Do you know the only surefire way to successfully launch a product or raise brand awareness? If you are not really sure, the answer is to launch a marketing campaign.
A marketing campaign is a specific and predefined series of activities used in marketing a new or changed product or service, or in using new marketing channels and methods. It represents a step-by-step process that includes a number of tactics and promotion channels, which is exactly what makes the whole thing so complicated.
A lot of marketing teams cannot handle that many features simultaneously, so we need to ask you a simple question: Are you in the flow with your marketing campaigns? It’s always better to be safe than sorry, so keep reading to learn five steps to guarantee the success of your marketing campaigns.
1. Define and Track Your Business Objectives
If you don’t understand the purpose of the campaign, you can hardly track progress and figure out whether it’s productive or not.
Jake Gardner, a digital marketer at the college paper writing services, says it’s fundamental to determine clear objectives and understand your business goals: “The purpose of marketing campaigns can be anything from awareness and product placement to event promotion and lead generation.”
The list of possible goals is almost endless, but it doesn’t change the fact that marketing campaign objectives must be SMART:
- Specific: Set highly specific goals and avoid generic statements such as “to raise brand awareness”
- Measurable: If you really are trying to raise awareness, state it precisely, and go for the exact number. For instance, it can be to reach 100 thousand views on all social media channels in the next month.
- Attainable: Reaching a million views would be even better, but is it possible? Think about it before setting your goals.
- Relevant: Of course, campaign objectives need to be relevant to your brand.
- Time-bound: Marketing activities should not last forever, which means you ought to define the timeframe.
2. Find an Easy Way to Measure Campaigns
We already told you that the goals of marketing campaigns must be measurable, but how do you create such objectives? It depends on your business plans, but we can give you a few examples that are pretty straightforward and intuitive:
- Count the number of new subscriptions and sign-ups for lead generation
- Check the number of impressions and social mentions for brand awareness campaigns
- Analyze the number of orders, cross-purchases, free trials, ticket sales, and subscriptions for conversion optimization
- Follow comments, social mentions, shares, and reviews for user engagement
- See the number of bookings for event participation
Sometimes you will have to check more than one parameter, but it’s not recommended to have more than two or three campaign goals because it creates confusion and makes promo messages less focused and appealing.
3. Follow the Schedule
Now that you know how to track performance, it is necessary to take care of the schedule and make sure that all activities are being executed as planned. A typical campaign consists of hundreds of tasks, so it requires a fair share of synchronization and strategic thinking.
First of all, you need to compile a list of all assets you can use throughout a given campaign. That includes everything from eBooks and industry reports to images and social media posts. If you need to design additional content on the go, make sure to leave enough time for it.
Secondly, you must delegate tasks and explain who’s in charge of which part of work. That way, you can make the most of your manpower and complete actions as scheduled.
And thirdly, do not forget to document your plan and craft a formal calendar of activities. It can be a simple Excel spreadsheet, but it’s even better to make a plan using tools like Google Calendar or CoSchedule.
4. Use the Right Distribution Channels
Are you choosing the right distribution channels or disseminating your messages randomly? The answer to this question makes the difference between marketing leaders and their followers. Today, you can find hundreds of communication channels both off and online, so it’s fundamental to focus on communication methods that align with your objectives.
The decision is up to you because you control all the assets and know what the company is trying to achieve. However, we can point out the main content distribution channels based on a renowned PESO model of media ownership:
- Paid: PPC advertising, sponsorships, display ads, paid influencer campaigns
- Earned: PR outreach, media coverage, earned influencer stories
- Shared: Online forums, business directories, word of mouth, social sites, referrals
- Owned: Your official business blogs, websites, email campaigns, newsletters, and social accounts
The list of possibilities is long, but it doesn’t force you to utilize every single channel. On the contrary, the only thing that matters is to pinpoint the right communication platforms and use them simultaneously to leave the biggest impression on the target audience.
5. Ensure the Highest Level of Consistency
The last tip is to mind the consistency and make sure that your content delivers the same message regardless of the communication channel. While different platforms require different approaches, the overall communication and visual appearance have to be the same. This tactic is two-fold:
- Use the same copywriting style to maximize the effect of promotional messages across all platforms. For instance, companies targeting younger audiences would probably use humor and avoid fancy vocabulary to boost engagement among consumers.
- Use the same visual style to help the audience recognize your brand as soon as they see your content. This applies to your themes, marketing templates, typography, and color schemes.
The Bottom Line
How do you know that your marketing campaign is a success? If you cannot answer this question clearly and concisely, then you should find a new way to track progress and monitor campaigns. In this post, we showed you five practical ways to do it effortlessly. Use our tips, but you can also leave other suggestions in the comments if you think that we missed something really important.