Why Omni-Channel Marketing Scores Over Multi-Channel Marketing with Rytis Lauris, Co-Founder and CEO of Omnisend

Welcome to the Marketing Growth Podcast. I’m your host, Shane Barker, and today I have with me Rytis Lauris, the co-founder and CEO of Omnisend, an all-in-one e-commerce marketing platform that boosts ROI through automation, email, and SMS. Omnisend helps businesses effectively reach new customers and engage existing ones through omnichannel marketing. With over 100 employees, Omnisend is a fast-growing company and has earned a spot in Deloitte’s UK Technology Fast 50 in 2020 and the FT1000 Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies in 2021.

Before Omnisend, Rytis founded and bootstrapped several successful startups. He’s passionate about helping SMBs reach their full potential by marketing the right way. In today’s episode, Rytis will explain how omnichannel marketing benefits e-commerce brands and how it differs from multichannel marketing.

Before we dive into the conversation, I’d like to take a minute to talk to my listeners. If you’re into digital marketing, you know it can be time-consuming and tricky. That’s why it’s smart to get help from experts who can manage your campaigns from start to finish. For fully managed services or expert consultations, get in touch with my team at Shane Barker Consulting. We offer content marketing, influencer marketing, online PR, and product launch assistance at competitive rates. For more information, visit our website at ShaneBarker.com—that’s S-H-A-N-E B-A-R-K-E-R.com.

Now, let’s talk to Rytis again.

Hey, you guys. Welcome to the Marketing Growth Podcast. I’ve been researching this company for a while, and we’ve been trying to connect for some time. We’re very fortunate to have Rytis Lauris, the co-founder of Omnisend, with us today. We’ve been chasing you for a little while, my friend. It’s great to finally connect. You’re a busy man!

Absolutely, man. Yeah, like I said, we’ve been looking at your platform, and we’ve actually used it, and it’s nothing but good things. So I thought, okay, we’ve got to find out who owns this, and we have to get them on the podcast. And here we are today. I really appreciate you taking the time.

For people who might have heard of Omnisend, like I said, you guys are one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe, and just all over. I mean, you’ve really done some phenomenal things in a very short amount of time. For those who might not know, are you one of the co-founders? I think you have another co-founder as well, right?

Awesome, awesome. Yeah, so as a co-founder, I wanted to start by getting to know you a bit better. We always like to learn more about the owners and understand their background. There’s always something interesting to uncover about individuals. So, to begin with, where did you grow up? Where are you originally from?

I’ll tell you, man, it was a shock for me too because, obviously, I speak at a lot of events and do a lot of keynote speeches. When it came to a halt, it really came to a halt. I was like, “Wait, I don’t have to get on a plane? I don’t have to go back?” It was kind of crazy. But there was also a part of me that thought, “This can be kind of nice too.” I don’t have to run around and hustle, bouncing from one thing to the next.

It was difficult for a few months, though. I really struggled not being on the move, jumping on planes, and doing things. But then, I took solace in understanding that I could finally focus on my business. I looked at expenses, and there were a lot of things I usually just paid for without thinking twice. I realized I could approach things differently. Thankfully, my speaking engagements weren’t a huge part of my business. They were a good part, but nothing that would cripple the business by any means.

So, we just jumped into webinars and remote work.

By the way, how big was your family growing up?

Yeah, it’s funny. My brother is six and a half years younger than me, so it’s kind of the same situation. I was the only child for a while, and then suddenly, here comes the sibling. I was like, “Oh, okay, I guess we’ve got a little competition for Mom and Dad’s attention now.” But it’s all good! It’s funny looking back.

Having a younger brother or sister is definitely nice, though.

Yeah, agreed.

Yeah, yeah. I’ve got a funny story. I don’t think I’ve ever told this one. So, when my brother was being born, I was actually in the hospital room. I was seven years old, and it was kind of crazy. My mom, who was a nurse—actually, a baby nurse at that—was fine with me being there, so they let me in. I was off to the side, not really understanding what was going on.

I’ll never forget hearing my mom scream, and I thought, “Oh, God, that doesn’t sound good.” At seven, I didn’t really understand the whole birth thing. Then I heard her say, “Oh my God, I think I’m gonna die.” I was like, “What do you mean?” and I just panicked. I yelled, “Put it back in!” like, you know, just keep the baby in there for a little longer, maybe a few more months, until we figure things out and then bring him back out.

I was freaking out! But later, my mom told me she was fine. She wasn’t actually going to die, but at that moment, it really freaked me out. So, if you ever have a seven-year-old in the room while giving birth, be careful, because it can be traumatic for them! But hey, I’m okay now!

Yeah, I should have been prepped a little better before I jumped in there. But give us some obviously being from Lithuania, like, tell us get any interesting facts about about that from when you growing up? Anything fun?

That sounds amazing, like something you’d see on a postcard! You know, it’s funny, there are a lot of countries in Eastern Europe that I haven’t visited yet. Now that speaking engagements are starting to come back up, I might start pitching some other places internationally. That’s literally what I do—I find a country I want to visit, then I pitch them, saying I’ll come out there to speak, and they’ll cover my travel expenses. I get to make a little vacation out of it too. That’s my secret, but it’s not quite a secret anymore, since I just told everyone in the world! But, yeah, that sounds awesome!

Now you’re just teasing me! You might see me in a hot air balloon in a few weeks. I’m serious, man, I’d come up there in a heartbeat. Any invite, anytime—I love getting the chance to travel, experience the food, the people, and the culture. I’d pack my bags tomorrow if I had the chance. Especially after COVID, I’m itching to get out. It’s one of those things—whenever anyone wants to go anywhere outside my house, I’m like, “Let’s do it!” Obviously, with masks and all the other precautions, but yeah, I’m all in for that.

That sounds amazing. And are you currently living in the same city, Vilnius?

It is incredible, and I’m with you on that. That’s my time to listen to a book. Because otherwise, I’m constantly getting Slack messages, phone texts, and everything else. But when I’m up there, especially if the internet is spotty—most of the time it is—it’s kind of a blessing in disguise. I can focus on my book, get some work done, or just organize my files. It’s like a reset. It gives me a chance to step away from the real world for a bit, get things done, and then head back refreshed.

I actually just went to Orlando last weekend, and when I was on the plane, I was thinking, “Man, I haven’t been on one of these in a while.” It’s been a bit, but it felt nice, you know? Of course, you’ve got to wear a mask, which can make it a little hard to breathe, but hey, who needs to breathe, right? It’s not that big of a deal!

I think you’re spot on. It’s your time to disconnect, which is so needed. I always tell people, especially in the last year, “Listen, I’m not a brain surgeon. No one’s going to die if I’m offline for eight hours.” I don’t think anyone’s died from me not answering a Slack message, right? At least not that I know of! But yeah, it’s a great time to just unplug.

Actually, sometimes I plan trips where I know there won’t be any internet. I think it was my wife who started that idea. She was like, “Yeah, there’s no internet.” I’m like, “Wait, no internet? How can that be?” At first, I was panicking, walking around outside with my phone in the air trying to get any kind of cell reception. But after a while, I realized, you know, this is actually a good thing. It forces me to truly disconnect, and I’ve set up a lot of processes, so I’m not as needed as much anymore. That’s been a big lesson over the last few years—being able to still be productive and have the right people in place to make decisions for you when you’re not around.

So, where did you go to college?

That is awesome.

That’s great. “For an extra charge, we’ll hide your phone from you.” That would be amazing. That’s when you know you’re addicted to your phone—when they say, “We’re going to take it from you,” and you’re like, “Thank you so much! Here’s some extra money.” Who knew?

So, where did you go to college?

Yeah, me too. I’m the same way. I’ve said this before—what I learned in college, I probably use about 1% of it, if that. For me, it was all about jumping in, getting my hands dirty, really doing it, and then learning how to do it. The next step was hiring people who are better at it than I am. The goal is to find those individuals who are smarter than me, which, I found out, isn’t too hard! It only takes a few interviews, and I end up with all kinds of people smarter than me. It’s awesome.

So, what was your first job out of college?

Yeah, I remember when that took off—it was huge. I remember thinking, “For just $1? This is an amazing deal!” And then, all of a sudden, we have iPhones that can pretty much do anything. People even forget that their phones were once just phones. At some point, you’d be like, “You know that’s a phone too, right?” And people would be like, “What? It makes phone calls?” It’s amazing how quickly things change!

So, what I want to talk about next is your journey. You originally started with a company called Soundest, right? Is that how you pronounce it? You launched it in 2014, and then in 2017, you transitioned to Omnisend, focusing on omnichannel marketing automation. That’s when you really excelled. That was almost five years ago now. You guys were probably one of the original companies I know of that jumped into omnichannel marketing. I’d love to hear more about that journey. How did the idea for Omnisend come about?

Yeah, I think COVID really accelerated that shift for a lot of businesses. I do a lot of consulting work for the Small Business Administration to help businesses, and there are so many that were like, “Oh, we’ll go online one day,” or “We’ve got a website, but we haven’t updated it in five years.” Then, when COVID hit, it was like, “Oh, shoot, we’re behind. We need to get this going.” It forced a lot of businesses to adapt quickly.

So, when we talk about omnichannel and multichannel marketing, what’s the difference? I know I’ve written articles about it, but I’d love to hear your definition. What’s the difference between omnichannel and multichannel?

Yeah. I mean, the issue with multi channel is, I mean, really, you’re just the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing right. And so that’s, that’s the issue. It’s like, you know, which is, you know is, is great in some situations, but not when it comes to marketing. Like, you want to know if somebody came in through this channel, you won’t want to send them this message over here. And they’re like, Well, I just inquired with you 24 hours through this channel. And obviously that’s going to be continuously be an issue if businesses aren’t looking at that and saying, hey, you know, I need to, once again, have my messaging all under one thing so I can see the full picture, which I think is beneficial.

Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of value in that. So, in regards to omnichannel marketing, why is it important for e-commerce businesses? I know you guys have around 50,000 businesses on the platform, so you clearly have a lot of experience with this. What would you say is the reason e-commerce businesses should embrace omnichannel marketing?

Thanks, Rytis, that was an awesome conversation. I’m sure my listeners now understand why omnichannel marketing outweighs multichannel marketing, especially for e-commerce brands.

To my listeners, thanks for tuning in today. We have a lot more coming up in the next episode, where Rytis will dive into the mechanics of email and SMS marketing for e-commerce. So, don’t forget to tune into the Marketing Growth Podcast!