How to Build a Powerful Multi-Channel Marketing Strategy [2025]

Looking to maximize your reach and engage more customers? 

Explore this guide to building a multi-channel marketing strategy in 7 practical steps.

What Is a Multi-channel Marketing Strategy?

A multi-channel marketing strategy is a way of engaging customers across various marketing channels.

It can span both online and offline platforms. Think social media, email, PPC, TV ads, and billboards.

The goal? To maximize reach and conversions by using the right channels, at the right time.

Take the skincare brand The Inkey List, for example.

Their marketing efforts include social media, out-of-home ads, influencer partnerships, and in-person pop-up events at local hotspots:

Why You Need a Multi-Channel Marketing Strategy

53% of marketers struggle with building an effective strategy when launching multi-channel marketing campaigns. 

However, campaigns using four or more digital channels can outperform single or dual-channel campaigns by as much as 300%. 

A well-defined multi-channel marketing strategy helps you to:

• Reach a larger, more diverse audience by tapping into the unique preferences of different target groups and customer segments
• Build brand awareness and trust by giving you more frequent exposure across a range of channels
• Boost customer engagement by optimizing for each channel, and so create more targeted and meaningful interactions
• Drive more conversions by covering multiple channels, moving your customers through those touchpoints to reach a quicker conversion
• Learn more about your target audience by experimenting with different channels, tactics, and content to see what works best for your customers.

Our State of Content Marketing campaign is a great example. 

We spent months planning our efforts. We then created a data-driven report as a gated ebook, which we promoted (and repurposed) across multiple channels to maximize downloads. 

Those channels included social media and display ads, influencer partnerships, blog posts, webinars, email marketing campaigns, and sponsorships.

The result was over 100,000 visits, 18,000 report downloads, and excellent ROI—something we could only have achieved with a solid strategy. 

How to Build an Effective Multi-channel Marketing Strategy in 7 Steps

So, how can you put together your own effective multi-channel marketing plan? 

Here are our 7 steps to success.

1. Align Business Objectives with Your Multi-Channel Marketing Strategy 

Start by setting clear goals for your marketing strategy. 

These should directly align with overarching business objectives. Such as building brand awareness or generating sales.

Make sure your objectives are SMART: specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound.

For example, if you’re looking to attract more leads in the next quarter, your goal might be: 

“In the next 3 months, we plan to increase the number of sales qualified leads (SQLs) coming from marketing campaigns by 20%, reaching 2,300 leads by the end of Q4.”

Next, consider how each marketing channel will help you to achieve this goal. For instance:

• We will create a gated content offer (e.g., an ebook) to attract initial marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
• We will promote it through digital channels, including paid and organic social, to reach more users
• We will then use email marketing to create personalized nurture workflows and convert these leads in sales qualified leads (SQLs)

Finally, map each channel in your strategy to a specific goal-related outcome—be that revenue growth, brand visibility, or customer loyalty. 

2. Conduct Deep Audience Analysis

The foundation of any successful multi-channel marketing strategy is a deep understanding of your audience. 

Knowing where your leads spend their time online helps you to focus your efforts on the most impactful channels.

Here's how you can understand your audience:

1. Study your existing customers: Use your CRM data and surveys to analyze their demographics, interests, and behaviors.
2. Use social listening: With tools like Brand Monitoring, you can monitor conversations about your brand and industry on social media to understand your audience's pain points.
3. Conduct surveys and interviews: Gather direct feedback from your potential customers to understand their needs and expectations.
4. Leverage audience research tools: Tools like One2Target can provide valuable information about your audience's online behavior, interests, and demographics.

Let’s look at an example.

Head to One2Target to generate audience insights in just a few clicks.

Simply enter your (or your competitors’) website domain(s), and click “Analyze”.

Next, explore the key tabs for a breakdown of the audience insights. 

One2Target will generate information about their demographics, favorite communication channels, behavior, and more.

3. Select and Prioritize Your Marketing Channels

Next, decide which channels you want to tackle with your campaigns. 

Look at your audience preferences and analyze historical performance data. 

For example, have you noticed if paid media performs best for conversions? Or, perhaps you’ve seen that a specific type of email nurturing increases engagement?

Use this information to inform your channel selection. Here are some key metrics to consider:

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Lower CAC indicates a more cost-effective channel
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): Higher CLTV suggests a channel attracts valuable customers
• Conversion Rate: Focus on channels with higher conversion rates to drive sales
• Return on Investment (ROI): Prioritize channels that generate a strong ROI

There are many tools for analyzing channel performance. 

For example, you can use Google Analytics (GA4) to find out how different traffic sources contribute to conversions.

Once you understand which channels perform the best, prioritize them in your campaign. 

For instance, choosing channels that convert at the highest rate will aid a sales-focused campaign.

4. Craft a Unified Messaging Strategy 

A messaging strategy defines the core ideas, values, and information you will share with your target audience. 

For example, Nike’s “Just Do It” tagline communicates their core message: to empower individuals to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals.

To devise your own messaging approach, use this message map template from Wynter: 

Here’s how:

1. List your audience’s pains and motivations (from step 2 above)

For example: Busy professionals struggle to manage tasks and feel overwhelmed by complex processes.

2. Write the core message

For example: “Get more done without stress” with our project management tool.

3. Highlight key points

For example: Save time on routine tasks, automate communication, collaborate in real-time. 

4. Add supporting points

For example: Use AI assistant for task prioritization, automatic requests, offline access.

5. List examples, facts, testimonials

For example: Customer reviews, or statistics that demonstrate how the project management tool saves time.

5. Personalize Your Messages Across Various Channels

Once you have defined your messaging concept, think about how to adjust it to suit different channels.

Of course, your key message should be consistent across every platform.

But the tone of voice and formats you choose might vary, depending on what works for each avenue.

Let’s use Nike as an example again. Their social media posts are energetic and community-driven. 

However, their print ads are bolder and more minimalistic.

They transmit the same message and personality, but take a different approach.

Here’s how this could work for our fictional project management tool:

• Social media: Anenergetic and humorous tone, with short and snappy captions, such as, “Tired of feeling overwhelmed by endless to-do? Our project management solution is here to save your sanity!”
• Email marketing: A professional yet approachable tone, highlighting personalization and value-focused text. For example, “Our project management solution can boost your productivity by 30%.”
• Website banners: A simple and direct tone, with strong visuals and prominent CTAs. for instance., “Get your work done 10x faster.”

6. Set Up Your Multi-Channel Marketing Campaign

Next, take care of the technical setup of your campaigns. 

Imagine you want to run ads on various channels.

You’ll need to use different platforms to upload campaign creatives, manage budgets, and track the results.

Alternatively, you could use specialized tools like Semrush’s Ads Launch Assistant. It lets you manage Meta Ads (Facebook, Instagram) and Google Ads in one place.

First, navigate to the tool and log in or sign up.

Next, connect your Google Ads and Meta Ads accounts. 

From here, start adding your campaign details, such as the target URL, the campaign description, the daily budget, and so on.

Ads Launch Assistant will also generate customized ad variants for you and help you set up targeting.

Once you’re ready to go, review the suggested ads and launch your campaign with one click.

7. Measure Performance Data Across Channels 

Continuously tracking your cross-channel campaign performance will help you get better results over time. 

It also lets you determine which channels, content, and messaging work best, with such performance metrics as:

• Website traffic
• On-page engagement rates
• Click-through rates
• Conversion rates
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Customer lifetime value (CLTV).

For example, you can use Ads Launch Assistant to analyze your paid campaign performance in a particular place. 

It will consolidate data from your Google Ads and Meta campaigns and help you quickly spot high- and low- performing strategies. 

Use it to examine your conversions and clicks and spot important patterns and trends. You may find that certain creatives, targeting settings, or budget setups tend to work best for your campaigns.

Key Features of a Strong Multi-Channel Marketing Strategy

So, what are the key features of a successful multi-channel marketing strategy?

Let’s have a look.

1. High-Quality Integrated Customer Data

With multiple marketing channels in use, it can be difficult to keep track of your campaigns.

You may have a clear overview of what’s happening on each channel.

But you might also struggle to get a holistic picture with data housed across different tools and platforms. 

In this case, you could try a CDP (customer data platform) to collect details on customers from various sources and create personalized campaigns. 

Here's an explanation of how it works:

CDPs like Segment and Bloomreach help you track customer actions and tailor marketing acitivites based on user characteristics and behavior. 

2. Consistent Cross-Channel Messaging

It’s important to maintain a consistent message across channels. This helps you build trust and tell an engaging story.

To do this, you should:

• Develop clear brand guidelines: Define your brand voice and key brand personality traits. This acts as a north star for all your marketing efforts.
• Create a single campaign brief: Ensure everyone involved in your multi-channel campaign understands the core message and target audience.
• Centralize communication: Use a project management tool like Notion to keep everyone on the same page and avoid mismatched messaging.

For instance, take a look at how Semrush’s marketing team came up with the powerful message behind our Gaby campaign.

3. Smart Automation and AI Tools

To manage your campaigns efficiently, use marketing automation and AI tools to streamline and personalize your content creation.

For example, our Ads Launch Assistant has a suite of AI features that can help you:

• Generate high-quality ad copy and keywords tailored to your target audience, saving you time and effort.
• Get expert recommendations on campaign settings and optimization strategies to improve your results.
• Monitor your campaigns across Google and Meta from a single dashboard, for valuable insights to refine your approach.

Another great example is ContentShake AI. 

This AI writing tool automates content creation for your SEO and social media efforts.

For example, it can help you write blog posts optimized to rank in search. 

It can also create engaging social media posts to promote your content on Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), and more.

4. A Functional Marketing Attribution Model

Marketing attribution assigns credit to the marketing channels and touchpoints that influence a customer's decision to convert.

This helps you understand which channels and assets contribute to the ultimate success—and iterate accordingly.

For example, marketing attribution shows you whether a customer who purchased your product entered the marketing funnel through a specific ad or social media post.

Here are the key types of attribution models:

• Last-click attribution gives all the credit to the final interaction before a conversion
• First-click attribution assigns all the credit to the initial touchpoint. 
• Multi-touch (or linear) attribution distributes credit across all touchpoints, helping you understand the combined impact of various channels.

For multi-channel campaigns, the linear attribution model is often the best choice because it assigns equal credit to all touchpoints in the customer journey. 

This helps you get a balanced view of how each channel contributes to conversions.

Craft a Stellar Multi-Channel Marketing Strategy 

With a well-planned multi-channel marketing strategy, you can amplify your reach, boost engagement, and increase conversions. 

When building out your multi-channel strategy, remember to:

• Set SMART goals that align with business objectives
• Conduct thorough audience analysis 
• Select and prioritize your marketing channels based on individual performance and multi-channel synergy
• Craft a unified messaging strategy
• Adapt your message for each channel while maintaining consistency 
• Set up end-to-end analytics to continuously track performance and optimize your efforts. 

Ready to give it a try?

Try Semrush’s Ads Launch Assistant to create high-performing multi-channel ad campaigns in a couple of clicks.