From Coca-Cola’s “Open Happiness” to Dove’s “Real Beauty”, to non-profit organizations like Stop the Money Pipeline, successful marketing campaigns are remembered long after purchase.
And this is thanks to effective campaigns that make companies friendly, reliable, and memorable. And the best go much further than just getting quantitative results and increasing sales – they have the power to change consumer perception, bring about change, and have an impact on societies.
A fundamental question arises: how to create a successful marketing campaign, innovative enough to leave a lasting impression and attract many customers, and remarkable enough to generate sales, well after the announcement was broadcast?
Although there is no universal method, the most successful marketing campaigns have some common criteria, however, which we break down here.
What is a marketing campaign?
Marketing campaigns mainly promote products or services through different types of media, such as television, radio, print media and digital platforms.
They are not only based on advertising but may also include live demonstrations, videoconferences and other methods that allow you to reach your target audience.
Marketing campaigns are often designed with different objectives, such as strengthening the reputation of the brand or its image, presenting a new product on the market, increasing sales of a product or a service, or reducing the impact of harmful information.
The goal of a marketing campaign usually determines the strategy you need to run the campaign effectively and the media channels necessary for your campaign to be seen by your audience.
Plan your marketing campaign
Naturally, planning your marketing campaign is the first step in creating an effective one. Planning properly lets you know how to measure its success, understand what you are going to get from this campaign and guide your marketing team to make it work or to get back on track when it is not.
What is the main objective of your campaign?
If you fail to set the goal of your campaign, start wide. Look at the marketing objectives below and define which are most relevant to your own brand. Which could match you the most ? If this is not an exhaustive list, it will give you an idea of classic commercial objectives that a marketing campaign achieves.
- Promote a new product or service
- Increase brand awareness
- Collect comments or client content
- Generate income
- Booster user engagement on social networks
- Announce an upcoming event
- Generate prospects
Now take your main goal and transform it into an INTELLIGENT goal: a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely goal. Here is an example of a main objective: “The objective of my marketing campaign is to collect comments or customer content on my brand”.
Making this INTELLIGENT goal would look like something like: “The goal of my marketing campaign is to bring together user-generated content from 100 customers from a brand hashtag on Instagram highlighting our new product range by June 30.”
How to measure the success of your marketing campaign?
Depending on the objective you have set for yourself, your marketing campaign can be measured, for example, by the number of prospects generated, the amount of sales revenue in a given month or the new subscribers you earn on a given social network.
Decide on important steps for your brand will lead you on the path to success and will also be particularly important in maintaining the morale of your team. If your goal is to have 100,000 subscribers on Instagram before the end of the year, nothing prevents you from celebrating the 20,000, 30,000 and 40,000 subscribers. Everyone will be motivated in this way and, once you have reached your main objective, you will remember how much time and effort were required to achieve it.
Who is the target of your campaign?
The first step in answering this question is to determine which step in the buyer’s journey your marketing campaign will target. Try to attract new customers or try to collect comments from existing customers? Promote your brand to those who already know it or have a new brand identity ?
Your marketing message will vary depending on whether the audience for your campaign is at the Awareness, Taking into account or at the Decision stage in the funnel marketing. It is important to note that a digital marketing campaign can include content for people at different stages of their journey.
For example, if your campaign targets your current customers, it can also allow you to increase the awareness of your brand among new consumers.
Broadcast your marketing campaign
Reach your audience
It is at this precise moment that you begin to ask yourself the question of “what” and “when” of your marketing campaign. As a marketing specialist, your understanding of the channels should guide you to help you identify those that best suit you and are best performers.
First, we advise you not to deploy a marketing campaign on a brand new channel or social network, on which your brand would not yet be present. Capitalize rather on the marketing channels that you are already using and master.
If finding your ideal marketing channel is new to you, try to use the PESO model as a guide, the distribution channels are divided into Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned. Start by selecting two or three marketing channels for your campaign.
For example, you may wish to promote your UGC campaign on Instagram, via a newsletter by e-mail and on your website. You can also use your budget to pay and boost publications from your social media campaign or generate more views and expand your audience.
However, remember that some distribution channels are unnecessary for certain marketing campaign objectives. For example, if you have a UGC campaign on Instagram, investing in paper or broadcast media will not necessarily give the expected results because your audience and your digital marketing campaign are on the web.
So always make sure to use the channels on which your audience is present if you want to increase your chances of success.
Choose how and when to publish your marketing campaign
You remember the INTELLIGENT goal we mentioned above regarding your marketing campaign? Well, this paragraph now deals with the calendar for your campaign, and how to set a deadline for your marketing campaign. It is important to create a strategy that will allow you to know how and when you should publish and promote your campaign.
Start by creating a general chronology for your campaign; use a calendar to mark the start date of your campaign and its end. Then examine the resources you have for your marketing campaign and choose the dissemination channels you want to use to market your campaign.
Depending on the number of people on your team and the budget you have, the frequency with which you post and create advertisements for your campaign will depend entirely on you. Make sure, however, that you have some sort of promotional schedule for each marketing channel that you will use to track campaign performance.
If you need inspiration, see our guide on creating a social media calendar; it contains information and advice on how you can plan your content successfully.
Convert customers through your marketing campaign
How will your marketing strategy generate leads?
Successful marketing campaigns are generally a series of connected operations designed to have a particular end result, which in this case generates conversions.
Your marketing campaign can be effective in generating traffic to your website or social networks, but it must contain one (CTA) with which you want your audience to engage. CTAs are a direct demand that generally encourages visitors, prospects, or consumers to act. You have to think about including them in your campaign to ensure its success.
CTAs give your audience clear guidelines and allow you to specify your marketing campaign to reduce any noise that may exist. However, they must be specific and designed to adapt to your marketing campaigns. In continuation of this first recommendation, your CTA must also be positive and compel your public to act.
In the example of using UGC content on Instagram, your CTA must clearly describe the request (“Share a photo of you with our product”) and specify the advantage for the user if he chooses to commit ( “and earn a discount voucher”). Whichever CTA you choose to use for your marketing campaign, make sure your audience understands the benefits by clicking on your CTA
Another way to generate conversions around your campaigns is to use dedicated pages. The landing pages are a dedicated online space allowing your audience to learn more about the subject of your campaign and generally help to distinguish your marketing campaign from all the other content on your website.
Your landing page explains the benefits to your audience of participating in your campaign, so highlight them and repeat your CTA so that your audience knows what to do.
Remember that if you want your audience to fill out a form, you shouldn’t ask them to fill out too many fields. Also consider including a variety of marketing resources, such as images or videos, to increase the conversion rate.
What marketing KPIs can you monitor?
The marketing KPIs you want to monitor depend on the type of campaign you run and the distribution channels you have chosen. Although you may wish to keep an eye on personalized KPIs such as the traffic generated, the click rate, and the feelings, they will not allow you to follow the impact of your campaign on your sales. Here are some additional KPIs that you can monitor to get a better overview:
Marketing KPI by E-mail
- Clicking rate
- Bounce rate
- Conversion rate
KPI from Paid Media
- Clicking rate
- Conversion rate
- Cost per click
- Cost per conversion
KPI of Organic Media
- Love, share and retweets
- Comments and tweets cited
- Follows
KPI of Prospects Generation :
- Opt-in rate
- Cost per opt-in
- The opening rate of follow-up emails
- Opt-in conversion rate
All of these measures will not be applicable to your campaign, but it is interesting to monitor quantitative values to best assess the success of your campaign.
The reasons for the success of your marketing campaign
How do you know if your marketing campaign has been successful? It will depend on the ability of your campaign to achieve or not its original INTELLIGENT goal. If so, you have succeeded!
This is one of the reasons why you set yourself a campaign target at the start – to ensure that the strategy you put in place helps you achieve this goal.
Whether you want to increase your number of Twitter or Instagram subscribers, increase the subscriber base of your newsletter or see your ebook downloaded 1,000 times, it is when you reach your marketing objectives that have been defined tailor-made for your campaign, that success will be there.
Marketing Campaign Example
Budweiser – The Whassup quarantine version
When Budweiser brought up to date its famous slogan “Whassup” in early 2020, remixing the original to make it a special version “quarantine” which coincided perfectly with what the world lived collectively at the moment T.
The digital marketing campaign was broadcast on social media, with the hashtag “#Togetheratadistance” and “#SavePubLife” to support bars that were forced to close for health reasons due to the pandemic.
The moldy Whopper of Burger King
In 2020, Burger King announced that it had removed the preservatives, dyes, and artificial flavors from their famous Whopper burger. To promote this announcement, Burger King launched its moldy Whopper marketing campaign. Shared in photo and video formats, Burger King documented the amount of mold that developed over one of its Whoppers over a 34-day period.
This marketing campaign, although it has emerged as a rather unconventional method for fast food, is a great example of how brands can get the attention of their audiences and increase conversations around their brand.
Facebook Advertising During the Super Bowl
For the first time, Facebook broadcast an advertisement during the Super Bowl 2020. The 60-second advertisement, titled “Ready to Rock,” promoted Facebook groups on the theme of “rock” in which celebrities such as actor Sylvester Stallone or comedian Chris Rock appeared.
Advertising has not only received positive responses for its pun and for presenting real Facebook group members, but it also represents an excellent example of advertising targeting and the use of new platforms to help your brand reach an audience wider.
Although marketing campaigns involve a lot of information, strategies, ideas, and monitoring, we hope this has given you a deeper overview of how you can successfully conduct your own marketing campaigns.
