Recently, the most frequently used word you’ll hear around our office is “campaigns.” Since launching our new marketing tool, it’s all we can talk about. While there are many different definitions, we define a campaign as a series of outreach efforts on multiple channels based on a common theme. For example, a campaign may consist of a series of emails reaching out to pre-retirees as a niche market, sending an e-card every holiday, or sharing monthly communications about the market’s performance.

But campaigns aren’t limited to emails or social media. In a sense, you can treat every marketing activity as its own campaign. You must have:

  • Clearly-defined goals
  • A timeline
  • A way to track your progress and results

Let’s dive into building your very first campaign.

1. Identify Opportunities and Set Goals

All campaigns start with a good idea. But what happens when you have too many ideas or not enough? Start by listing any ideas you have, no matter how big or small. From there, look for those opportunities with the greatest potential. What can you ideally accomplish, based on your time and budget?

For each idea, note how long it would take to implement, what resources it would require to launch, and what sort of results you could expect to see? Keep your key clientele top of mind when formulating these ideas. Which segment of your client base would engage most with your campaign? On what platform can you target them? Evaluate how you can deliver maximum value to your audience.

Lastly, define what you ultimately want your campaigns to achieve. More new leads? Greater conversion of prospects to clients? Stronger communication with current clients? With every campaign, set clear goals from the start, and try to be as specific as possible. With this campaign, how many phone calls would do you hope to receive? How many email clicks or Facebook likes? Make sure you keep these numbers realistic!

2. Create Your Campaign

Once your campaign is fleshed out on paper, it’s time to assemble. Create a checklist of everything you’ll need to create and launch your campaign. For example, if you’re offering a free whitepaper, you may need:

  • A whitepaper
  • A social media ad (for example purposes, let’s say a Facebook promoted post that links to your landing page)
  • A landing page with a brief description of the whitepaper and what the reader will learn
  • A form on the landing page to collect leads
  • An email that sends the whitepaper to anyone who fills out the form.

3. Set Up Your Goal Tracking

Campaigns take work so you want to make sure you know how they’re performing and if their ROI is sufficient. Based on the example above, there are a few places you can track.

For your social media ad, social platforms make it easy to track results. In your advertisement settings, you can see how many people clicked on your ad.

For your landing page, Google Analytics will tell you how many people visited the page and whether other pages on your website received more traffic than usual.

And for your form, you can add up how many people filled out the form in comparison to how many people visited the landing page. This helps you gauge how persuasive and engaging your content was for encouraging someone to take the next step and provide you their information.

4. Launch Your Campaign

This is the fun step: hit publish! Launch your campaign and define a timeline for when you’ll review your results. For this example, the campaign would last as long as your social media ad runs, which can be anywhere from a few days to several months. For your first campaign, you may want to start small and aim for two to four weeks.

5. Evaluate, Adjust, Repeat

Once your campaign ends, now comes the analytical step: reviewing the results and evaluate how you can make improvements. Ask yourself these questions:

  • Did I reach the goals I established at the beginning? If not, how close did I come to my objectives?
  • What could I have done differently during the process?
  • Is there anything that went wrong?
  • What could I do better next time?
  • How did my audience respond? Did I learn anything new about them?

After assessing your results, make adjustments, and repeat the process again.

Congratulations! You just survived your first campaign. That wasn’t so difficult, was it? Campaigns require significant time, so if you’re ready to take a shortcut, check out our Campaigns tool.