Successful Digital Marketing Campaigns – its all in the planning!

So have you tried to roll out a digital marketing strategy ? It can often be a tricky prospect.  With so many variables, you may often only have one chance for success.
As a company we are often given a very broad goal such as “generate more sales for my business”; there are an infinite number of ways of going about this task, but before you can even start this, you need do the often laborious task on planning and analysis. A winning campaign needs to be planned, monitored and measured, and you need a lot of information to avoid the pitfalls of wasting money – we call this Challenge Not Channel ! !
  • Whats your budget? This really defines what you can and cant do! However having a small budget isn’t the end of the world; you just need to think about how best you can use this budget to create the highest impact.
  • Setting your targets Keep it simple and concise – its easier to focus on a plan to achieve them !
  • Who are you targeting? We call this persona development – knowing who your clients are. Many of our clients have numerous clearly defined personal audiences; the better the persona the easier it is to come up with a successful campaign that works for them
  • Where do they hang out? Knowing your client personas enables you to deliver your marketing messages to them in the most effective way. We work to find out where your potential customers spend their time online, we look at what sites they visit. We begin to understand their digital body language.
  • The Brainstorm Well we know know the budget, who are targets audience is and where they hang out, and what we want to achieve. At this point we all wear our creative black t-shirts and waistcoats (like all marketeers and designers) and brainstorm idea. Remember our message has to break through the noise and confusion of the digital world. We want out campaign to be REMARKABLE and REMEMBERABLE.
  • The Message What do we want the customer to know about your product that is going to be the one thing which makes them pick the phone up, or email or visit.
  • Buzz Buzz Buzz Like we said, we need to ensure the campaign break through all the other digital clutter. Our campaign needs to buzz-worthy; ideally letting your customers become your brand advocates through sharing, liking or telling others.
  • Give yourself a deadline Plan everything and stick to the plan. Share this timeline plan to all the key stakeholders, make sure they are fully engaged – we don’t want delays.
  • Set-up your Campaign Its not just about pretty pictures and words, there is far more to that when setting the campaign live. You will need to determine how you will measure your results and track the success – if the campaign is working can we ramp up the spend to maximise the results? The beauty of digital marketing as it gives you a variable cost structure (unlike Off-the-Page Press ads which cost you £XXX and your return on investment is based on a fixed cost); if the campaign isn’t delivering the right results, tweak the wording, Split Test A/B, amend the graphics, and if it still isn’t working then PULL THE CAMPAIGN – why waste more money!
  • Analyse Regardless of the results, at the end of a campaign analyse the results; if the campaign has delivered a great Return On Investment try to find out why; this is great insight for your next campaign.

We firmly believe that unless you are prepared to follow the above process then you risk making mistakes (and repeating mistakes) on your digital marketing campaigns. If you would like more information, or would like to discuss any forthcoming digital marketing campaigns with us, please do not hesitate to contact us on 0121 227 5026 or email us here.