Complete Brand Guide to Cross-Channel Marketing and Campaigns

In 2024, most brands are already creating content for various social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest all at once. That's a cross-channel marketing strategy, right? Wrong. 61% of people expect brands to tailor experiences based on their preferences. Posting the same content to these channels is no longer enough to see actual results, and a robust cross-channel marketing campaign must personalize the target audience's journey.

In this article, discover what cross-channel marketing is, why your brand should implement it, and tips for doing so successfully, with a few practical examples.

What Is Cross-Channel Marketing?

Cross-channel marketing refers to how brands or businesses use multiple channels to reach their target audience and consumers. This type of marketing aims to lead potential customers from one step of the process to the next in a natural, effective way. Ideally, once consumers become familiar with or begin recognizing and trusting the brand, they will purchase the product or service offered within the specific campaign.

Cross-channel Marketing vs. Multichannel Marketing

The difference between cross-channel marketing and multichannel marketing is quite simple. While both involve communication using different marketing mediums, multichannel marketing focuses on each channel as its own entity. In contrast, cross-channel marketing integrates the involved channels into one combined strategy. Multichannel marketing efforts coexist as a part of a strategy, while cross-channel marketing efforts work together. 

Why Should Brands Use a Cross-Channel Marketing Strategy?

Cross-channel marketing is highly effective. In fact, after analyzing 2,700 campaigns, Dash Hudson's data suggests that the greater number of social channels included within a campaign, the greater the engagement and impressions.

The graph below shows how campaign metrics increase as more social channels are added to the mix.

This data proves that cross-channel marketing campaigns outperform single-channel campaigns. Yet, roughly 36% of campaigns have one social channel, while only 2% of brands use six. So, why do many brands still limit their campaign participation to one? 

Creating and selecting the perfect assets for the prime time tailored to a specific audience can feel challenging for one social channel, let alone six. But if the above data proves one point — the extra legwork pays off in the long run.

Benefits of Cross-channel Marketing

The benefits that come with a successful cross-channel marketing campaign reach far beyond increased engagement and impressions. 

Here are several perks that come with a solid cross-channel marketing strategy: 

Perfecting the consumer journey.

A well-thought-out campaign sets the tone for how a potential customer's journey will progress. A perfectly optimized (and personalized) campaign guides a consumer through the process naturally and effectively. The more cross-channel marketing campaigns you launch with this in mind, the more you will learn what your target audience responds to and how to enhance their experience. 

Building strong brand awareness.

A successful, well-rounded cross-channel marketing campaign makes your brand recognizable and makes it simple for your target audience to find you. If they can’t easily find you, you need to expand your strategy to encompass more channels. More channels expose your brand to a level of awareness that may not have been attainable by reaching new users and potential customers through every unique asset. The more consumers see your brand throughout their journey, the more likely they are to become interested and potentially convert. 

With these benefits in mind, let’s look at some tips to help your brand get the most out of its cross-channel marketing campaign and strategy.

5 Tips for Launching a Cross-channel Marketing Campaign

A great cross-channel marketing campaign strategy goes beyond the standard best practices of a single or multichannel social media campaign. Because of this, it’s essential to focus on some new areas that aren’t necessarily typical when planning a campaign. 

Here are 5 tips to help you get started:  

Establish Personas

Understanding your audience and their personas is essential when it comes to creating a cross-channel strategy. You’re looking to find out your customer's preferences, habits, behaviors, needs, and pain points throughout their journey in order to streamline the process from discovery to follow or purchase. 

Social listening tools have made finding this information about your consumer base easier, but it’s still important to observe your buyers and even take time to imitate what their journey would be like by walking through the process you expect them to take step by step. Here you will be able to identify what parts of your strategy are working and what could use some improvement.

Focus On Personalization

Personalization is what makes cross-channel marketing the powerhouse that it is. Using the information you gather for your buyer personas will not only help you identify what's working and what isn't, but you'll also be able to pinpoint which elements of your strategy require personalization.

To do this, you'll want to use tracking URLs or browser cookies to get a feel for the users' online actions. With this information, you'll be able to see which social media platforms or PPC they've interacted with, what emails they've received from your brand, which pages on your website they've visited or read, and more. Use this information to find what resonates with your users and personalize the journey even further.

Expand Tactics Beyond Social Media

While social media is an excellent piece of a cross-channel marketing puzzle, it works even better when integrated with various tactics. A healthy mix of social media like YouTube and Facebook, paid ads, blog content, SMS, and email ensure your consumers have a touchpoint wherever they go looking for you. 

The great thing about cross-channel marketing is that your strategy can constantly evolve depending on your consumers' response. So don’t be afraid to experiment with different combinations of tactics to see what works best for your customers and your campaign. 

Prioritize Video Assets

After analyzing 2,700 campaigns to understand better what drives success, Dash Hudson can conclude that campaigns that include video outperform campaigns that do not. In fact, campaigns with video saw a +66% increase in avg. Engagement Rate and a +586% increase in avg. Impressions.

What does this mean? Users want to be entertained. While the concept of social entertainment isn’t new, it does showcase that brands must have video assets at the forefront of their cross-channel strategies. Campaigns featuring videos will ultimately drive more engagement and impressions, which in turn will drive sales.

Utilize Data to Better Inform Future Campaigns

One of the most impressive aspects of cross-channel campaigns is the analytics and data that can be collected to inform current and future campaigns. The insights gathered from a single cross-channel campaign about each step in the user journey could take weeks or even months to collect through more straightforward single or multichannel campaigns. 

You can use the data from your campaigns to run A/B tests and experiment with call-to-action placement to know how to optimize every step of your future campaigns fully.

Cross-channel Marketing Campaigns Made Simple With Dash Hudson

Creating and executing cross-channel campaigns can feel daunting and overwhelming, but the reporting doesn’t have to. Dash Hudson has developed a Campaign Reporting tool that measures cross-channel marketing campaign success and ROI effortlessly. Track key insights, see what assets and channels drive success, and, most importantly, discover how to optimize your future campaigns properly. 

Additionally, Competitive Insights allows you to save time, remain agile, and set industry benchmarks. A must-have for brands looking to take their cross-channel marketing strategy to the next level.

FAQs

What is the meaning of cross-channel?

Cross-channel means using a mix of different marketing channels to reach customers. Some examples of these different channels include email, paid, blog, and social media. Effective cross-channel marketing efforts utilize a mix of channels in a way that is complementary to one another.

What is an example of cross-channel?

Whenever you see a brand promoting its website or blog content on social media, that is an example of cross-channel marketing. A less obvious example is any links within marketing emails that either bring you to the brands' website, a product, or social media channels.

What is the difference between cross-channel and omnichannel marketing? 

Cross-channel marketing is focused on connecting a brand to consumers through various touch points and channels, while omnichannel marketing concentrates on an overall multichannel strategy. The two are very closely linked, and in fact, cross-channel marketing can be considered a subset of an omnichannel marketing strategy.