Creating a Multichannel Marketing Strategy

Remember back in simpler times when online advertising was just web and email? Essentially, you could only reach the user while they were on their computer —  and even then, countless other emails and ads were competing for their attention.

Fast-forward to today and we now have more channels than ever to reach prospects: podcasts, digital television, and online marketing like native ads, remarketing, social media, push notifications, webinars, etc. And as many consumers are using platforms outside of Google for search, finding new ways to reach buyers is essential.

How do you blend this into a cohesive multichannel marketing strategy? I’m covering that in this piece. I’ll explain what it means, its benefits, and its importance, and provide a step-by-step guide to creating an actionable plan.

Key Takeaways

• Multichannel marketing allows brands to connect with audiences on their preferred platforms, broadening overall reach. This is more important now as many consumers use platforms outside of Google to find what they want.
• Engaging across channels ensures a cohesive brand message, building customer trust and familiarity.
• Multiple channels provide diverse data, helping marketers refine strategies based on customer preferences and behaviors.
• By interacting with audiences across various touchpoints, brands increase the chances of conversion as they meet customers throughout their journey. Channel options include out-of-home advertising, social media, PPC ads, radio, influencers, or TV ads.
• To start your multichannel marketing strategy, begin by deciding what your aims are and which KPIs you’ll use to ensure you’re on track, create buyer personas so you can target your ideal audience more effectively, and select the right platforms.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• What Is Multichannel Marketing?
  • Multichannel Marketing vs. Omnichannel Marketing
• What Are the Benefits of Multichannel Marketing?
• How to Create a Multichannel Marketing Strategy
  • 1. Define Your Goals and KPIs
  • 2. Understand Your Target Audience
  • 3. Choose the Right Channels
  • 4. Create Consistent Messaging
  • 5. Develop a Content Calendar
  • 6. Implement Tracking and Analytics
  • 7. Optimize for Each Channel
  • 8. Integrate Channels for a Seamless Experience
  • 9. A/B Test and Refine
  • 10. Review and Adjust Regularly
• FAQs
• Conclusion

What Is Multichannel Marketing?

Multichannel marketing means reaching and engaging customers across multiple platforms. This cross-channel marketing approach can include email marketing, social media, immersive events, audio advertising like podcasts, or display advertising.  

Subway is one example.

Recently, the fast-food chain launched a massive eight-figure multichannel marketing campaign using:

• Social media.
• Out-of-home (OOH) advertising.
• Television.
• Video on demand (VOD).
• Radio.
• CRM.
• Customer loyalty.
• Online video (OLV).
• Influencers.

The Two Ways to Subway campaign offered customers a choice between chef-inspired creations or custom choices. It aimed to reach 96 percent of 18-to 44-year-olds, inviting them to ‘pick a side.’

Source: Subway

The advertisement recognized that some buyers want to create their own subs, while others want a chef-curated meal. 

The campaign appealed to consumers because it reached a broader demographic and highlighted its versatility, while its marketing amplified reach and engagement.

Multichannel Marketing vs. Omnichannel Marketing

A multichannel marketing strategy is sometimes confused with omnichannel marketing, but there are several differences.

As I detailed above, multichannel marketing uses multiple channels to reach customers. This lets consumers interact with brands on their preferred channels; each platform has separate goals and works in silos. A buyer might discover the brand on Instagram and then go and buy in-store, for example.

Omnichannel provides a customer-centric, integrated, seamless experience that allows continuity and consistency. For instance, Starbucks integrates its app, website, and stores so customers can check rewards, order online, and pick up in-store.

What Are the Benefits of Multichannel Marketing?

There are several benefits of using multichannel marketing, like:

• Increased Reach: Because you’re on multiple platforms, you have more opportunities to engage with your audience and build brand visibility.
• Higher Engagement: Providing more touchpoints means you have more chance of audience interaction. 
• Improved Customer Experience: You can provide better customer service by delivering a personalized experience as your buyers move between channels. 
• Greater Data Insights: With more access to data, you’ll have a clearer picture of customer behavior across different channels, and you can adjust your marketing plan accordingly.
• Enhanced Conversion Potential: Reaching customers at different stages of their journey increases leads and conversions.
• Better Brand Awareness because your brand is visible on various platforms.
• Increased organic traffic from being on social media and your chosen marketing channels.

How to Create a Multichannel Marketing Strategy

Now you know the basics, you should be primed and ready to put your multichannel marketing plan together. I’ve compiled a list of steps to get you up and running with confidence. 

1. Define Your Goals and KPIs

The first question to answer is what you want to achieve cross-channel marketing. Is it brand awareness, lead generation, conversions, or something else? Next, what KPIs will you track to know you’re on the right course?

For example, for brand awareness, you’d measure visibility, share of voice, brand searches, etc.

With lead generation, you’d track customer acquisition costs, lead conversation rates, cost per lead, and lead value.

If your main focus is conversions, keep tabs on metrics like click-through rates and return on investments.

Monitor your KPIs on different platforms, too. For instance, on social media sites like X, look at metrics such as:

• Follower growth.
• Followers.
• Top posts.
• Shares.
• Engagement
• Click-throughs
• Conversions.
• Brand mentions/mentions.

By narrowing down your targets to what’s working, you can concentrate more of your resources on channels that deliver the best results  creating a seamless experience for your customers across all touchpointsl

2. Understand Your Target Audience

Once you better understand your target audience (the people you’re trying to sell to), you can market to them better, allowing you to maximize your profits.

How do you do this?

By identifying audience segments, like demographics, behaviors, and preferences, so you can tailor messages that resonate with different marketing methods. You see, the more you understand your target customer (their pain points, wants, and needs), the more effective your multichannel marketing will be, as you can provide relevant content at every touchpoint.

Think this part sounds tough? Well, it’s not. All you need to do is:

• Create customer personas (a fictional profile of your ideal customer) so you know who you are marketing to.

• Run regular surveys to learn about the customer experience and what your business could do better.
• Monitor social media for common gripes and for ideas to improve your product/services.
• Read reviews and respond to feedback. Yes, even the negative comments as they can be valuable learning experiences.

3. Choose the Right Channels

It’s not about everywhere and anywhere. A successful multichannel marketing strategy includes choosing the right channels, whether social media, email, SEO, or PPC, etc., and focusing on the tactics that will help you achieve your goals.

As Catherine Michel, Sr. Content Production Lead, NP Digital says:

“Let’s be honest – when you’re staring at ALL the possible marketing channels, it’s tempting to try everything at once. But as someone who’s helped guide content strategy for industry giants, I can tell you that’s a recipe for spreading yourself too thin”.     

Here’s my tried-and-true approach to prioritizing marketing channels:    

1. Start with your data (because who doesn’t love a good spreadsheet moment?). Look at where your target audience actually spends their time, not where you think they should be. Their behavior patterns will tell you everything you need to know about where to meet them.
2. Evaluate your resources realistically. Yes, platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn demand consistent posting schedules, but that’s just the start. Each channel requires its own content style, format, and engagement strategy. If you can’t maintain quality and consistency across multiple platforms, it’s better to scale back than to post sporadically.
3. Analyze your sales cycle. B2B companies with longer sales cycles might find LinkedIn and email marketing more valuable, while B2C brands with impulse purchases could thrive on Instagram, TikTok, or Pinterest. The key is matching your channel choice to your customer journey. The secret sauce? Start with 2-3 channels you can absolutely nail before expanding. It’s better to be exceptional on a few platforms than mediocre on many. I’ve seen companies try to be everywhere at once, only to end up with dormant accounts and fragmented brand presence across social media -not a good look for any brand.

Remember: The goal isn’t to be everywhere — it’s to be consistently present where your audience needs you, with content that serves them. Quality and consistency win over quantity every time. Everything else is just noise.”

4. Create Consistent Messaging

You know one of the most important areas of cross-channel marketing to get right? Consistency. This is essential with multichannel marketing, as your potential customers are seeing you across different formats, and using consistent messaging brings it all together.

Also using the same messaging, tone, narrative, and imagery helps:

• Build customer trust
• Develop an emotional connection
• Aid brand recognition

For example, if you’ve launched an eco-friendly brand, you’d share images of your products on social media along with your sustainability-first claims. Then, you can use the same images and language on your website, emails, and display advertising.

Other ways to improve consistency include:

• Using brand guidelines.
• Introducing automation to manage your marketing on various channels.
• Developing a unified message to reflect your brand voice while allowing flexibility to adapt to the tone and format of each channel.

5. Develop a Content Calendar

Establishing a content calendar means you can guarantee timely and coordinated posts across your multiple channels. Use a spreadsheet to detail content plans for your platforms, publication dates and status, etc., like this example:

Source: Smartsheet

You’ll have to use some analytics tools to decide on the frequency and timing of posts to get the best traction. With KPIs, look for areas like engagement, shares, brand mentions, etc.

And post on social media at the best times for each site. According to SproutSocial:

• On Facebook, peak engagement times are mid-morning on weekdays.
• LinkedIn content does best between 10 and 12 am on weekdays, with Tuesdays and Wednesdays getting the most engagement.
• Instagram has peak engagement times during the week between 10.00 a.m.. and 2.00 p.m. This extends to 4.00 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
• TikTok’s peak engagement times are weekdays, Tuesdays- Fridays from 4-6pm being most popular. Engagement also spikes from 9.00 a.m – 11.00 a.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays.

6. Implement Tracking and Analytics

I touched on this earlier on. The KPIs you measure depend on your multichannel marketing goals. Typically, that would be things like:

• Conversion rates.
• Customer acquisition costs
• Customer lifetime value
• Engagement rates
• Channel attribution (which channels get you leads, click-throughs, conversions, etc.)
• Return on Investment (ROI)

You can use Google Analytics for traffic numbers, page performance, conversions, page views, and other core data.

Other useful software for monitoring your KPIs include:

• Whatagraph for analyzing channel marketing performance.
• Coupler for SEO, social media, and emails.
• Adriel for paid advertising, analytics tools, and mobile measurement platforms.

7. Optimize for Each Channel

As part of your multichannel marketing strategy, you should customize content to suit each channel’s unique strengths.

For instance:

• On social media, you’d concentrate on visual assets like images and video.
• If your customers are finding you through search, write SEO-optimized content.
• Write mobile-friendly, responsive emails for your email marketing.

Vary the type of content you publish on different channels, too, like punchy videos on TikTok and eye-catching headlines for X. Keep your B2B content for LinkedIn, but use attention-grabbing statements along with striking images for Instagram.

As Catherine Michel said earlier, don’t try to be everywhere: market to your audience on their preferred platforms.

8. Integrate Channels for a Seamless Experience

To guide your buyers through the customer journey and provide a unified, cross-channel marketing experience, integrate channels by using:

• Links to bridge the gap between your advertising formats. For example, you could add social media icons to emails or QR codes to display advertising or magazine ads.
• Retargeting to re-engage potential customers who have visited your website, viewed a product on an e-commerce site, or shown related products on social media.
• Cross-channel promotions include sending marketing emails that link to a sale via your app or holding online contests and inviting people to subscribe to your mailing list for more opportunities to win. For example, Under Armour combines Interactive in-store experiences, influencer content, a customer shopping app, a connected fitness community, and more.

9. A/B Test and Refine

A/B testing with elements like ad copy, call-to-action buttons, free lead magnets, and colors let you see what works best and adjust your marketing based on performance data.

There are various opinions on how long you should run A/B testing. Generally speaking, 7-14 days should be the minimum. For more detailed data, you could run 6-8 weeks. You’ll also need a good sample size, and Adobe has a calculator you can use for this.

10. Review and Adjust Regularly

Regularly reviewing your performance lets you see your strategy’s effectiveness, adjust strategies, and reallocate budgets as needed. Keep your main goals in mind along with the KPIs to ensure you’re hitting your multichannel marketing goals.

Focusing on your highest-performing channels allows you to refine and optimize your results for continued improvement.

FAQs

What is multichannel marketing?

Multichannel marketing refers to leveraging multiple channels to reach and engage with your audience You could use online methods like social media, email, or PPC ads, or offline methods like TV, radio, and display advertising, or a combination of these.

What are examples of multichannel marketing?

Coca-Cola is one of the best examples. You see it on social media. Remember the #shareacoke campaign? You’ll also see TV advertising, in-store displays, or branded fridges. 

Nike is another retail giant that’s all over social media. It also has its own retail stores, the Nike running club app, influencers like Megan Rapinoe, a community, and it uses email marketing.

What is the difference between omnichannel and multichannel marketing?

Multichannel marketing reaches customers through multiple channels. Each channel operates separately, for example, with a separate TikTok channel, email, then on its website. 

Omnichannel marketing is more customer-focused and provides a seamless, integrated experience across different channels

Conclusion

Are you currently leveraging multichannel marketing initiatives in your business? It could be all your business needs to attract new customers and grow.

A multichannel marketing strategy is easy to put together. Just follow the tips in this piece, and you’ll be good to go. That doesn’t mean it won’t need refining, though, so keep track of your KPIs so you know you’re working towards your goals. You can level up your approach by using multichannel marketing alongside content marketing and SEO for a complete strategy that delivers results.