What is Cross Media Marketing? Tools, Benefits, and Challenges

We keep seeing advertisements of the same brands on multiple platforms, be it an Instagram reel or a digital billboard across the streets. That’s what multi-platform advertising is all about and how smartly brands convince you to buy their products and services.

In this blog, I will take you through how this psychological yet technical marketing game is played. We will look into cross-media marketing strategy, its examples, benefits, and how it is properly done.

What is Cross-Media Marketing & Why Does it Matter?

Cross-media marketing is an advertising blueprint where a brand shares the same message or campaign across multiple platforms. Like a message from a brand’s ‘Be Kind’ campaign being circulated on social media, TV, print media, email, websites, and it reaches audiences wherever they are. Instead of relying on just one medium, it benefits from all the channels by creating a consistent experience that reinforces the brand message through different touchpoints.

Benefits of Cross-Media Marketing

Various cross-media marketing examples prove why it matters and how it can be beneficial in the following ways:

1. Persuasive Brand Recall

When people see your brand’s same campaign on multiple platforms over and over again, it makes them retain your brand name and voice better, and it builds a subconscious connection with your brand in their minds.

2. Cover Masses

Every person consumes information in their own kind of ways, some read news, some use social media platforms, some gain insights from e-commerce website blogs, and many more. Therefore, when you use cross-media marketing techniques, you can be helpful in reaching a wide range of audience profiles.

3. Amplified Engagement

As all platforms and channels are utilized in cross-media ad strategies, there is a large participation of people when they use various features on those platforms. They share, like, comment, share feedback, and there are clicks and conversions, all of which lead to higher audience engagement.

4. Better Conversions & Loyalty

When you expose a person constantly to one brand and they interact with it, it can persuade them to buy from it, which in turn increases sales and builds stronger brand loyalty.

For Big Brands

For big brands that are already established, cross-media marketing for brands can increase scalability across regions and marketing verticals, thus making more and more loyal customers and global recognition.

Coca-Cola’s campaign, which replaced its brand logo on bottles with popular names, moving customers to find and share their personalized bottles, was widely shared in various media. They followed a powerful cross-media strategy that viralized campaigns on TV commercials, social media, and outdoor advertising as well. It resulted in a mass launch in over 80 countries, with an increase of 7% in sales and staggered online engagement and visibility with the #ShareaCoke hashtag.

For Small Business

Cross-media marketing for small businesses is an effective way to increase sales and online presence because of one major factor, and that is budget. You can create a robust marketing roadmap even with a smaller budget by leveraging social media, local print, and emails altogether.

A local IV hydration clinic, Hydrate Medical, refined its promotional practices with the help of Social Ape Marketing. By using targeted social media and Google ads in a cohesive and innovative way, they made an engaging online presence in October 2020. This made them experience a tripled ROI of 1039% & in July 2022, the campaign gained over 1 million impressions.

How to Create a Cross-Media Campaign?

Here is your step-by-step guide to creating a cross-media campaign with actions to be taken, and what is the reason behind those actions.

StepWhat to Do?Why It Matters?1. Decide objectivesChoose where to focus, like increasing sales, leads, engagement, and reach.When you know where to focus, the campaign can give you measurable results.2. Know your audienceGain knowledge about their needs, demands, and preferred choice of mediaWhen you know who you are serving, you can be sure of how and what to serve. 3. Pick the correct channelsYou can choose a mix of all media types or a combination of a few as per your needs.Make sure to reach more people without overburning resources.4. Keep the tone and voice consistentYou can do the graphic or technical changes as per platforms, but keep the values and purpose behind the campaign the same. Builds brand recall while suiting each platform’s style.5. Plan content for each channelCreate platform-specific versions: reels, blogs, emails, videos, and print.Delivers the same message most effectively for each medium.6. Set up tracking & integrationUse analytics tools (Google Analytics, UTM links, Meta Insights).Enables you to measure the performance of multiple platforms.7. Launch & engageRoll out campaigns on all platforms within a coordinated timeframe.Creates a bigger impact and drives audience participation.8. Track & upgradeBy tracking results and feedback, you can adjust the planning. Gives better ROIs and maintains the relevancy of the campaign.

Best Cross-Media Marketing Tools

CategoryTools / Software ExamplesContent Creation & DesignCanva, Adobe Creative Cloud, FigmaSocial Media ManagementHootsuite, Buffer, LaterAdvertising & CampaignsGoogle Ads, Meta Ads Manager, LinkedIn Campaign ManagerEmail & CRMMailchimp, HubSpot, KlaviyoAnalytics & TrackingGoogle Analytics 4, UTM.io, Sprout SocialCoordination & ProcessTrello, Asana, Slack, Notion

Challenges in Cross-Media Marketing

As advantageous as cross-media interaction in marketing is, it comes with its own unique set of challenges.

1. Maintaining Consistency

Delivering the same message and maintaining the tone throughout platforms sometimes becomes difficult as the content needs adjusting according to the platforms.

2. Money Management

You are using many platforms at the same time, and each platform has its own requirements, and fulfilling those is a resource-heavy process. You need to balance expenses for running ads, content creation, and the usage of various tools.

3. Performance Tracking & Audience Categorization

Tracking multiple platforms at once is complicated at times, and then you need to fragment the audience according to the media they prefer. This makes target advertising knotted.

4. Changing Content

Here, one-size-fits-all doesn’t work as you need to adjust and reshape your content to their different versions, suitable for the respective platform and audience.

5. Time, Resource & Privacy Considerations

It is a multimodal process that requires a plan of action, teamwork, monetary, and creative assets to work for each channel in a unique yet effective way.

6. Tech Avalanche

Sometimes handling too many tools and software at once becomes overwhelming and creates confusion, resulting in reduced productivity.

Conclusion

If you think cross-media marketing for brands is a luxury, you are upholding a misconception. Because today you can’t rely on one means to be visible and stay relevant in the crowded market, which is flooded with innovations. It is essential to draw on different platforms and cohesively plan to strengthen your business and brand recall to widen reach and experience more meaningful audience participation.

Whether you are a global leading firm or a small business, you can make the best of cross-platform advertising. You can derive revenues, design immersive campaigns, and transform them into touching experiences that not only capture attention but also build trust and loyalty. With the right tools and methods, this technology can bring success to your business.

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