Creating A Marketing Campaign That Generates Results
By Zach Emly • August 5, 2022 • Digital Marketing
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By Zach Emly • August 5, 2022 • Digital Marketing
By Zach Emly • August 5, 2022 • News, Digital Marketing
A successful marketing strategy consists of various marketing campaigns dedicated to achieving specific goals. Marketing campaigns are organized strategic efforts designed to promote a product, or service, or achieve a business’s unique goal.
Marketing campaigns are not random marketing activities and tasks. They are designed to serve a purpose and should be thoughtfully planned in order to yield the best results.
If you are looking to create winning campaign or have struggled to execute in the past then this blog article is for you.
In this article we will show you the various components of a marketing campaign and the steps to create a winning campaign based on your specific goals.
The worst thing a marketer can do is jump into a campaign without doing some preliminary work. It’s easy to spend a lot of time, energy and money on activities that don’t yield results or that don’t attract the customers your business wants.
In order to have winning results with your marketing campaigns, you must follow the appropriate steps to ensure a strong launch.
Here are some of the things you need to do to when creating your next marketing campaign.
Everything you do should be predicated on some type of goal. Do you want to increase sales in a specific geographic area? Is there a product you want to bring awareness to? Setting the goals for your campaign will give direction and shape all that goes into it.
As you set your campaign goals remember that they should coincide with your organization’s overall marketing, sales, and company goals. If the goals are not in alignment with what the company wants to achieve, then it’s best to revisit the need for the campaign.
Once you've determined the goal, then you can begin moving forward.
Determining your target audience is potentially one of the most important preliminary steps for creating a campaign. Why? Because it determines what you will do and what your messaging will be.
Different demographics have different buyer journeys and places where they find information. The publications they read, the social media platforms they engage with, the real-life organizations they’re interested in, the podcasts they enjoy, the experts they trust, the way they communicate, their beliefs, ect.
All of these are potential areas to consider because they will allow you to create marketing assets that resonate with your target audience. Without considering these things, you may have a great service and marketing assets that fall flat simply because they don’t reach or resonate with the right people. Worst case scenario you may even offend your audience on accident and turn people away.
When you determine who your target audience is, then you will have a better idea of where to market your services and what your messaging should be.
Every marketing campaign should have a budget tied to it. This ensures your campaign remains profitable and that the campaign doesn't overextend itself.
The budget should be derived from your overall marketing budget. If you don’t have a marketing budget for the year, it’s a good idea to establish that first.
When determining the budget, you will need to consider all aspects of the campaign, from asset creation to ad spend. If a business is not careful, they can easily find themselves overspending to the point where they eliminate the possibility for a positive ROI.
The buyer’s journey (the process a consumer takes before ultimately deciding to purchase a product or service) is not always straightforward. It’s not always as simple as run an ad, X% of people click then X% of people buy.
Usually, there is a process of communicating and exposing consumers to the product or service before they purchase. And the more complex the product the more touchpoints are required for someone to buy.
So, as part of your campaign prep, you will need to determine the different touchpoints and platforms a user will walk through in their journey.
Here’s an example. Create awareness of a product and establish need using Youtube videos with a call to action that drives interested viewers to an informational page. Then retarget those users with a more sales focus ad driving them to a sales page.
In this simple example, your business will need 2 ads and 2 separate website pages dedicated to turning a cold prospect into a sale.
Your marketing campaign may utilize Facebook, Youtube, niche-specific content creators, podcast advertising, postcards, etc.
Your campaign’s touchpoints will be dependent upon your target audience’s journey and what your organization determines as the most strategic way to reach them.
Your message is what’s going to connect your audience to whatever product or service you want them to explore. Will it make them laugh? Will it make them cry? Will it pique their interest because it is a need they’ve been trying to solve?
Your message needs to resonate with the target audience and their needs.
The honest truth is that nobody cares about your goals as a business and what you’re selling. People do however care about their wants and needs. The purpose of your message is to show your target audience how their wants and needs can be solved by your business.
The first thing you need to do to create your messaging is to figure out what problems you solve and what consumer needs you want to hone in on. Once you’ve done this and have established your general message. Then you can outline the specific messages at each step in the marketing campaign.
After you’ve established what your campaign will look like it’s time to outline the assets you will need to implement the campaign. This includes graphics, videos, content, landing pages, flyers etc.
When creating assets, make sure that the visuals and any verbiage used, lines up with the target audience you seek to connect with. Having these assets created ahead of time not only allows your team to properly prepare for the campaign but it also gives everyone a chance to review before going live.
Once your campaign begins rolling out, you do not want to risk a set back, delay or gap in the campaign because a marketing asset was not ready to go.
No campaign is complete without a way to track results. Too often do businesses hire a marketing agency or start a marketing campaign with no way to track the progress or results.
How will you know if the campaign worked?
Even if the phone rings or there is more foot traffic while running the campaign doesn’t meant that the campaign was a success.
It doesn’t matter if your campaign is a digital ad campaign or a mail campaign, you need to track the results.
You can track your campaign results in a number of ways. One of the best ways to track campaigns is through Google Analytics, a free (yes I said free) analytics tool from Google. With the help of strategic planning and know how you can even track phone calls and interest from offline campaigns.
Phew! You’ve done your research, you’ve set your goals, mapped out the campaign, created your assets and setup your tracking tools. Now it’s finally time to implement the campaign. At this point the hard work is done right? All you need to do is post the content, start the ad campaign or send out the mailers right? Well not quite.
Your marketing campaigns are not a tabletop rotisserie, you can’t set it and forget it. As you implement your campaigns you will need to track results and adjust where needed.
As the campaign progresses make sure to monitor it and be ready to identify any red flags that may appear.
There can be a lot of time, energy and money invested in creating a marketing campaign. You want to make sure that when the time comes to implement the campaign, that you’ve done all you can to ensure it will be successful.
Carefully considering all the components and steps laid out for you within this article will help you have a successful start. But there are a couple of additional tips I wanted to leave with you that I hope aid in your campaign's success.
And lastly, be patient. Often times marketing campaigns can start off slow and the results will build over time. If you step in too early and adjust too often you may risk hurting results down the road. If you’ve properly planned your campaign using the steps above, then your campaign should be positioned for success. Allow yourself to see it through to the end.
