optimize the opportunity. After all, more meetings mean more leads and better ROI.
- Depending on a single channel puts businesses at risk for various situations such as algorithm changes, changes in the platform itself, etc. Multichannel helps future-proof the outreach efforts, reducing dependence on a single channel and spreading the risk.
- A multichannel strategy makes it possible to explore newer channels, attract new audiences, and broaden the reach, which may not be possible with an omnichannel approach.
- Businesses can track the results across various channels to identify what works and what doesn’t. They can use the information to fine-tune their outreach strategy, ensuring continuous improvement.
HubCredo Case Study Showcasing the Success of a Multichannel Outreach Approach
A client of HubCredo who was into UI/UX design and website development was struggling to find good-quality leads. As a result of this, their sales pipeline was beginning to stagnate. The client was using just one channel for outreach, i.e., cold calling for lead generation. With the omnichannel approach, the client could reach around 100 prospects and get around 1-2 meetings a month.
HubCredo strategized with the client and developed a multichannel outreach strategy, where we decided to run email campaigns and LinkedIn outreach along with cold calling. The results of this multi-pronged approach were astounding.
We sent emails to around 600 prospects per month and were able to nurture 100 clients a month via LinkedIn, get 60 positive replies via email and set up 10+ client meetings a month.
Conclusion
To conclude, the debate between single-channel and multichannel outreach approaches is ongoing. While the single-channel approach is simple and cost-effective, it can become outdated and has the risk of missing opportunities. On the other hand, although it is more complex and needs more resources, the multichannel outreach approach offers more flexibility and wider reach. Ultimately, the approach you choose must align with your business objectives and deliver value consistently in every outreach effort.