There are many benefits of creating a marketing plan but just as important is turning that plan into marketing campaigns that work to drive revenue or achieve certain business marketing goals. To implement your marketing campaigns, you need a system and a strategy in place.
Whether you are launching an email marketing campaign, a lead generation campaign, an awareness campaign, or a content marketing campaign, each needs to have its own marketing plan in place, full of action items that will drive the campaign. The plan provides high level strategy based on your brand’s objectives for the year (or the quarter or whatever time period you’re focusing on). A campaign is the focused tactic of reaching your marketing goals.
What resources are needed to run a successful marketing campaign and how do you execute it? I’ve narrowed it down to four main steps (with a few subcategories, of course).
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P L A N : Who, What, Where, and How
Please don’t skip ahead to stage two even though this part may seem more boring and lengthy. I guarantee careful planning is crucial to implementing a strong campaign and understanding every step in the process.
RESEARCH
Begin with some basic research and pick your target audience. You have likely already defined your target audience, however the distinct group of people who this campaign is intended for may differ from who is defined in your broader marketing plan.
Keeping this audience in mind, ask yourself what sort of campaign will resonate with your target market? Which topics are popular with your buyer personas (you may need to define buyer personas for your audience)? What is there a need for in your industry? Dare to be different and deliver as much value as you can with your marketing activities.
DEFINE YOUR GOALS
Imperative to any marketing activity is to have a set of clearly defined goals and objectives. Be specific about your expectations! What performance indicators matter most? Leads, reach, engagement? Focus your campaign on one primary purpose and set metrics to determine how your campaign is performing in terms of that goal.
GENERATE IDEAS
Organize all the brilliant ideas that you and your marketing team have! Decide which ideas fit best with your campaign goals and what meets your target audience’s wants. You could offer a downloadable piece of content like an ebook or checklist. Or maybe you want to provide a free trial of your new service or product. A key consideration in any marketing campaign is producing quality content that resonates. Brainstorm ideas that you think provide value to potential visitors and make sense for where they are in the buyer’s journey.
CHOOSE YOUR COMMUNICATION CHANNELS
To answer the ‘how’ part of planning, figure out which media channel you will use to share your message and attract your audience. That could be search engine for SEO and PPC, social media, email, mobile, and/or video.
Alrighty, now that you have a plan in place, brainstormed ideas, and settled on a campaign to launch on specific channels here’s what to do.
C R E A T E: Attract and Inspire Action
DEVELOP YOUR PROMOTION
Now comes the fun part: sitting down and focusing on the content, the appeal, the design, and the format of the message. Take your offer and get creative with making the content.
BUILD A CAMPAIGN LANDING PAGE
You have the framework of the marketing campaign set up. Now you need to inspire action through a clear, dedicated landing page for the campaign you’re about to launch.
No marketing campaign should ever direct potential leads to your homepage. Visitors who click an ad should land on a page that has few distractions and makes it clear what the intent is. People should want to sign up for whatever it is you’re offering.
(Need more landing page tips? Check this Dowitcher blog out.)
D I S T R I B U T I O N: Promote and Analyze Results
DISTRIBUTE YOUR CONTENT
Once you have created your optimized landing page, it’s time to promote that sh*t. As part of your planning process, you decided which channels you wanted to use to promote your marketing campaign. Was it social media, email? PPC? Maybe you need to write a blog post announcing the launch of the campaign. Perhaps you are inclined to send out a press release or run a contest. Whatever channels you choose to use in order to communicate your message, be sure to be up-to-speed on current trends and technologies.
TRACK YOUR SUCCESS
Lastly, as with any marketing effort, you need to track your marketing campaign success. Set up weekly goal tracking so you know how well your campaign is performing. Result are determined by your goals (for example, sales or leads). When reviewing and analyzing the results, look at why you might not have met your goals. Ask yourself what you learned that can be applied in your next marketing campaign.
Now that you understand what is needed to achieve a successful marketing campaign, go brainstorm ideas and get to planning!
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