The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Campaigns

By Justin Jones Last updated Nov 11, 2022

Why should campaigns with different marketing objectives be separated? Marketing efforts can accomplish the same thing for your company. That’s why we’ve put up this guide: to provide you with a clear, succinct strategy for your next marketing campaign.

Continue reading to get started, or click the links below to skip ahead.

Table of Contents

Why should campaigns with different marketing objectives be separated?

Marketing campaigns are well-planned, well-executed activities to promote a specific company aim, such as generating awareness of a new product or obtaining customer feedback. They often try to contact consumers in a number of ways, using a mix of media such as email, print advertising, television or radio advertising, pay-per-click, and social media.

Advertising Campaigns vs. Marketing Campaigns

Marketing is the process by which a corporation builds brand awareness and persuades customers to buy, whereas advertising is the method by which persuasive messages are created around these broad goals.

An advertising campaign could be part of a larger marketing campaign strategy.

Assume Nike created a campaign to promote the arrival of a new product. Its advertising would just represent one aspect of its overall marketing plan.

To achieve its goal, the brand may also use email newsletters, social media, and paid search.

Now that we’ve established the distinction between advertising and marketing campaigns, consider the following examples of marketing campaigns.

Types of Marketing Campaigns

Product Marketing Campaign
Brand Development Campaign
Email Marketing Campaign
Content Marketing Campaign
User-Generated Content Campaign
Public Relations / Awareness Campaign
Direct Mail Campaign
Affiliate Marketing Campaign
Social Media Campaign
Acquisition Marketing Campaign
Paid Marketing / Advertising Campaign

Marketing Campaign Components

Multiple components go into the planning, execution, and results of a stellar marketing campaign.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) and goals: This component describes your campaign’s final aim, quantifies it in explicit and measurable targets, and specifies which metrics will be utilized to track progress. Your content production strategy, for example, may be monitored by organic traffic, with each article intending to drive 1,000 views per month and 10 new contacts, with metrics tracked in Google Analytics and Looker.
Channels: Where will your content and messaging appear? For example, if you’re planning a social media marketing campaign, you might prioritize increasing the channels that are most relevant to your audience while ignoring those that are unlikely to grow a loyal following.
Budget: While not all marketing efforts necessitate an additional budget, many do. Consider agency, advertising, and freelance expenditures, and incorporate these figures into any ROI study for your campaign.
Format(s) of Content: Determine the type of material you will create to support the campaign. Marketers frequently integrate numerous content forms in a single campaign. A branding campaign, for example, could include video advertising, press releases, and guest blogs.
Team: Who are the people you’re counting on to get the task done? Before you launch your campaign, make sure you have employees assigned to work on every area of it, from authoring and design to media buying and reporting.
Creative Resources: A great marketing campaign should be accompanied by great creative assets. Make sure your design is professional and appropriate for the aim of the campaign, whether it’s a sleek website design, a video commercial, or an interactive infographic.

How to Create a Successful Marketing Campaign

Creating a whole campaign is a large undertaking, but the procedure is rather simple.

Before you start designing what your audience will see, think about your end objective and the action you want them to take. I’ve organized this part as a marketing campaign template. To ensure a thorough, successful approach to your next marketing campaign, all you need to do is answer the questions as precisely and thoroughly as possible.

Planning Your Marketing Campaign

This phase is critical for the success of your marketing strategy. The planning stage will determine how you will define success and guide your team when things go wrong.

Free Marketing Plan Generator is a featured resource.

1. Set a purpose and goal for your campaign.

Let’s begin with the basics. What is the purpose of this campaign? What do you want your campaign to achieve for your company?

Start wide if you’re having problems describing your campaign’s aim. Take a look at the objectives listed below. Which one is most similar to yours?

Promote a new product or service
Increase brand awareness
Gather customer feedback or content
Drive leads
Generate revenue
Boost user engagement
Advertise an upcoming event

This is hardly a definitive list, but it gives you an idea of general business goals that a campaign could help reach.

2. Establish how you’ll measure your campaign.

Depending on the channels you’re using and your end aim, this will look different for everyone. You may track email open rates, new Facebook Page likes product pre-orders or a combination of the three.

These responses will be determined by your overall campaign goal. Here are some numbers based on the campaign goals I described before.

For promoting a new product or service: Pre-orders, sales, upsells
For increasing brand awareness: Sentiment, social mentions, press mentions
For gathering customer feedback or content: Social mentions, engagement
For generating revenue: Leads, sales, upsells
For boosting user engagement: Blog shares, social shares, email interactions
For advertising an upcoming event: Ticket sales, vendor or entertainment bookings, social mentions

If your campaign comprises numerous marketing channels, it’s a good idea to outline how you’ll measure each media.

Assume I was running a user-generated content (UGC) campaign across social media, email, and our blog. First, I’d identify my key performance indicators (KPIs) for each channel, which may be something like:

Instagram engagements (likes and comments) and profile tags
Email open rates and click-through rates
Blog views, click-throughs, and social shares

Then I’d establish my key campaign KPI: Instagram branded hashtag mentions.

While the previous KPIs show how well my campaign is reaching and engaging my target audience, my primary KPI shows how near I am to meeting my SMART goal.

3. Define your target audience.

Imagine putting together a flawless marketing strategy only to have it met with crickets.

In that instance, you may believe you chose the incorrect marketing medium or that your creativity was not clever. However, the culprit may be your audience.

The first step in fixing this issue is determining which stage of the buyer’s journey your campaign is aimed at. Are you seeking to attract new customers or solicit feedback from existing customers?

Are you marketing your brand to those who already know it, or are you establishing a new brand identity entirely?

Depending on whether your campaign audience is in the awareness, contemplation, or decision stage, your marketing message will differ. Even if your campaign reaches people who aren’t in your target demographic, it’s critical that you build your campaign with a specific goal in mind so you know who it’s designed for.

4. Set a concept for your campaign and get in contact with the right team.

Marketing initiatives necessitate a mission statement, a vision statement, and a visual identity. Great ads are visual and creative offshoots of their parent brand; they keep consistent with the business brand while maintaining their own personality.

Some companies use an in-house team to create marketing assets, while others hire an agency. Hiring a freelancer or contractor to complete a certain portion of the project, such as the copy or design, is another option.

Pro Tip: Depending on your campaign objectives, I’d recommend starting with your in-house team and progressing from there. They are your company’s expertise and can speak to what your campaign requires to succeed.

Because you’ll be building your campaign concept from scratch, this phase will most likely take the longest. Following that, we’ll discuss how you’ll distribute your campaign assets and engage with your target audience.

5. Choose the channels on which you’ll run your campaign.

This decision is influenced by elements such as audience preferences, budget, and brand engagement levels, among others.

Examine the current media platforms you utilize to advertise your business. Which ones outperform the others? Which ones let you pay for advertising? Which ones have the highest level of engagement? Most importantly, where are your customers spending their time?

6. Set a timeline for your campaign.

Establishing a deadline for your campaign gives you a much better idea of when, how, and how often you’ll promote it. Here’s how to do this:

Create a broad campaign timetable, then mark the start and finish dates of your campaign on a calendar.
Working backward from the campaign launch date, examine your marketing assets and promotional marketing platforms. How frequently can you afford to post and promote your campaign content based on your resources? Create a promotional calendar for each marketing channel using this information.
Set a cadence for each channel and plan your posts, emails, and other activities on your calendar.

Visually planning your marketing campaign will assist you in disseminating campaign promotions equitably and publishing equally on each platform. It will also offer you an indication of where your time and energy are going, which you can use to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign.

7. Ensure your campaign is driving users toward a desired action.

Even if your campaign is really effective and generates a large number of visitors, it must still complete the required activity. I’m referring to the SMART goal you initially stated as “the intended action.” Let us take a moment to reaffirm that goal.

My SMART objective for my example campaign was “to collect user-generated material from 100 customers using a branded hashtag on Instagram promoting our new product line by December 31.”

This step is all about fine-tuning your marketing activities and channels so that they bring your clients to the completion of your intended goal. Conversion assets such as calls-to-action, landing pages, and lead forms are used to accomplish this.

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