There may not be an exact science to developing a successful campaign, but there are definitely things you can (and should) do to make sure you’re not just throwing your money away without seeing any results.

Today we’re giving you the top 5 things to consider to ensure that your next marketing campaign brings in more profits and causes less stress. You ready to take your campaigns to the next level? 👇👇

1. DEFINE YOUR GOALS

A campaign without clear and measurable goals is really just an expensive shot in the dark. How will you know your campaign is successful if you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish?

You probably already understand what you want, but let’s take it a step further. How strategic are your objectives and expectations? And how realistic are they? For example, say you know you want to increase traffic to your website; that’s great. But how much would you like it to increase by and when? Even more importantly, why?

One way to ensure your goals are well thought out is to use the SMART goal-setting strategy. Maybe you’ve already heard of this method, but we’ll lay it out here as well:  

• SPECIFIC: Your goal must focus on one clearly defined metric.
• MEASURABLE: You must have a way to measure the content you publish against that metric.
• ASPIRATIONAL: Your goal must push you beyond the results your content will naturally or organically generate toward that metric.
• REALISTIC: In the same breath, keep your aspiration in check with what you can reasonably complete with the resources that are (or will be) available to you.
• TIME-BOUND: Your goal must have an end date upon which you will achieve that metric.

2. BUDGET

Before you start brainstorming any creative, you need to map out roughly how much you’re willing to spend. This doesn’t need to be an exact number, but it’s best to have an estimate to keep your expectations realistic and ensure you’re not throwing out your money.

3. CREATIVE

You’ve set your goals and nailed down your budget –now it’s the fun part! How do you want to bring this campaign to life? This is the time to think outside the box and get creative. We can’t necessarily tell you exactly what strategy will work best for your specific goals, but we can give you some ideas to get started:

– Organic Social Media Campaign

– Paid Ad Campaign

– Email Campaign

– Commercial

– Digital Experience

– Livestream

– Promotion or Giveaway

– Influencer Marketing

Once you have an idea of what your campaign will look like, you can finalize your copy and visuals to create a cohesive and strategic look.

4. METRICS AND BACKUP PLANS

One of the most important aspects of any marketing campaign is the metrics. So it’s vital to have an idea of what you’re looking for before you launch. This might sound similar to defining your goals. However, with analytics, you can take it further and make real-time adjustments to get you even closer to reaching your objectives.

Your analytics will act as a guide throughout your campaign, letting you know what’s working and what isn’t. Of course, just knowing that something isn’t working doesn’t help you very much, and the last thing you want to do is throw things together minute by minute, trying to find ways to pivot.

To make for smoother sailing, we recommended determining possible adjustments before they need to be made. Do a little predicting. Imagine you’re a week into your campaign, and you notice you’re not on track, come up with a game plan for what steps you need to take. Figuring this out beforehand will help you feel secure in your decision-making and, in general, gives you more control over your campaign.

Pro Tip: For every campaign we develop, we use A/B Split Testing. This method allows for a controlled comparison of two different versions of our campaign to determine which will perform better. This can look like testing out two different headlines, two images, promotions, copy, anything. When comparing them side by side, the data will let you know which version will perform better. It makes for better end results, less guesswork, and ensures you’re not scrambling at the last minute to figure out how to adjust when things aren’t working.

5. LONG TERM STRATEGY

While a campaign may be temporary, ideally, the results won’t be. So before you get started, you need to look into the long term and ensure you’re fully prepared for the potential outcomes. We’ll break down what we mean by that.

Say you run a campaign to boost brand awareness. One aspect of that might be increased traffic to your website. Is your website up to date? Are you sure it’s designed to handle an increase in traffic without crashing? These small details may seem separate from your temporary campaign, but they can hugely impact its success.

Another great part of developing a campaign is all the ideas that come out of the process. You likely won’t be able to bring every concept or idea to fruition within one campaign, but it sets you up with new ideas you can implement down the road. With each campaign, you’ll learn more about what works and what doesn’t. It’ll become easier and easier to continue creating and curating highly engaging and strategic content.