Marketing campaigns are a great way to drum up business, this we know. But a successful campaign must be thoughtfully coordinated, and should meet with certain key criteria, without fail. Nailing down these principles goes a long way toward ensuring the success of your marketing efforts. Let’s have a look at the top seven must-haves of a successful marketing campaign.
Establish a goal
Nothing in business ever works without a plan. Your marketing campaigns need to be purpose-made to achieve some tangible goal for your business. Do you want to expand your list of prospects or newsletter subscribers? That’s a reasonable objective. Here’s a better one: setting a goal to move the first thousand or so units of a new product via your next marketing campaign. As we all know, the only sure fired way to fail is to go to business without a plan, so always approach marketing with a goal-oriented strategy.
Know your audience
It may sound obvious, but companies frequently overlook establishing exactly who their clientele is supposed to be. The most common approach is to treat the audience as literally anyone. The truth is, very few companies can realistically address absolutely everyone as their customer.
You need to know your business and your niche in order to know who would convert into a sale via your marketing campaign. Tip: whatever your niche may be, it is probably near and dear to you personally. So you can draw from your own interests and consumer expectations to help address your audience, who most likely aren’t all that different from you.
Clearly state your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
USP is a key term when it comes to generating sales. What makes your company unique – and thus worth doing business with? What value, feature, and/or benefit do you have to offer your audience? These are the kinds of questions you should bear in mind as you begin your marketing campaigns. What impetus does your customer have to take the plunge and make a purchase? The answer: only the one you give them, so give them one that sells.
Choose your outlets – wisely
Having a website alone won’t cut it – this we also know. But what other outlets do you choose to engage your audience through? Well, at first, more is better than one. You have tremendous freedom to choose the outlets you’d like to use in your marketing campaigns. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are all red-hot resources at the moment. Chances are, regardless of niche, your business will only benefit from engaging on at least a couple of those fronts. The best advice is to try them all, then hone in your focus on the one that brings the best results.
Lose no leads
Everyone who enters your sales funnel – that is, your website, social media pages, and mailing list – can prove to be valuable, even the ones who leave early. Data collected from every interaction lets your company know what worked, and what didn’t. Beyond that underlying value, the ability to identify unique clients and remain in contact (through follow up, or “retargeting”) is crucial to making the most out of every lead.
Keeping an up-to-date prospect list is a great way to maximize your marketing campaigns.
Follow Up
Non-converting leads will initially leave the sales funnel, but that may not be the end of the interaction. Sometimes, all that is needed is a little follow up. Following up with an automated, yet personalized, email or strategic ad can do wonders for customer growth and retention.
Sometimes, people aren’t ready to make a purchase the first time they discovery your business, but later, when they have more disposable income to burn, they might be inclined to buy. It’s up to you to make sure you drop in on their radar from time to time, just to see if they are still interested. If they aren’t, they’ll opt-out.
The Call to Action (CTA)
The absolute most important concept in sales is the offer – the call to action. You really can’t have a sale unless you first have a CTA. The best advice is to make sure your offers aren’t overly advertorial. The most successful marketing campaign has the seemingly uncanny ability to bring the consumer to action because they want to take the action. It comes down to equal parts skill and logic, but you can’t succeed without a CTA.
Final Thoughts
Marketing campaigns are essential to everyone these days. Like all things in business, the more thought you put into your media and content, the better your results will be. The above seven practical rules are things you can’t afford to miss in your marketing efforts. They must all be present. Perhaps now is a good time to look at your marketing plans and realistically ask: can I do better in one of these areas? If you can answer “yes” to any of these, then you can only benefit by addressing those issues, right away.
Let’s us know which of these elements you use or need to adopt in your marketing in the comments section below.
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Hi Doug – I’ve been wondering if there’s any value to the unsubscribes that inevitably happen when list building. I’m happy to give away some free value items, trainings and the occasional special download, but there are some folks that jump in only for the free “special sauce” and then jump out. What do you think?
Gracie, it comes down to value. There are always going to be freebie seekers that would opt-in and opt-out of your database after they get what they are looking for.
On the one hand, you can’t blame them because they don’t want to be spammed out of their minds if they remained on a list that send them irrelevant and un-targeted emails. On the other, if a subscriber opts out of your list when you know you do your best to provide value and OCCASIONAL and relevant promotions, then you don’t need that subscriber on your list anyway. You shouldn’t feel bad about it; move on.
How marketing campaign will make business successul?