Most Marketing Campaigns Just Create Noise. Create Music Instead.
Digital marketing
What is the difference between music and noise when it comes to marketing campaigns?
The rhythm interval, the heartbeat of the instruments. Noise is just a collection of random sounds at random times. Usually very annoying and distracting – much like the loads of marketing campaigns thrown at your customers not knowing which one will stick. Music is a systematic set of sounds in such a way that they produce beauty of form, harmony, and an expression of emotion. There is a systematic way of running impactful, measurable marketing campaigns.
More campaigns are NOT better. Choose ONE and stick with it.
Companies start the beginning of the year with a well-established marketing campaign calendar – themes, cadence, assets, etc. By end of the first quarter that plan is already out the door. Why? Maybe the CMO or CEO had a new idea, or they jumped on a new topic trend, on the latest news, on the new analyst reports coming out, on their own new content pieces, the latest press release and so on.
Just STOP. A marketing campaign must NOT be built OUTSIDE IN, but INSIDE OUT.
CONSISTENCY is key – as much as you would like to get traction by jumping from a subject to another, this will only confuse your prospects or customers.
7 steps to building your Marketing Campaign Framework
When you start building your campaign you must have a clear framework in place.
01 | The marketing campaign must be directly derived from your mission or vision.
Always check if there is a connection. If there is no connection between the campaign theme and your mission, then drop it.
02 | How will this marketing campaign benefit the customer?
This question will force you to think from the customer or prospect’s point of view – why should they spend time or money for this?
03 | How should they find out about your new marketing campaign?
This is the part where you choose the marketing channels for the campaign. Check out the article on how to test the performance of your marketing channels.
04 | How can we make this campaign as seamless as possible for the customer?
Accessing more pages, clicking more links does not make it better, on the contrary – the faster you offer the customer the reward, the better the interaction. This is where you work on all possible customer journeys. You must plan them, iterate and establish a seamless process.
05| Define success metrics.
How will you measure success – Open rate, clicks, downloads? Will you focus on awareness only since its a new product? Have a benchmark in place with the metrics that you will follow (if you do not have metrics from previous campaigns, set the GROUND 0 METRICS and benchmark it with your competitors).
06 | Internal stakeholders presentation
Before getting ready to build, check it off with your marketing team, your executive and of course your sales team. In this way, not only make sure you have all the correct. Information and validation, but also let inform them about what is to come.
07 | Framework set – now check it off and get it signed.
This is the hardest part – getting the C-level suite (either CMO or CEO) to commit to it and sign for not changing the main parameters (sure they can add some new Linkedin posts or jump on a new report, but come back to step 1 and validate it properly)
Budget, Timeline, Action Plan
Most marketers you include these metrics as part of the marketing campaign framework. I believe you should first DREAM BIG, talk about the bold ways to reach the customer, and then validate it with constricting metrics like budget, action plan, and resources.
Most of the time, when presenting a bold campaign strategy, even though more expensive or complex, an additional budget or resources will be granted. Every CMO or CEO thinks of ROI and Success first. Marketing campaigns involve a lot of documentation, ideas, decision-making, and testing. But this process of creating and running one isn’t as scary as you thought, is it?
Do a consistent overview of all the marketing campaigns and assess the dialogue. Try to create music instead of noise when it comes to engagement with your customers.