Omnichannel Marketing has become Omnichannel Noise

My realization about the tenets of omni-channel marketing came early in my career as a t-shaped marketer managing social media. I watched brands chase presence across every platform, convinced that being everywhere meant winning everywhere.

They were wrong.

I started calling it omni-irrelevant instead of omnichannel. When your effort doesn't meet your impact, there's a flag on the play. In marketing, like sports, availability matters as much as ability. But, if your brand isn't creating reciprocal engagement with its online activity, that activity becomes noise that gets ignored.

The Fatigue Is Real

I once watched a retail brand decide they needed to be on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, and YouTube all at once. They posted 5-6 times daily across all platforms.

The same promotional message, repackaged slightly differently, everywhere.

From the customer's perspective, the exhaustion looked like this: You'd see their ad on Instagram in the morning, get retargeted on Facebook at lunch, see another version on TikTok in the evening, and receive an email about the same promotion at night.

The comments section was interesting to say the least. People started saying, "I've seen this five times today" or just stopped engaging altogether and likely unsubscribed. 

Their engagement rates dropped even though their posting frequency increased.

The data backs this observation up. 70% of consumers unsubscribed from at least three brands in a three-month period because of excessive messaging. Not bad messaging. Just too much of it.

Customers weren't ignoring this brand because the content was bad. They were tuning out because the brand had become background noise. It was like having someone follow you from room to room repeating the same thing.

Eventually, you just stop listening.

The FOMO Trap

If we’re being honest, the internal conversation about pulling back is one of the hardest battles in marketing. You're fighting against deeply ingrained fear.

Throughout my career, when I’ve presented data showing declining engagement despite increased activity, the immediate reaction is usually panic followed by "we need to do more" or "we need better content" or "we need to try another platform."

There's this FOMO mentality where leadership thinks pulling back means conceding market share to competitors.

At Kulur Group, we prioritize learning agendas at the start of a project. We align on the most critical questions we need answered. Often, one of those core questions is: which channel is most effective at driving the desired result?

I've learned to reframe the conversation around ROI and opportunity cost.

If we're spending 60+ hours a week managing eight channels that generate minimal return, what could we accomplish if we invested those same 65 hours into two channels where our audience actually engages? Too often, organizations mistake frequency for relationships and connection.

It takes a true partner for an agency to tell a CMO or marketing director, who then has to tell their CEO, "we're abandoning four channels," because it feels like a retreat.

The key is understanding that it's not retreat, it's strategic focus. You're not doing less marketing. You're doing less noise and more impact. Choose channels where you can genuinely own a moment, not just appear.

What Actually Works

Omnichannel was supposed to be the holy grail: meet your customer everywhere, seamlessly. Instead, brands chasing presence on every platform created a fragmented, exhausting experience for consumers.

The channels multiplied. The meaning didn't. In my opinion, omnichannel is still critical but must be approached properly.

In practice, omni-relevance is about personalized relevance, not just being everywhere. Brands can use technology to create experiences that connect based on customer behavior, purchase history, location, time, and preferences. 

For example, the Starbucks mobile app integrates ordering, payment, rewards, and personalized offers into one place.

• Customers can order ahead, customize drinks, pay, and earn loyalty stars all tracked in their profile.
• The brand uses past purchase behavior to deliver contextual offers and suggestions and incentivize visits at the right times (e.g., morning coffee promos).
• This creates a unified experience across mobile apps, in-store, email, and loyalty channels.

Starbucks turns data into relevant triggers, suggesting offers based on your favorite drink, past buys, and location near a store to sustain mindshare.

Where omni-irrelevance happens, you see a lack of mindshare, and consumers are indifferent to what you’re saying and doing. Things like identity, values, lifestyle, and functional needs get sought after in other brands. That transitions a brand from having a presence to being irrelevant. 

This sounds like a slow and painful breakup.

The businesses that thrive aren't doing the most. They're doing less, better.

Challengers don't have the budget to be everywhere, so they're forced to focus their efforts in one place. But don’t mistake this for a constraint, because it’s actually a strategy.

Purpose over Presence

As a marketer, it’s important to suspend your personal biases about what you think will work versus what's really working.

The channel that "feels more modern" often loses to unsexy workhorses like targeted email nurture sequences.

At this stage in my career, the effort-versus-impact trade-off is an easy adjustment. I've seen the pattern repeat: marketers are intrigued by channels that feel flashy or might be where their peers are, even when those channels don't perform.

The real competitive advantage now lies in knowing which channels to ignore.

You're not retreating. You're focusing. You're replacing omni-channel noise for true impact.

And your customers will actually hear you again.