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Watch the Journey
A Game Plan to Improve Your Next Digital Marketing Campaign
Many factors make or break a marketing campaign. While some variables lie outside of your control, many of them fall within your realm of influence.
Develop a strategy for tackling your next digital marketing campaign, and optimize your odds of success by practicing the following digital marketing coach 11-step game plan:
1. Outline Your Goals
Clearly define what you want to achieve before beginning your campaign. Do you want your campaign to increase your visibility, boost your sales, generate more leads, or increase traffic to your website, for example?
Get specific. Write your goals down. Make them measurable with key performance indicators (KPIs). Ensure they are attainable and put a time limit on them. Once you do, you’ll have a SMART goal to work towards and ideas for measuring your progress.
2. Define Your Target Audience
The crux of your campaign is getting the right message to the right people. To do that, understand who your ideal customer is and what their needs and interests are. Then, you can tailor your copy and strategy to your specific audience for a more effective campaign.
Start by asking yourself the purpose of your service/product. What problem(s) do you solve?
Next, define one persona for each segmented group of customers. Then, ask yourself which of those your service/product helps. Include as much descriptive data as you want when creating your personas, such as:
- Gender
- Age
- Profession
- Financial Situation
- Family Status
- Interests
- Physical Location
Need help identifying and segmenting your audience for your online marketing campaign? Consider using a digital marketing tool or consulting service.
3. Create a Sales Funnel
You want to appeal to the right audience. When the right kinds of people flow through your funnel, you can benefit from more conversions, email subscribers, repeat business, and reviews. You may see improved profits as a result.
4. Create Meaningful Content
Create your campaign based on your goals and target customers. Your strategies could include social media posts, blogs, vlogs, videos, and more.
Personalize your marketing efforts, tailoring specific messages to segmented customers. Customers love personalized content. It can increase engagement and conversion rates, resulting in a more effective campaign.
For help with this creative marketing strategy, look to your competitors to see what they’re doing for ideas on what your audience might appreciate, or hire a professional service to research and implement a strategy. Rather than copy your competitor verbatim, use their ideas as jumping-off points. Add your own flair, voice, and irresistible offers.
5. Engage With Your Audience
Encourage your audience to participate in communications with you. Visuals like pictures, videos, and infographics are highly engaging.
Also, consider gamifying their experiences, even giving away prizes for playing. Insert moments of interactive fun using playful techniques such as quizzes, raffles, bingo, memory games, or any playful approach you can think of to break the ice and improve participation.
6. Create a Valuable Offer or Value Ladder
To assist with more conversions and paying customers, build a value ladder. A value ladder builds reciprocity–you give something away and gain their trust in return.
Offer them something of irresistible value, like a free e-book or top-secret tips, in exchange for their email address. Use landing pages and a clear call-to-action to build your value ladder funnel in which you give them value and can gain the ability to continue advertising to them. Your value ladder can often set you apart from your competitors and allow your target audience to learn more about you.
7. Broadcast Your Campaign
Promote your marketing campaign. Consider which channel(s) best help you reach your target audience. You have many avenues at your disposal, like:
- Social Media
- Email Lists
- Paid Ads
- Press Releases
8. Boost Your Visibility
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a key part of being more visible and helping improve your web traffic. Using keywords and phrases your target audience searches for improves your search engine rankings, getting you in front of more potential customers.
SEO can boost your organic reach, but paid advertising can help you reach a broader target audience. Each have the ability to help drive more people to your website. Paid advertising includes paid ads on social media, Google AdWords, and display ads.
Regularly post and engage with others on social media to build rapport with your target audience, promote your brand, and stay relevant. Create and share meaningful content, engage with your followers (but not for the sole purpose of promoting yourself), and employ social media ad campaigns to help boost your brand awareness and website traffic.
9. Improve Your Shareability
Improve your visibility by making your campaign easier to share. A few ways to boost your shareability are:
- Make posts public and shareable on your social media outlets (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.).
- Ask and remind your followers if they would ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ your campaign.
- Gamify sharing to encourage your audience to share your campaign on their social media profiles, rewarding them with the ability to win a prize. (Ensure it’s a genuine chance, and share who wins.)
- Spur on conversations around your campaign, allowing your audience to comment, post pictures, upload videos, vote, etc.
10. Track Results
Implementing campaigns without tracking results is like playing a game of darts without looking to see where your darts landed. You’ve got to be curious as to how you’re doing.
Ask questions based on your goals. How much more traffic did you get? How many more leads did you generate? Was your copy compelling?
Collect and analyze data related to your goals, such as conversion and engagement rates, web traffic, and click-through rates. Adjust your campaign components accordingly—for example, use more creative marketing strategies, have a bigger spending budget, and conduct more target audience research.
Reason, experiment, test, learn, and optimize by collecting and analyzing your return on investment (ROI). Use metrics provided in your digital marketing tools to start.
11. Repeat
Marketing never ceases. You still have work to do, even at the close of a campaign.
Nurture the new relationships you’ve established among your target customers. Learn what channels they came through. Keep communications open by sending them meaningful information that is valuable to them and builds your brand story. Continue collecting feedback and data to understand your potential customers better and deliver personalized messaging.
Optional: Partner With a Digital Marketing Consultant
Using a digital marketing consultant can give you added support and knowledge in building and implementing your campaign. They can help you create a detailed plan and support you along the way.
People and trends continuously evolve, calling for digital marketing strategies that grow right along with them. Staying current on the newest and best techniques is integral for ongoing success. A digital marketing consultant or agency can provide invaluable expertise and support in your marketing efforts.
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