Setting up a marketing campaign is no easy assignment for anyone. Whether you run a fortune 500 company or are a small local business, trying to properly plan an execute a marketing campaign can be a daunting task.
A marketing campaign usually has three result it wants to achieve:
1. Relay a message to a targeted audience
2. A message that can be easily understood by said audience
3. A message that encourages the audience to take some form of action (Purchasing product signing a form etc.)
Based off of these three desired results, a marketing campaign is not something that should be thrown together without careful consideration and planning. To plan your next campaign, take following steps to help set you up for success.
1. Set Goals/Objectives:
Starting a campaign without a goal is like driving aimlessly with no destination. Yes, you are moving but you are really just wasting gas. Don’t just jump into a marketing campaign without a plan because you will just end up wasting time and money. Set up a goal that you believe is attainable. Without goals, you have no way to measure success or prove your return on investment. These goals should be aligned with your overall business strategy.
Setting your goals should be the easiest step in this process. If you have decided you wanted to start a marketing campaign, you must have had an initial reasoning that led you to said decision. Obviously, everyone wants their campaign to bring in new customers so try to be a bit more specific on your goal than that. A few possible goals could be:
· Get more newsletter subscribers.
· Promote a new service or product your business is offering
· Raise awareness for a special event your company is hosting/attending
Objectives will build off from your overall goal. Whereas a goal is broad, objectives are specific. Whereas a goal is singular, objectives can be numerous.
This is where setting SMART objectives will come in to play. (SMART stands for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.) Setting goals that you can realistically achieve in a certain period of time is important. Do not overextend yourself and set objectives that are impossible to meet. Making sure they are measurable is extremely important because at the end of the campaign you will be able to see how successful the tactics you used to achieve your objectives were. Here are a few SMART objective examples:
· Get 200 more subscribers to weekly newsletter by March 30.
· Generate 10 leads interested in home remodeling project by June 1.
· Have 75 Entrepreneurs sign up for your financial management webinar by September 10.
By Setting SMART Objectives, strategically planning your campaign will become much simpler.
2. Market Research/Defining your Audience
It is always important to know where your company lies in the market. What are the opportunities and challenges facing the market and where will your marketing efforts will be most effective?
Take a look at your competition, locally and nationally, and try to understand them. What are the strengths and weaknesses of their business? How are they marketing their business? Do their marketing efforts seem to be effective? Understanding your competition will help you give you perspective on where your business stands in the market.
Once you understand the market you can use that information to define your target audience. While it would be nice to try and reach everyone, when you have budget you want to identify the audience that will hopefully give you the largest return on investment. For example you may want to identify basic demographics of the type of customer you are aiming for such as:
o Gender
o Age
o Location
o Interests
o Occupation
o Industry
Your audience also affects which tactics you choose, because not every tactic reaches your target audience. Your target audience may be more likely to see your ad in a magazine compared to an ad on Instagram or vice versa. So be aware of where your target audience is spending their time.
3. Set the budget
This can be the most difficult task in this entire process. Try to get a specific dollar amount and stick to it. Your budget will help you decide which tactics you will use for your campaign. Do you want to take your entire budget and put it into one marketing platform such as Google Ads or do you want to spread it throughout multiple channels to see which works best? If you are inexperienced with campaigns, it may be more effective to try multiple channels to help test which is most effective. Therefore, for your next campaign it will be easier to know where funds need to be allocated to produce the best results.
4. Plan the Tactics
This will be the meat of the marketing campaign, also the most fun. Using the previous information, you have planned and researched, now is where you decide what channels you want to use to get your message across. There are many channels available such as:
o Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
o Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
o Content Marketing
o Email
o Social Media
o Print
These are just some of the channels you can use to reach your audience. Shaping your marketing campaign, involves knowing your audience and figuring out which channels will be most effective in reaching that audience.
5. Align Messaging and Design
Be clear on the message you are trying to communicate and keep it consistent across the various channels you use. Spend the necessary time to ensure that the copy and design of the message is persuasive and has a message that can be easily understood by the audience. All this planning and your campaign can easily fall flat if your message is not clear.
The design can be equally important. Make sure whether it is an ad on social media, print, or an email that the design is aesthetically pleasing and delivering your message correctly.
6. Measure Results
Measuring your results is a crucial step in the process. Were your efforts successful or did you fall short of reaching your goals? If you aren’t meeting your goals, it provides you with the opportunity to restructure your campaigns to drive better results in the future. This will help you for future campaigns in determining where funds should be placed, what tactics are more successful than others, and help you structure your overall strategies and objectives.
You can use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to help in determining your campaigns success. These statistics will help you define whether you reached the initial goals you set. They are quantifiable measurements that will help you understand what impact your marketing campaign had on your business. Some examples of KPIs are
o Number of new email subscribers
o New leads generated throughout the duration of the campaign
o A sales team may track the revenue compared to the previous month before the campaign began
Conclusion
Creating a digital marketing plan will help set you on the fast track to reaching more people interested in your business. Just be sure to hit all 6 points on your checklist to ensure optimal success. When you begin be sure to monitor daily and adjust not just your budget but maybe your design and copy if your message is not coming across properly. While it may seem a bit intimidating, when you break it down into these 6 simple steps, starting a marketing campaign is well worth the investment.
If you want to learn more about how to set up a digital marketing plan contact us online to see how we can help you get started.