How can you perform cross-channel campaigns (including email, paid, social, and organic) in fast-moving environments and focus on leveling creativity with limited time and team capacity?

How to start building out a multi-channel campaign?

It all starts with a simple map or ‘story spine’ mapped out on a Miro or Canva whiteboard. You need to understand the campaign goal: awareness, lead generation, engagement, etc. Then you can use a specific framework (like RACE) to break it down into channel clusters.

• Owned content: landing pages, SEO blog posts
• Paid: PPC ads, newsletter sponsorships
• Relationship-based: partnerships, community activations

Sanity check on resourcing is also indispensable. Check out what assets you actually have, what platform needs rewriting or restyling, and who is responsible for what. To avoid overthinking, review the tools that never worked before. For instance, press inserts and organic tactics, like lead magnets or internal interviews, usually work great together with paid tools. With the right setup, of course.

Another cornerstone for developing successful multi-channel campaigns is your minimum viable message. Which is your audience? Figure it out in the first place, and everything else aligns. Your model, your creative, your channels, even your budget – it all should point to your core audience and their beliefs.

From my experience, when the idea is solid just on paper, the campaign never lands. And strategies can’t be handed out as a draft when marketing campaign execution is already rolling. So, whether I’m building content ecosystems or one-off launches, I like to start with a simple framework called ‘MVX’:

• Minimum Viable Message. Nail the one thing you're saying and who you’re saying it to
• Visual + Verbal Sync. Ensure your design, copy, and tone are translating that message with clarity and intent
• Experience Alignment. From media choices to in-store or digital experiences, every touchpoint should ladder up to that message

How do you make sure everything feels coherent across different channels?

Designing a modular content system is like building a puzzle. You start with the corner pieces: the big idea, the message, and the hook. And then shape everything else based on the platform. I begin crafting core narratives and visual references: this could be a hero message, a key visual, or a thematic line. Afterwards I adapt it to each platform:

• Press/media: these channels opt for clarity and credibility. The message has to feel newsworthy, fact-checked, and reputation-aware
• LinkedIn: outcome-driven with a strong lens on industry relevance
• Instagram: design-as-story, emotionally led, and visually paced
• Email: conversational, yet value-packed, with a clear CTA
• Paid ads: ruthless with attention, meaning you need to cut the fluff

I also tag each version against two critical filters:

• Platform logic: what works here? How’s the user behaviour?
• Audience mood: how are people showing up here – passive, curious, hurried, or ready to act?

Channel-based tailoring isn’t just about cropping visuals or rewriting headlines – it’s about rethinking how the story lives, performs, and resonates differently across every touchpoint. For instance, one of the biggest campaigns I worked on was at a major steel/construction brand in Bangladesh, during a full 360° rollout of a national infrastructure project across digital, print, outdoor, and broadcast. The scale made consistency a challenge, but we kept everything grounded in one visual identity and narrative.

Express your message in a native way. Since audiences shift depending on where they are and how they see you. You can be brave on digital and cheeky on organic, but with OOH you have just three seconds to land your entire message. The same applies to international campaigns: what works in one cultural context is totally unclear in another. For instance, when doing campaigns for Grameenphone, we presented a strong core message but expressed it in ways that felt native to the audience. On ATL, our goals consisted of an emotional pull and national pride. But when we launched the same stories in digital adaptations, we had to reframe them to drive measurable actions like clicks, conversions, and lead-ins to product use.

Consider your team size and setup

In corporate environments you work on long-term brand-building with reputational risk attached: everything moves through approvals, templates, QA checklists, and tight deadlines. When you have a small internal team or a startup, it works more like: just build the thing, send it out, and see what happens. You’re allowed to move fast, make mistakes, and improve. I usually implement my personal rule of thumb, the 70/30 principle. If something’s 70% solid and serves the goal, test-launch it, then fix, improve, or scale based on real data. Otherwise, you risk building something polished and unnecessary.

Test different marketing angles. Being on the marketing side, I’ve worked closely with product, sales, and dev teams to make sure everyone’s having the same perspective from the very beginning. For example, the product team might highlight user insights for new campaigns, sales might suggest friction points we can pre-answer, and design can start shaping the visuals based on this information. Make sure there’s a regular space to check in, not just on tasks, but on how people feel about the direction. Sometimes ideas fall through the cracks, or someone holds back a concern that could’ve helped early.

Top advice for MVP-style marketing

1. It might sound basic, but do fewer things better. Prioritise one or two strong platforms, and focus on low-effort/high-impact channels first. I usually lean toward content and owned media. From there, whatever we create gets repurposed. One case study can turn into a carousel, an email series, a quote-led ad, or even a pitch slide
2. My lean-stack playbook:

• Start with one story and split it across 3 formats (including blogs, carousels, and email snippets)
• Concentrate on strategic tasks like brand positioning and voice
• Automate the repetitive routine (content creation and email flows)
• Don’t skip the pre-launch and post-launch polish; have clear CTAs tied to one goal

3. Solve one real pain point for your customers before trying to build a whole brand system around your product