From Connected TV to YouTube, the fact that marketers have countless ways to engage with consumers is both a blessing and a curse. While the potential to reach millions – even billions – is unprecedented, the challenge lies in crafting tailored content for each platform and delivering it effectively to the right audience, at the right time. Feeling overwhelmed? Fear not! Our experts at Inspira have put together the ultimate multi-platform digital marketing checklist.

What is Multi-Platform Marketing and How Does it Work?

One of the best things about multi-platform marketing is that you’re present at every touchpoint across the consumer journey, without being intrusive. This approach integrates different forms of digital marketing such as organic and paid social media campaigns, targeted email marketing, search engine optimization, SMS, and even your brand website, to create a comprehensive outreach strategy.

This strategic approach involves a coordinated effort to optimize your potential reach and engage different audience segments across multiple channels. Content and messaging are tailored to the unique environment and audience on each platform ensuring your brand resonates with consumers organically, whether they're searching or scrolling. By doing so, your brand will show up at exactly the right moment, presenting itself as the magical solution consumers need in their lives.

Whether your target consumer is just entering the funnel or ready to spend money, the objective is to build a more comprehensive brand presence on their preferred platforms that ultimately leads to better engagement and conversion.

Common Challenges in Multi-Platform Digital Marketing

What channels should I prioritize? My marketing team is small, how can I create unique content for each channel? How do I know what’s working…and what’s not? These are common challenges that marketers face when developing multi-platform strategies.

At Inspira, we begin by developing a deep understanding of the brand and your marketing teams goals. Then, we recommend the channels that will be most effective in reaching your target audience. For example, if you’re targeting the over 50 crowd, you’re going to want to focus on platforms like Facebook, rather than TikTok or Snapchat.

Next, we work with our clients to develop engaging platform-specific content. Although the content needs to be tailored for the platform, for instance, short informational videos for YouTube, brief yet witty X posts, catchy Instagram Reels, or optimized Google ads, the tone and branding needs to be consistent across all touchpoints.

Once the content is up and running, we look at analytics and integrate the data across platforms to create a comprehensive campaign analysis. Here’s where things get interesting. Unlike single-channel campaigns, multi-platform digital marketing involves diverse platforms, each with their own metrics and data formats. Also, users engage differently on different platforms (no surprise there!) and this complicates the assessment of user engagement levels across platforms. Finally, with engagement across so many channels, there’s a challenge in determining which platform specifically contributed to a conversion. There are various attribution models (last-click, first-click, linear, etc…) and understanding which one to apply can be challenging for marketers who are looking at data in a silo.

Checklist for Effective Multi-Platform Marketing

Ready to get started? Here are a few practical tips to consider before developing a multi-platform marketing strategy.

Develop Your Strategy. Set clear goals, such as driving awareness or sales, and how you will monitor progress and define success. Understand your audience, where they live, and how they interact, and then choose the appropriate platforms.

Adapt Your Content Strategy for Each Platform. Define how, when, and what you’ll communicate to your audience. Regularly review your content strategy to understand what resonates with your audience and adjust your content to align with these changes.

Stay Updated on Algorithm Changes. Each platform frequently updates its algorithms, affecting how content is displayed and engaged with by users. For instance, a change in Facebook’s algorithm might prioritize user-generated content over brand posts, and you may need to adjust your content strategy to align with these updates.

Utilize Audience Segmenting Tools Effectively. Simplify targeting different audience segments on platforms like Facebook (age, interests) vs. LinkedIn (industry, job role). Understand these segments and make the appropriate choices to effectively reach your consumer.

Leverage Data and Analytics. Base your decisions on data, not feelings. Emphasize the importance of data in shaping and refining marketing strategies. Look at what’s working and what isn’t – it’s ok to stop doing what’s not working and shift to new ideas. Introduce tools like Google Analytics  which help to centralize data and serve as a source of truth across platforms. GA also helps identify the quality of users from each platform, how much time they spend on your website, and how engaged they are once they arrive.

Leveraging Our Cross-Platform Marketing Success

We were able to increase revenue for our apparel client, Any Means Necessary, by 153% YoY by applying a multi-platform approach. They came to us wanting to hone their email marketing, Google, and Meta strategies, and while doing so, saw an opportunity to test new channels, such as programmatic ads and Connected TV (CTV). We also tested new channels, such as Reddit and Pinterest. This allowed us to deeply understand the target consumer, uncovering where they lived online and how best to reach them. If we had simply limited our reach to Meta and Google, we might not have identified these new audiences and contributed to significant brand growth.

Across industries, marketers are struggling to put all the pieces of the digital marketing puzzle together. We know how. Contact Inspira today to get started.

This article has been published in the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Marketing Knowledge Center. Click here to visit their blog.

Written by Alexa Sorensen