How do you create a consistent and coherent online marketing strategy across multiple channels?

Knowing your ideal customer persona is a critical step before starting your campaigns. By discovering who your ideal customers are through research, focus groups, surveys, existing marketing data, and social listening, you'll be better positioned to develop content that resonates with those most likely to be attracted to your content, and your products or services. Often, businesses overlook customer persona profiling and jump right in to creating content with no clear picture of their ideal customers and thus, make the mistake of creating content that reaches the wrong audience, or worse yet, no audience at all.

Another way to create consistency is by monitoring and analyzing your data regularly. By keeping track of metrics like click-through rates, conversions, and engagement levels on each channel, you can identify which strategies are working best for you and make adjustments accordingly. It’s important to remember that analytics don’t only apply to individual channels but also how they interact with one another. Understanding how different platforms complement or compete with each other will allow you to refine your strategy further.

Conduct market research to understand your target audience's preferences, demographics, and online behavior. This will help you tailor your messaging and content to resonate with them effectively.

In my early years as a marketer, I worked on a campaign for a tech startup targeting small businesses. Our objective was clear: increase sign-ups for their software. However, we initially overlooked the audience. Some interesting insights: 1) Research your audience thoroughly before creating content. 2) Develop detailed buyer personas with demographics and challenges. 3) Select marketing channels aligned with your audience. 4) Create content that addresses their needs directly. 5) Continuously analyze and adapt based on metrics. Prioritize understanding your audience for a successful marketing strategy. Creating your approach to their needs leads to better results.

Use a top down approach, rather than bottom up. This means understanding what your audience wants and identifying competitor gaps to create a total marketing strategy before channel & format selection. It should mean everything is positioned to point towards the same goal. A bottom up approach means figuring out which audiences resonate with your channel (rather than which channels resonate with your audience). It makes a big difference which way round you do this to consistency.

In my experience, choosing the right marketing channels and formats is essential for all businesses. Here are some insights: 1) Align channel selection with your campaign's goals and budget. 2) Email nurtures leads and fosters loyalty effectively. 3) Social media boosts reach and engagement. 4) Create your content for each channel—text, images, audio, or video. 5) Video shines for product showcases, while text offers in-depth information. Always let your objectives and audience guide your channel and format choices. It's about delivering the right message to the right people in the right way.

Rather than guessing at the most "effective and appropriate" marketing channels for your objective, consider running an omnichannel campaign such as Google's performance max, which allows you to run across multiple channels in different stages of the customer journey. You can use the same creative formats across many different channels with this method and quickly discover your most effective assets and audiences!

?? Select channels based on your target audience's preferences and behavior. For instance, if your audience is active on Instagram, prioritize that platform. Tailor content formats to suit each channel's strengths; for example, use videos for YouTube and LinkedIn, and images for Instagram. Consistency in channel selection and format helps streamline your message and maximize engagement.

Consider budget, resources, and goals when selecting from options like email, social media, blog, website, video, podcast, webinar, ebook, infographic, or online advertising. Each channel has distinct advantages, disadvantages, and best practices, requiring alignment with your strategy and audience. For instance, email nurtures leads and builds loyalty, while social media enhances reach and engagement. Determine the content type for each channel, be it text, images, audio, or video, considering their unique requirements and benefits. For example, the video effectively showcases products, while the text provides detailed information or instructions, ensuring a tailored approach to your message and audience.

Integrating Google Trends into your content calendar for real-time topic relevance. I once boosted engagement by 20% just by aligning content with trending topics. 1) Use project management tools like Trello or Asana for visual content scheduling. 2) Set weekly review meetings to adjust content based on performance analytics. 3) Implement a 'content recycling' strategy to repurpose high-performing posts. 4) Establish clear KPIs for each content type to measure effectiveness. 5) Incorporate user-generated content to increase authenticity and engagement.

It's essential to adapt your content format for each specific channel while still maintaining a cohesive message. Different platforms may require different types of content - such as blog posts, videos, or social media updates - but it's important to ensure that the core message and values of your brand remain consistent. This means understanding the nuances of each channel and tailoring your content to fit its format, while still maintaining a cohesive narrative that aligns with your overall marketing strategy.

For a cohesive online marketing strategy, establish a content calendar and workflow. This tool outlines the what, when, where, and how of creating and distributing content across multiple channels. The content calendar plans topics, titles, keywords, deadlines, and responsible parties for each piece, ensuring organisation. The workflow manages content creation and distribution, detailing steps, roles, tools, and feedback for each piece. This coordinated approach aligns your content with objectives and audience, optimizing time, resources, and quality in your online marketing endeavours.

When launching a video campaign, I created the content for each platform, resulting in a 30% increase in viewer engagement. 1) Create platform-specific versions of videos, shorter for Instagram and more detailed for YouTube. 2) Use A/B testing for different headlines on Facebook and LinkedIn. 3) Employ SEO tools like SEMrush for keyword optimization per channel. 4) Design mobile-first content; over 60% of online traffic is mobile. 5) Utilize platform analytics to refine content strategy continuously.

This is a common misfortune I see—creating one piece of content and using it on every channel or making a few, pedestrian changes to the content and seeing matching lackluster results. My recommendation? Fewer campaigns done right. If you know your research-backed persona consumes social, go social first. Your video content should be built for that, not OOH. Another way to save budget and run a properly optimized campaign would be to focus on high performing channels and eliminate the rest.

?? Customize content for each platform by understanding its unique audience and features. For instance, use hashtags on Instagram for discoverability, while focusing on professional tone and visuals on LinkedIn. Tailor content length and style to fit platform norms; concise captions for Twitter, longer-form posts for LinkedIn. Optimization ensures your message resonates effectively across channels, boosting engagement and visibility.

?? Regularly analyze key metrics like engagement, reach, and conversions across all channels. Use analytics tools provided by each platform or third-party software for comprehensive insights. Identify top-performing content and channels, and understand audience behavior to refine your strategy. Adjust tactics based on data-driven findings to optimize performance and drive better results over time.

Track key metrics like impressions, clicks, views, shares, likes, comments, leads, sales, or revenue for each channel and format. Utilise tools and methods, such as analytics platforms, dashboards, or reports, to collect, organise, and visualize data effectively. Through this measurement and analysis, discern successful aspects and areas needing improvement in your online marketing strategy. Make informed adjustments and enhancements based on insights and feedback, ensuring a dynamic and responsive approach.

Instead of treating each marketing channel as a separate entity, map out the entire customer journey across all touchpoints and channels. Understand how customers move seamlessly between online and offline interactions, and identify key moments where they engage with your brand. This unified approach allows for a cohesive strategy that delivers a seamless experience regardless of the channel.

Another crucial point is to continuously listen to your audience using monitoring tools which will help to analyze the reception of your message. With the insights you uncover, you can then adjust your strategy to suit your audience's needs and make sure that you are delivering value that resonates with them. For example, let's say you run a soap company and your customers consistently rave about the quality and unique fragrance of your lavender soap. In response, you could create a holiday gift bundle featuring a limited edition, customizable care box that includes the lavender soap, a matching lotion, and a scented candle to cater to their preferences and create a memorable gifting experience and inspire product development.

I believe there’s a fundamental piece missing. What’s the story you’re trying to tell? What’s the purpose? For it to be coherent, it has to ladder up to something more than a collection of silo, short-form pieces of content. I’ve always led team(s) to think about the larger narrative - if you master the ‘master’, the shortform content can be tailored for each stage of the consumer funnel and adjusted in message, lengthy, purpose, CTA accordingly. In my personal experience, if the channel need dictates the purpose or the story, it’s purely transactional and doesn’t connect with customer and doesn’t build the brand.