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How to Launch a Successful Marketing Campaign

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If you've recently made the decision to launch a marketing campaign I don't have to tell you what's riding on it.  You're putting a lot of trust into the idea that building a digital marketing foundation and leveraging content will generate leads for your business.  

 

1) Understand Your Starting Point

One of the most critical parts of your onboarding process is assessing your existing assets. Understanding what you do and don’t have in place should be considered as you build strategy and eventually goals. The better condition your website is in the less time and money you'll need to spend on it.  Every company is at a different point in their maturity continuum, and they each have a wide range of assets to work with (or around).  

  • Does your website respond to different viewing devices?  If not, you're going to have to redesign it; as upwards of 50% of traffic is now coming from mobile and tablet
  • How many visitors and leads are you getting on a monthly basis?  If you're getting a couple thousand visits and 10-15 leads per month you have some work to do.
  • How many viable contacts do you have in your database?  If you don't have good working prospects to market to you're probably not going to put email marketing at the forefront of your efforts.  

 

2) Develop A Plan Of Attack & Goals

A successful campaign starts with a goal and a plan. Building a detailed plan that outlines every piece of strategy you need to develop before publishing content is critically important.  From there you'll have the tools in place to plan and calendar every element in detail.  A good plan should produce results, goals are necessary.  You should already know what you're hoping to accomplish, now it's time to get specific. 

Goals need a baseline from which to build upon so take your traffic and lead production history into consideration.  Identify the proper amount of lift you'd like to achieve and the timeline to achieve it.  Your goals should fit into the formula "from x to y by when".  Remember, inbound marketing campaigns don't generate sales, they generate qualified leads.  If you want to generate a revenue goal you'll have to involve your sales team and use sales production history to extend the funnel a little further.  

 

3) Allocate The Best Possible Resources

With a firm understanding of what you’re up against and how you plan to achieve the established goals, the next step is assigning the right team.  While some companies firmly believe they can free up a little space for 'Nancy' in accounting for a little social media time every morning that probably won't drive the results you're looking for.  Remember, marketing campaigns are all about driving results, not performing activities.  Just because someone has some time on their hands doesn't mean they can be effective marketers.  

At Revenue River Marketing, we assign teams of five to every new client. The team consists of a strategist, a coordinator, a search analyst, a designer, and a project manager. They're all digital citizens, have gone through extensive training, and marketing is all they do.  Having a team of expert marketers like that in your corner should be your goal, even if you have to work towards.  

 

4) Kick Things Off With A Bang

This is the big first impression for all those uninvolved eyes on your campaign.  When all the planning is complete and the necessary assets have been built it's time to make it rain.  Developing a micro-campaign focused on specific conversion goals is a great way to get the entire team focused on a short term win.  

From your blog to your social media efforts, every action you perform should be focused on that specific offer you're hoping to get downloads on.  Running your campaign like this can really get things off on the right foot and breed confidence throughout the organization.  As your content base grows with time you'll have more and more promotional options to promote in a similar fashion.  

 

5) Review And Revise At 30 Days

One of the big comparative advantages of online marketing campaigns is the readily available, real-time analytics.  Every asset and action should be measured for effectiveness.  Dig in at the 30 day mark to evaluate what's working and what's not.  You'll be able to make some quick assumptions and adjustments that can enhance results through the remainder of your micro-campaign.  

If the landing page isn't converting well, you can overhaul it.  If one of your a/b tested emails is grossly outperforming the others, you can build more like it.  If LinkedIn is bringing much more action than your Facebook efforts you can reallocate efforts to invest a larger share of time to LinkedIn.  

 

Successfully Launching A Marketing Campaign Takes A Lot Of Planning & Patience

When launching a new campaign you have to have patience.  There's going to be a lot of questions about when you're going to see a return on the increased spend your company has made, but this isn't advertising.  You have to plan your ass off and build continually.  You have to get the flywheel moving before it can pick up steam.  If you plan first, act second, and measure third you'll be on your way to a successful campaign that will surely bring the results the entire organization is banking on.