Are You Stuck In A Rut With Your Digital Marketing Campaigns?

You think you’ve cracked the ” perfect recipe” to generate leads or sales for your business. Create a value offer like a White Paper, webinar or event. Promote it using social, PPC and send a few emails, the leads roll in and you’ve kept your job. Right?

So Why Do You Not Feel Happy With Your Campaign Performance?

We’ve all been there – time constrained and just need to get the campaign running. But if you are starting to get bored with your marketing, chances are your potential leads are too.

Do your leads increase with each campaign, or do you get just enough to make your quota? Or perhaps the leads aren’t high quality enough to convert. It all seems it’s getting a bit stale.

It’s crazy that so many marketers forget one of the most basic things about marketing strategy – the ” big idea”.

” What’s The Big Idea?”

With digital marketing campaigns being easy to create and set-up ourselves, we don’t always have the need to brief a designer or agency. Which means we miss out a crucial part of the campaign process – the Campaign Brief.

Why Write A Campaign Brief For Every Campaign?

Why do I need it for every campaign? Because without it, it’s likely your product launch, event or holiday sale won’t be memorable””or even particularly effective.

A Campaign Brief can be shared with the whole team – including management, sales and marketing – so you are all working from the same page (literally). Clear campaign messaging will ensure that your sales team is aligned with your marketing efforts.

This also gives you the opportunity to clearly define the objectives and outcomes of the campaign – so make sure you create this document before developing the actual campaign.

Plus, most importantly, establishing a clear objective and idea for the campaign will enable you to keep clear channel consistency.

Awesome Examples Of Successful Digital Marketing Campaigns

Brand: Red Roof Inn – best digital media buying campaign by Adweek

Big Idea: Finding a Roof to Sleep Under

Desired outcome: Turn Flight Cancellations Into Hotel Reservations

The last brutal winter saw up to 3 percent of U.S. flights being grounded daily. Using mobile location targeting and customized messages, Red Roof Inn was able to beat its competitors and quickly reach customers.

Outcome achieved: 375% increase in conversion rates, a 60% bookings lift across non-branded campaigns, a 98% increase in click through rates for non-branded campaigns, a 266% boost in non-branded mobile bookings and a 115% increase in non-branded mobile investment.

Brand: WWF

Big Idea: A Different Kind of Animal Appeal #LastSelfie

Desired Outcome: Promoting endangered species to a new audience target – millennials and increase donations.

Endangered species are disappearing from the face of the planet as quickly as a Snapchat. The #LastSelfie campaign sent nine-second Snapchat pics of endangered animals to WWF’s followers. Before disappearing, the image asked for help by sharing, adopting an animal, or donating through SMS.

Outcome achieved: Within eight hours, there were 5,000 tweets viewed on 6 million timelines. Within a week, the numbers had risen to 40,000 tweets reaching 120 million users, allowing the campaign to reach more than half of all Twitter users. The campaign helped the WWF reach its monthly donation target in just three days.

How To Write A Digital Marketing Campaign Brief

1. Background / Overview

What’s the big picture, what’s going on in the market

2. Objective: what is the goal of the campaign?

What is the desired outcome for the campaign? For example, agreed number of leads, app downloads or tickets sold to an event.

3. Target audience: who are we talking to?

Try to pin this down further than just age and gender and humanize these details with insights and lifestyle information. Developing a persona will help you target your campaign effectively.

4. Focus: What’s the “˜Big Idea”?

Brainstorm with your whole team. This is the overarching campaign idea that will help you drive your desired outcome.

5. Reasons why: what are the most compelling reasons to believe, to try, to buy?

What’s your unique selling proposition? List the rational and emotional reasons your consumers will need to believe what you say, try your product, or buy your service. Include copy and any agreed imagery/video approved to use for the campaign.

6. Budget

7. Schedule: campaign timings

8. Tactics – decide all the channels that will be used and how.

This brief may vary from business to business, for example Unbounce uses a Marketing Strategy every campaign, so feel free to adapt this to fit your needs!

Including this additional step to your campaigns will give you that added boost you need to give strong direction with clear messaging, be able to review your campaigns effectively and not annoy your customers like Ned, Ned Ryerson!

Author: Holly Lawton, Instructor, Digital Marketing, @holsosocial