6 Steps to Create Successful Marketing Campaign

Every day, 1000s of businesses are competing to get people’s attention. And some businesses create marketing campaigns that do very well and make an impression on our minds for a long time. Do you know why is that?

Because they focused on promoting a campaign to the audience which addresses their needs and guides them towards the desired action.

But creating a marketing campaign is not an easy task however with the right steps and strategies, it is possible to build a marketing campaign that can do wonders for your business.

This article will help you to create a successful marketing campaign. Keep reading to know more.

Ready? Let’s first understand.

What is Marketing Campaign?

Marketing campaigns are systemized and strategic efforts to promote a company’s specific goals. This could be a product, or service, acquiring customers, or raising brand awareness.

And there are different ways to achieve the desired results such as TV, radio, social media platforms, pay-per-click, banners, email, and other online media channels.

But the sole purpose of a marketing campaign is not to depend on advertising but also to include video conferencing, demonstrations, and other techniques to get more impact.

So, the marketing team carefully planned and create activities to get the most effective results from the good marketing campaign. 

Sometimes companies start the marketing campaign before even creating the product to determine whether the product fit the market. 

They analyze the market, understand customer needs, and if required did interviews with customers to gain a better understanding of their problems.

This helps to validate the market that perfectly fits consumer needs. You got the marketing campaign basics, now it’s time to dive into the process of creating a marketing campaign. Here we go!

How To Create A Marketing Campaign in 6 Easy Steps?

A marketing campaign is not something that can be created overnight. It requires a well-planned strategy, research, and a great deal of market understanding.

Before creating a campaign, you need to understand where your company stands in the marketplace and what you are trying to achieve. 

Here are the 6 Steps to Creating a Successful Marketing Campaign:

1. Decide a goal for your campaign
2. Define your target audience
3. Choose the media channels
4. Create the marketing message
5. Publish your marketing campaign
6. Assess your campaign results

Let’s dive in!

1. Decide a Goal for Your Campaign

The first thing to do before starting any campaign is to define the goals. The process of defining goals is simple and straightforward. 

All you need to do is to decide what you are trying to accomplish from this campaign?

• Increase brand awareness
• Acquire new customers
• Get conversions
• Generate leads
• Promoting a new product or service

Try to be as specific as possible. For example, you can use S.M.A.R.T. goals to get better clarity. Let’s say you choose the fourth option. Generate leads.

“The goal of the marketing campaign is to generate 1000 leads via pay-per-click for our new product by the end of June.”

Here you can see how I used S.M.A.R.T. goals. The goal is specific (get leads), measurable (1000 leads), attainable (via pay-per-click), relevant (for a new product), and timely (by the end of June.)

If you are having trouble deciding on a goal for your campaign, try to think outside of the box considering the different aspects of the business. 

But make sure the goal is actionable. Having a specific goal helps in creating the marketing message more clearly.  Next, we will understand our target audience.

2. Define your Target Audience

Imagine you are running a marketing campaign that targets everyone. You’re trying to sell your product to everyone.

But you know that everyone is not your customer. It’s impossible to target everyone.

You need to define two things while deciding on the target audience: people who know your product or business already and people who are new to your brand.

In both cases, you need to know your customers intimately to make your marketing message more effective.

To do that, you should know your buyer’s journey and figure out what stage your customers are at. You need to ask yourself a question – Are you looking to acquire new customers or want to collect feedback from existing customers?

Your marketing message varies depending on who your target audience is and at what stage the audience is like awareness, consideration, and decision stage.

While identifying your audience, you also need to include the demographics and psychographics of buying decision-makers. Don’t forget to include their interests, pain points, age, location, and other important factors to consider.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself to better understand your audience:

• What are my audience’s areas of interest? What do they like to read? How do they spend their free time?
  
• What social media platforms do they hang out most on? What type of communities they are part of? Do they engage in or just browse?
  
• What kind of problems they are facing? How my product or service could solve their problem?
  
• What type of media do they prefer most? Is it video, blog posts, infographics, audio, or any other media?

These in-depth questions will help you to deeply understand your audience and crafting the message for your campaign will be easy.

The better you understand the specific needs of your customer, the more successful your marketing campaign would be. Now, it’s time to decide on the best media channels for our marketing campaign. Let’s go!

3. Choose the Media Channels

So, you have selected your target audience, right? Let’s identify the right channels for your campaign. 

You might get confused about choosing the social media platforms because there are already so many different channels to choose from. 

When selecting the right media channels for your marketing campaign, it is important to select the media that your audiences are mostly hanging out with. 

Also, it depends on your marketing budget, brand preference, audience engagement, your campaign goals, and other factors.

Let’s say, you want to promote a product and want quick results. So, you might choose PPC and social media to get your product to the audience directly.

You might want to go with email marketing if you have a low budget and want a higher return on investment(ROI). After all, the best media channels for your company would be the one that gives your business maximum impact and more reach. So, double down your efforts on the channel which gives you the best results.

4. Create the Marketing Message

Creating the right message for your audience is important to engage your audience. But your message should be compelling enough to evoke the desired action in your audience.

The purpose of the marketing message is to address three things basically: 

• First, it should evoke the desired response
• Second, it must solve the audience’s problems or meet their needs.
• Third, your message needs to emphasize how your product will benefit them.

You can start by crafting a message that appeals to your customer’s needs, experiences, and interests. Make sure your message resonates with the audience.

Next, your message should be specifically tailored in such a way that it solves the audience’s problem or needs and make their life easy. Build trust and engage with your audience to understand how they feel and listen to their problems.

You’ll also need to show how your product or service will benefit them. The best way to show them how your product will solve the particular problem and the benefits they will get afterward.

You can include images, sentences, and most importantly CTA that persuades them to action.

Finally, the last thing you can do to make your message more effective is to show them some social proof, customer testimonials, and endorsements received from the leaders.  And don’t forget success stories. It makes your audience break some beliefs related to your product and justify the purchase.

5. Publish your Marketing Campaign

Now you are ready to publish the campaign and get the desired results you’ve set for your campaign. 

But it is important to set the deadline for your campaign to get a better idea of when and how often you will promote your post, emails, etc.

To do that, you need to mark the campaign start date and end date in the calendar. This will help you to analyze your marketing efforts.

 If needed then schedule your posts to avoid wasting time.

But you will need a dedicated marketing team for scheduling and other marketing activities of the campaign.

Plus, you need to ensure that the marketing campaign is focused on driving users towards the desired action. 

Remember the S.M.A.R.T. goal strategy we’ve decided for the campaign. Let’s take that example again.

The S.M.A.R.T. goal of the marketing campaign was “to generate 1000 leads via pay-per-click for our new product by the end of June.” Align your marketing efforts and channels used to drive users to complete this desired goal. Mostly, this can be done through landing pages, call-to-action, sales pages, and contact forms.

6. Assess your Marketing Campaign Results

The final step in a marketing campaign involves analyzing the results. This step is as important as planning the campaign.

You can evaluate what type of marketing campaign you’re running, and the different channels you’re using. Identify which channels are giving you the desired results and then double down on them.

If the desired goals you’ve set for your marketing campaign are not achieved, analyze the weak parts that affected your success and make the necessary changes. When you analyze your campaign data, it gives you detailed insights into the marketing budget, audience behavior, what channels performed well or what didn’t and most importantly gives you direction for future campaigns.

Conclusion

Creating successful marketing campaigns isn’t easy, but thorough research and implementation of the above steps can help you develop a successful marketing campaign irrespective of the business you’re running. If you are not sure where to start, then you can take help from agencies like us who provide Digital Marketing Services and help you create customized marketing strategies for your business.