How To Start A Marketing Campaign In 2023

When it comes to growing your business, a marketing campaign is arguably one of the most reliable ways to do it.

They’re an essential component of any business and it’s used to both promote your business and its products.

A marketing campaign is useful to get your feet off the ground, but it can also be used to show off products and services.

Regardless if you’re a large or small company, a marketing campaign is a great way to generate brand awareness and get your business noticed.

But how exactly do you approach this?

What if you’re just a small business that only serves locals, how do you push your brand into the wild and get noticed?

In this post, we’re going to take a look at how to start a marketing campaign from scratch.

We’ll be covering everything from the initial planning stages to implementing all of the ideas that you have.

What is the purpose of marketing campaigns?

Before we get started, it’s important to learn about the purpose of marketing campaigns.

Generally speaking, marketing campaigns are designed to raise awareness of a brand or its products.

They’re designed to reach a target audience and typically use a number of different marketing channels.

There’s usually some kind of call to action or result that the business wants to achieve as well.

For instance, the purpose of a marketing campaign for a bakery could be to attract more foot traffic but also get people to order online via a food delivery service.

So in short, a marketing campaign is all about raising awareness about a product or brand.

It’s meant to drive business growth, retain customers, or even generate more revenue through sales.

However, you can have more specific goals as well, such as getting more people to subscribe to a YouTube channel or even attracting attention on social media.

The common link is that a marketing campaign helps a business achieve its goals and aspirations by attracting audiences.

What makes a successful marketing campaign?

Now that we understand what a marketing campaign is, how do we determine what a successful one is?

In most cases, you’ll have a campaign goal that you set during the planning phase.

Whether it’s to boost online sales or create loyal customers, you have to keep your goals in mind.

Another component is your campaign budget.

In most cases, a successful marketing campaign has to stay within budget because there are financial calculations taken into consideration too.

In most cases, this is expressed as the return on interest (ROI).

Marketing ROI requires a lot of data in order to be correctly calculated, but it can be somewhat simplified with the help of marketing and customer relationship management software.

So to keep it simple, here are the things to keep in mind when determining a successful marketing campaign.

• Has it achieved the goals set during the planning phase?
• Did it reach the correct target audience?
• Was the cost within budget?
• Was the return on investment as expected?

A positive answer to these four questions usually indicates that the marketing campaign was a success.

In many cases, a marketing campaign won’t immediately show a profitable return, but it can still be considered a success if it met your initial goals.

For instance, the initial goal of a campaign could be as simple as raising awareness about a product and getting more followers on social media.

It doesn’t provide immediate profit, but it does create more awareness which leads to long-term stability and success.

Defining your marketing objectives

We’ve expressed the importance of defining marketing objectives several times already, but what should you be focusing on?

There are two main considerations when developing a successful marketing campaign:

how those goals align with your overall business strategy, and if they are measurable.

In most cases, a marketing objective should aim to increase brand awareness and increase profitability.

However, the way it does that can depend on your business’s circumstances and position.

For instance, a startup could be focused on trying to grow its social media influence, whereas a local retailer could focus on generating more foot traffic.

These require entirely different approaches to marketing, so it’s best to think about what your business is trying to achieve before you decide on marketing details.

So to keep it simple, here are the basic steps to go through when defining your marketing objectives.

• Identify your business goals. Think about what your business is trying to achieve and how a marketing campaign can help.
• Understand your target audience. In order to improve the success rate and effectiveness of your marketing campaign, it’s vital that you choose a target audience.
• Choose metrics that make sense. To measure the success of your marketing campaign, it’s important that you choose metrics that make sense. These key performance indicators (KPIs) will help you measure how well your campaign is doing and how close you are to reach your marketing objectives.

These are the most important things to consider when defining your marketing objectives.

They’ll form a solid foundation on which the rest of your campaign can stand, hence why they must be considered early on.

Understanding your target audience

Finding and understanding your target audience is one of the most crucial aspects of a successful marketing campaign.

First, you’ll want to define the type of audience that you want to appeal to.

This will be based on demographics such as age, gender, and even location.

Some of these will be more relevant to online-focused businesses, while others will be reserved for retail stores and physical locations.

For some businesses, mixing the two is important as both play a major role in the business’s revenue and success.

Next, it’s a good idea to perform some kind of market research.

This usually involves understanding the target audience’s needs, preferences, and also how they behave.

Behavior can be linked to their social media and online profiles, or it could be related to foot traffic and how they approach your store.

If possible, analyzing customer data can help you shape the ideal customer profile.

This can include existing sales data and social media engagement.

It will help you identify patterns and trends in how your target audience behaves, and this information can be used to make more informed decisions throughout your marketing campaign.

These are the basics when it comes to understanding your target audience.

However, it’s worth mentioning that there may be situations where your actual audience drifts a little from what you assumed your target audience would be.

This can open up lots of unique opportunities to appeal to different people, but it will require you to be on your toes so you can adapt to how your audience reacts.

Choosing the right marketing channels

There are several marketing channels to choose from and the ideal ones will depend on the type of business, services, and products you offer.

The most effective marketing channels are the ones with the most people, but you might be restricted to certain options due to the nature of your business.

For instance, there’s no reason for a local coffee shop to heavily invest in online advertising if they don’t offer a service or product to national or international audiences.

Instead, they should be focused on their local area.

However, this changes if there is a way to monetize the coffee shop’s products, such as offering merchandise that is shipped around the world.

But what kind of marketing channels should you consider?

Here are the most popular ones that reach the biggest audiences.

• Email marketing: One of the oldest yet most reliable forms of internet marketing is email. This will require you to build a large list of emails, such as from potential customers and people who are interested in your products and services. You’ll send them personalized messages, offers, and updates to build relationships and nurture leads. This will ultimately drive conversions which leads to more business.
• Social media: While difficult to penetrate, social media has the power to reach billions of people, making it one of the most cost-effective marketing channels when used correctly. It typically involves platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn. The correct platform to choose will depend on your target audience.
• Search engine optimization (SEO): SEO focuses on building up your website with fresh content and services that reach audiences through a search engine, typically Google. This means you’ll be heavily focused on hiring writers and designers to create blog content, product descriptions, service pages, and other types of content on your website that will rank highly on Google search results.
• Influencer marketing: A relatively new addition to the list of common marketing channels is influencer marketing. This involves working with social media influencers to promote your brand or products to their followers. It’s an extremely powerful option if you’re looking to tap into certain audiences.

These aren’t the only marketing channels available, but they’re usually the ones with the biggest and most engaged audiences.

Focus on these four at first, then branch out when necessary.

Developing a brand message

Developing a brand message isn’t as crucial as the other things mentioned in this post, but it can be a simple and easy way to raise a bit more awareness about your company and what it’s trying to do.

Start by defining your values and personality.

For instance, are you an eco-friendly company that is looking to do better for the world?

Or are you fully focused on bringing new electronics and cutting-edge technology to your customers?

The persona here is important as it has to resonate with your audience while staying consistent.

In order to make your brand message stick, you’ll have to understand your audience and what they need.

Remember; you’re appealing to them as best as you can, so it helps if you know what they’re looking for.

It can also help to have a phrase, message, or memorable quote that summarizes your brand.

Things like Nike’s “Just Do It” or L’Oreal’s “Because you’re worth it” are great examples of this.

Having a story will also help customers resonate with your brand, so developing a narrative that communicates your brand can be a huge boon.

Implementing your marketing campaign

Putting all of your ideas and strategies into action can be difficult, so here are some tips to help you stay focused and organized:

• Set a budget for your entire marketing campaign. If this is your first time, don’t be afraid to raise the estimate or go over budget.
• Set a timeframe as well. Marketing campaigns can’t last forever, so it’s best to set a reasonable timeframe for them to stay around.
• Have your metrics in place by setting up the systems needed. If you can’t measure the success of your campaign, then it’ll be difficult to tell if it was worth the investment or not.
• Start putting your plan into action. Assign team members to manage or monitor different things, hire writers to create copy, or get designers to make graphics. This will help you put together your marketing materials so that they’re ready to use.
• Monitor your campaign by analyzing all of the data and metrics. Make adjustments as required and don’t be afraid to pull the plug if it’s not going well. Communicate with your team as this happens to ensure that you’re pivoting whenever you have the opportunity to.

Executing a clean and successful marketing campaign is hard, so don’t stress over it if it doesn’t go well initially.

With time, you’ll learn to adjust your expectations and plan ahead for all of the things that could go wrong.

Where to go from here

Successful marketing campaigns rely on planning and execution.

It’s important to spend a lot of time researching the market so that you know what your audience wants, and you have to approach them in a relatable way that speaks to them.

You also need to execute your plans properly and make effective use of all of the content and marketing materials that you’ve created.

Starting a marketing campaign isn’t easy, but there are certainly ways to make it simpler.

With game-changing AI marketing tools, Optimo could save you hours in the content creation process, helping you design and write effective content for your ads, social media, or even website content.

Get in touch with us today to learn more about how Optimo could transform your marketing campaigns.