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Wouldn’t it be easier for both collocated and remote marketing teams to set up a campaign when the team is guided? A set of rules to follow shows you the necessary actions to take when setting up your marketing campaign.
Well, we have good news for you!
In this guide, we will walk you through the top ten rules to follow when you are setting up your marketing campaign.
What is a marketing campaign?
A marketing campaign is a planned list of activities and processes used to promote a product or service. Marketing campaigns promote a product or service on online platforms, television, radio, print, and more.
Ten rules to follow when launching your marketing campaign
1) Set up your end goal
Before you start doing anything, define your campaign objectives. You can't know where you are heading if you haven't planned it out.
Are you planning to sell a product worth $1,000 or sell multiple products and services?
Here are a few questions to answer about your end goal:
- Which product will you sell?
- What will you do to increase sales?
- How will you increase customers?
- How will you raise brand awareness?
45% of businesses fail in their first five years, a significant reason being not setting up a plan.
2) Define your target audience
You may have heard this repeatedly, but defining your target audience is the main rule in setting up a marketing campaign. If you did everything else and missed this part, your drive will fail utterly.
Defining your target audience shows the channels, language, and information you use to communicate with an audience. Are you speaking the same "language" with your audience or not?
Companies will usually fail to define their target audience when they aren't investigating the market enough. 65% of businesses fail the first ten years they start, and a top reason behind it is the lack of them doing the proper research.
For example, if you are selling toys and target grown men, the campaign will fail ultimately.
3) Analyze your competition
"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." - Sun Tzu
A famous quote by Sun Tzu has had a powerful impact on setting up marketing campaigns. You're not alone in the market, and you want to analyze your competitors. If you are promoting a product or service similar to others, you won't stand out.
Figure out your brand differentiator and don't always be the one that follows the trend, but rather be unique. Analyzing your competitors lets you stay updated on what you are doing. Even if something has been done before, if you see room for improvement for a product or service, follow that idea.
4) Choose how you'll reach your target audience
Marketing campaigns are effective when you know where your target audience is hanging around. Your promotion channels are the key to scoring the bingo.
Typical online channels include email, social media platforms, events, print media, publicity, and more.
A regular small marketing agency wouldn't fit in TV commercials, but Facebook ads might seem more understandable and affordable.
Following modern technology, social media platforms might be your best option to reach your target audience. Nearly four billion people are using social media in 2021, with an expected rise of 4.41 billion in 2025!
Furthermore, Facebook is ranked number one as the most used social media platform globally as of 2021, with nearly three billion users.
5) Set your marketing campaign budget
You can't implement a great idea if you don't have a sufficient budget. Figure out the costs and then find out what you can afford to help avoid any issues.
A marketing campaign may include different costs, some of them being:
- Search engine optimization
- Setting up a website
- Email marketing
- Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
- Advertising design
- Social media marketing
- Website design
Costs may vary, but you may always use a customer lifetime value (CLTV) calculator to calculate how much income you might be able to generate from an average customer.
Once you calculate your CLTV, you can combine that with the costs of your marketing campaign. Average marketing campaign costs will vary who you hire and which region/country they are operating in.
6) Solve a problem
We don't mean to solve a math problem. We mean to solve a problem for your customer when selling your product or service. If you were the buyer and saw your product or service, ask yourself how you would react?
The "who" and "why" are what always make a marketing campaign powerful. Steve Jobs said it best when he sold the first iPhone:
"People don't know what they want until you show it to them." - Steve Jobs
7) Include a call-to-action (CTA)
Another essential rule to follow when launching a marketing campaign is by including a CTA (call to action).
A CTA is considered the best marketing practice. 21% of conversion rates were found to increase when including a CTA in your content.
For example, you write a blog post or create a video and want your viewers to subscribe to your blog. Your CTA would be considered including a link or button for people to subscribe to your blog. Another example is like in the photo, "shop now" is the CTA in this case.
8) Use promotional materials
All businesses in every type of industry use promotional materials to attract customers and increase sales. Yes, even today, companies use promotional materials and hand them out to people. It is a marketing mix comprising different elements such as public relations, online advertising, print advertising, social media, sponsorship, and more.
Different promotional materials, ranging from flyers design, posters, brochures, and postcards, are used as promotional products to attract new customers.
For example, brochure printing is considered to be part of a successful marketing campaign. You give away brochures, highlight important details about your newest collections, or even include them with every new purchase. They are a very affordable promotional tool.
9) Include a privacy policy
Privacy laws check allows consumers to have overall control of how their data is used, processed, object for inaccurate personal data, and even ask for their data to be erased upon request.
All companies that are established legally must follow privacy rules. Even when you set up your website, you must include a privacy policy.
Depending on where you operate, the GDPR and CCPA are responsible for protecting consumers' private data. The GDPR protects individuals operating and living in the EU, and the CCPA protects Californian residents.
With the CCPA protecting only Californian residents, the GDPR is protecting private data in all EU states. Even though it is considered an EU-based law, it doesn't only apply to EU companies. Still, even every U.S based company operating in the EU must follow the GDPR guide for protecting and informing consumers of how their data is used.
10) Launch, monitor, analyze
Congratulations! Your last rule is to follow it to launch your campaign, although you must keep many things in mind.
Monitor your results and ask your customers how they heard of your product or service and what they want to buy it. Compare answers and see what can be improved. Successful campaigns often are those that continuously innovate their approaches.
Lastly, ask yourself if you reached your end goal or not? Analyze and determine if your campaign was a success or not. To dictate this, you may ask yourself a few helpful questions:
- Which components were the most helpful for me reaching my goals and which were the least?
- Would I launch a similar marketing campaign to this? Why or why not?
- Which rule was the easiest to follow and which wasn't?
- What did you learn from your customers?
- Did you meet your expectations, or how close were you to them?
Wrapping up our marketing campaign
That's all for this article. Hopefully, these ten rules were helpful for you to consider quickly launching your new marketing campaign. Remember that your campaign isn't as difficult as it seems to launch but rather needs you to follow a few rules. Customers will create their first perspective from seeing how you operate.
Many marketing campaigns launch but few ever pay attention to providing value and respecting what their consumers say. The lack of proper research, planning, financing, and following privacy rules are usually the most significant issues for all businesses that launch their marketing campaigns. That is why only 25% of them make it past 15 years of operating.
We recommend you avoid these mistakes and learn from them. Following our ten rules, always put your customers first and continuously seek innovations through your campaign! Furthermore, you should do just fine.
