Why Diversifying Digital Marketing Channels Is Key to Success

By Kennan Walton

“The only constant is change,” as the saying goes, and that’s certainly true in the world of digital marketing. The ongoing updates to Google’s algorithm and the volatility of X (formerly Twitter) are just two examples of the constant evolution and uncertainty. Such is the state of the digital landscape today and for the foreseeable future, so using a diversified channel approach in your digital marketing strategy isn’t just smart, it’s necessary.

A mix of channels can benefit your campaigns and contribute toward digital marketing success but, if your content distribution strategy primarily relies on one channel, your overall performance can take a profoundly negative turn when that platform inevitably changes. Here are four ways mixing it up helps to avoid that fate.

1. Expand and Maximize Reach

When you diversify your channel mix, you diversify the audiences you reach. Different platforms attract different users, so activating your digital marketing efforts on multiple channels ensures that you reach a wider audience. When you restrict your strategy to a single channel, you run the risk of excluding high-value users within your target audience.

So how does an organization do this well? To reach a diverse physician audience, NYU Langone Health and its medical school, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, distributes owned media content on multiple platforms with a distinct strategy for each. On Instagram, content includes striking original imagery, seamless infographic carousels and shortform Reels highlighting breakthroughs in medicine. On X, NYU Langone takes advantage of high-visibility conference hashtags to share key presentations by NYU Langone doctors. Other touchpoints include email and paid social, ensuring that NYU Langone’s innovations and research contributions remain top of mind for this important audience of physicians.

2. Enhance Your Content Distribution

Incorporating multiple channels gives you the opportunity to tailor your messaging to each platform and ad type’s unique characteristics. When Destination Niagara USA came to C/A with a desire to boost that all-important destination metric — number of overnight stays by visitors — C/A designed a strategy that included organic blog content, a redesigned content hub, Google Display retargeting ads, social media and paid search.

Featuring audience-specific ad creative, the campaigns resulted in a 17% click-through rate for paid search ads, compared to the industry average of 4.68%. Over the course of the year, visitors to Destination Niagara USA’s website made 21,608 travel guide downloads and over 57,000 travel guide views — showing the impact that broader content distribution efforts can have on meaningful engagement.

Investing in multiple platforms gives you the opportunity to expose users to your brand over multiple touchpoints, making them more likely to engage and convert.

3. Increase Brand Visibility and Recognition

Moving audiences down the funnel from casual awareness to rich engagement takes time; however, investing in multiple platforms gives you the opportunity to expose users to your brand over multiple touchpoints, making them more likely to engage and convert.

This is top of mind in C/A’s digital marketing work with the Osteosarcoma Institute, a research organization concentrated on finding better treatments and an eventual cure for an aggressive form of childhood cancer. With a customized combination of organic and paid efforts across Google Display, GroundTruth geofence, X and Meta, we move audiences from initial awareness of the Osteosarcoma Institute to social media follows to eventual advocacy and donations. In 2022, we saw year-over-year increases of 573% in paid search impressions, 635% in paid search clicks, 173% in organic search traffic, 24% in newsletter subscriptions and 113% in total contributions.

4. Enrich Data Capture Opportunities

Each marketing channel generates unique data and insights. A mix allows you to activate this data to make informed decisions about your strategy and audience. By using a multi-channel approach, you’ll have access to an array of data that will give you a robust understanding of your audience’s behavior and preferences.

Embracing a diversified channel mix provides a range of benefits that a single-channel approach simply can’t. By maximizing reach, enhancing content distribution, establishing brand recognition and collecting valuable data, you can ensure the success of your campaigns over the long run. In an ever-evolving digital environment, this diversified approach is crucial to a successful, overall digital marketing strategy.