The fundamentals of a cross-channel digital marketing strategy

1. The fundamentals of
a cross-channel
digital marketing
strategy
@nupurandworld

2. ‘Cross-channel,’ ‘multi-channel,’
‘integrated’ and ‘holistic’ are just
some of the terms used by
marketers to describe
campaigns that run across
multiple channels and
platforms.
The reality is that you’re likely to
be using more than one
channel, and having a way to
tie those channels together to
achieve a common goal is
going to play a key part in
making your marketing efforts a
success, regardless of whether
you’re using paid media, SEO,
digital PR or CRO.

3. 1. Integrated objective setting
the importance of objective setting
might sound like we’re stating the
blindingly obvious, but while having a
clear overarching business objective is
certainly a start (and probably a
minimum requirement), ensuring that
you are translating your business
objectives into marketing objectives
and digital KPIs is something that
every strategy will benefit from.
This will also ensure you’re well
positioned to describe your strategy to
stakeholders in the future too, as this
will provide you a clear framework for
communicating how your strategy
and channel plans can impact wider
business objectives.

4. What is your overarching
business objective?
How might marketing
impact that business
objective? Use the answer to
define your marketing
objectives.
How might your digital
channels impact those
marketing objectives? Use
the answer to define your
digital KPIs.
Think about it like this:

5. Once you’ve completed the
above process, you’ll be left with
a KPI framework that clearly
shows how your various digital
KPIs all ladder back to your
overarching business objective.
As we all know, each channel
has its own strengths and
weaknesses when it comes to
the KPIs that it can drive.
By using a framework like this,
you can employ a variety of
channels with different KPIs,
while being sure that each one
has a clearly-defined role within
your overall marketing strategy.

6. 2. Using quality insights
While many strategies might
claim to be insight-led, the
reality is that many are
founded upon too many
assumptions. As we’ll come to,
there’s nothing wrong with
making assumptions as long
as they’re identified and put to
the test.
Before including something in a
strategy, ask yourself, what
insights do you have to support
that decision? This may be
related to what your
competitors are doing or what
you can glean about the
different channels available to
choose from.

7. Humans are creatures of habit
and we therefore tend to
default to the things we know
have worked for us in the past.
Applying the above criteria to
any insights that you are using
to build your strategy will help
to prevent you from falling into
this trap.
Ask yourself why you’re
recommending a certain
creative, format or channel.
Is it because the data tells you
to, or is it because it aligns with
activity that you’ve seen done
before? Instead of just doing
what’s been done elsewhere,
use insights to guide your
decisions as much as possible.

8. 3. Create hypotheses
planning digital campaigns, the
focus is firmly on the data and
rightly so. However, while we
tend to create strategies based
on the data we do have, the
data that we don’t have can be
just as valuable but often gets
overlooked. The reality is, no
matter how much you know
about your customer, product
and channels, all strategies are
based on assumptions.

9. As we mentioned above, you should
try and base your strategy on insight
as much as possible, but there will
always come a time when you need
to make an assumption about what’s
going to work.
This is where hypotheses can play a
massive role in identifying which
assumptions were the right ones and
which were wrong.
Fundamentally, every
recommendation you make in your
strategy should be turned into a
hypothesis with a clearly-defined
testing methodology.
Taking this approach will not only
allow you to validate your strategy,
but the results of the tests will also
provide you with greater insight for
the next cycle of activation.