Marketing

A Complete Guide to Marketing Campaigns: Types, Examples and Tips

Marketing has come a long way since print technology enabled businesses to advertise their products and services in newspapers to the masses.

The constant evolution of technology along with cultural shifts in how consumers view brands has impacted how marketing campaigns are developed and executed.

Yet mastering the art of marketing campaigns is essential for businesses striving to stand out in a crowded marketplace. From crafting compelling messaging to leveraging the latest trends in social media and beyond, effective marketing campaigns can propel brands towards their goals and capture the hearts and minds of consumers.

In this comprehensive guide, we look into the essential elements of a successful marketing campaign, exploring key types, strategies for creation, methods for measurement and successful real-world examples.

What is a marketing campaign?

A marketing campaign is a meticulously planned series of coordinated marketing efforts, strategically crafted to propel a product, service, or brand towards its objectives within a specific timeframe. It serves as a crucial component of an overarching marketing strategy, aligning with the broader business goals and vision of an organisation.

These campaigns integrate various marketing channels and tactics to disseminate targeted messages to specific audience segments. Rooted in consumer psychology and market dynamics, marketing campaigns aim to elicit desired responses from the target audience, whether it’s heightened brand awareness, increased lead generation, or accelerated sales growth.

Essential marketing campaign elements

A successful marketing campaign typically comprises several key elements:

Clear objectives

At the heart of every successful marketing campaign lies a set of clear, well-defined objectives. These objectives guide and direct the efforts of marketers towards tangible outcomes. Whether the goal is to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, or boost sales, articulating these objectives with precision is key to the campaign’s success.

Target audience

Understanding the intricacies of the target audience is fundamental to crafting a campaign that resonates deeply. Beyond demographic data, delving into psychographic insights, behavioural patterns and pain points helps marketers tailor their messaging to address the specific needs and preferences of their audience. By speaking directly to the desires and concerns of their target demographic, marketers can forge genuine connections and foster brand loyalty.

Compelling messaging

In a landscape inundated with marketing messages, the power of compelling storytelling cannot be overstated. Crafting narratives that captivate and resonate with the audience is essential to cutting through the noise and capturing their attention. Whether through evocative visuals, persuasive copywriting, or emotive storytelling, effective messaging forms the cornerstone of a memorable and impactful campaign.

Multi-channel approach

In an era defined by digital connectivity, reaching consumers where they are has never been more critical. A multi-channel approach to campaign execution ensures that marketers can engage with their audience across a diverse array of touchpoints, from social media platforms and email newsletters to traditional print media and experiential events. By leveraging multiple channels in concert, marketers can create a cohesive and immersive brand experience that resonates with consumers wherever they may be.

Strategic timing

Timing can often be the difference between a campaign that soars and one that falls flat. Whether capitalising on seasonal trends, aligning with cultural moments, or anticipating shifts in consumer behaviour, strategic timing can maximise the impact of a marketing campaign. By understanding the ebb and flow of the market and anticipating key moments of opportunity, marketers can ensure that their message reaches consumers at the right time, in the right place and in the right context.

Budget allocation

While creativity and strategy are undoubtedly crucial, no marketing campaign can succeed without adequate resources to support its execution. Budget allocation involves making strategic decisions about how to allocate financial resources across various channels, tactics and initiatives. Whether investing in digital advertising, content creation, or experiential marketing, prudent budget management ensures that resources are optimised to deliver the greatest possible return on investment.

Key types of marketing campaigns

Marketing campaigns can take various forms, depending on their objectives and target audience. Some common types include:

Marketing Objectives Examples

The objective(s) of a marketing campaign can include (but is not limited to):

Single and Multi-Channel Marketing Campaigns

A marketing campaign can be single channel-focused or – as is common in today’s business world – delivered across multiple channels.

As the name suggests, a single channel marketing campaign is one that relies on a single platform to deliver a marketing message. A company may decide to go this route for various reasons including but not limited to:

Taking the toy line example from above, a multichannel version of that marketing campaign could – in addition to the TV ad component – include YouTube adverts that are triggered when “Peppa Pig” is used as a search term on that channel.

Be it single or multi-channeled, good marketing campaigns have a consistent theme and communicate a focused idea. What this means is that elements such as images, slogans, colour schemes, texts and their fonts, music etc. are more or less uniform no matter the channel(s) being used to deliver the campaign.

For instance, when JD Sports has a major multichannel marketing campaign to promote a new line of sports shoes, the brand will often have a television advert. Elements from this ad are then replicated to suit other channels.

How to Create a Marketing Campaign in 7 Steps

Side Note: These steps will not only cover how to create a marketing campaign; they will also cover how to deliver a marketing campaign.

One of my favourite lyrics by an artist (Nas) ever is “He never planned to fail, he just failed to plan.”

This sentiment is as relevant to creating a successful marketing campaign as it is to anything we humans pursue in life. It’s why the first few steps mostly cover the planning of a marketing campaign. If effort is not put into these crucial first steps, the whole thing will fall apart.

 

1. Pinpoint the purpose of your campaign

It’s important you decide what exactly it is you are trying to achieve with this campaign. What message are you trying to get across? What customer pain point are you trying to cure? Your purpose could be any of the objectives previously mentioned.

Perhaps you’re a new business wanting to raise brand awareness. Maybe your aim is to promote a specific product or service. Or your goal could be to build your customer database. Whatever your objective is, know it completely and let it be foundational and inform the decisions you make going forward. For example, your objective can inform whether you decide to take the single channel or multichannel route and precisely which channels those are going to be.

Once you’ve decided on your marketing campaign objective, a great way to make sure it is the right one is to “SMART” it. SMART is a mnemonic that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound or Timely.

Let’s use one of the aforementioned objectives – Raising brand awareness – to display how SMART helps to test how viable and clear an objective is.

Specific – is the objective clear and detailed in stating what is desired?

Measurable – will the objective provide qualitative and quantitative data that will help measure the success of the campaign?

Achievable – considering resources and other internal as well as external factors, can the objective be attained?

Realistic – considering business climate, state of the market, current technology, competitors, budget (this doesn’t have its own step but don’t let that make you overlook its importance to a marketing campaign) and both macro and microenvironment factors, can the objective actually be achieved?

Time-bound – is there a timescale within which the objective must be achieved? Is there a set deadline for attaining the objective?

Having applied SMART to our marketing campaign objective, this is what I came up with:

“With a (insert value here) budget, the goal of our marketing campaign is to raise the awareness of our brand amongst 25- to 34-year-olds via digital platforms with the aim of increasing website visits and sales by 15% by the end of the first quarter of the financial year.”

As you can see, this version of the objective:

Applying SMART helps put flesh on the bare bones of a broad objective. Getting this part right makes the rest of your marketing campaign plan easier and less complex.

 

2. Decide exactly how you will measure your campaign

How you measure the success of your campaign depends on the objective(s) you’ve set for your marketing campaign. Let’s return to our objective once again.

Before applying SMART to it, measuring an increase in customer awareness would have been tricky because reading the audience’s mind is impossible; knowledge is intangible after all.

But with SMART applied to it, decisions can be made on both the quantitative and qualitative metrics that will be set to measure the campaign’s performance. Because digital is the primary platform for our campaign, these metrics can include:

It’s a good idea to allocate the appropriate metric(s) for each channel being used and     define how measurement is done on each channel. You can also set benchmarks for each metric.

Say your campaign is for a footwear business. If the industry standard is that 10% of emails opened by customers lead to website visits, you can set this as the minimum benchmark you want to achieve with your campaign. You can also use this benchmark to measure exactly how the email component of our digital marketing has impacted our website visits.

Speaking of email open rates, defining key performance indicators (KPIs) for each metric is also a necessity at this stage of creating your marketing campaign.

For website visits it can be:

For leads generated, it can be the number of:

Before moving on to the next step, it’s worth considering what success means to you if – for whatever reason – your objectives are not achieved. Using our example, is reaching that 15% increase in sales the be-all and end-all of the campaign? Does an increase of, say, 12% have enough impact on the company to call the campaign successful? I mentioned benchmarking a couple of paragraphs ago. Perhaps this could be a way to determine the pivot of success.

Alternatively, you can set up benchmark points that will help you keep track of performance, monitor progression, and help determine any actions that might need to be taken during the campaign. Reaching and moving pass checkpoints can boost the morale of yourself and your team as they witness their efforts bearing fruit.

Side note: use this step to begin to figure out what the ROI of your marketing campaign will look like.

 

3. Know your target audience

While the 50s and 60s were revolutionary in marketing progression and ushered in more ways to reach a target audience, the last two decades have taken it to levels previously unimagined. A modern-day marketing campaign – backed with technology that is at the consumer’s fingertips constantly – can be created with a very specific or niche customer demographic in mind.

At the heart of your campaign should be the people you’re trying to reach with your message. This goes beyond simple groupings such as by age, sex, or location. Audience segmentation can include more specific factors such as device usage, lifestyle, income, hobbies, purchase habits, job title, education, ethnicity, preferred web browser, preferred social media platform, religious belief and more.

Technology and years of analysing customer behaviour have made it so that you can really drill down to who exactly it is your marketing campaign exists to reach. Take advantage of this data when developing your marketing campaign.

The stage of the customer journey (Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, Retention Advocacy) your target audience is at is also important as it will influence the marketing message itself. Taking a look at our objective example (raise brand awareness; increase sales), the marketing campaign will have to cover the first three stages. With this in mind, further finetuning of messaging can be done.

Once you’ve zoned in on your target audience, use its demographic make-up to re-evaluate the platforms you’ve been considering for the campaign and how you can take advantage of the specific features these platforms offer. Many digital platforms offer excellent user segmentation features. Take time to explore each one; you might come across features that not only allow you to be even more specific with your targeting, but also sparks ideas for the following step.

 

4. Create the content and assets

Now that you know what you want to achieve with your campaign, understand who your target audience are, and have a good idea of the best platforms to use to deliver your message, it’s (robs hands together) time to start getting creative. Yay!

At the beginning of this article, I mentioned how good marketing campaigns tell a story. To return to our author analogy, the writer now knows who his characters are, has done enough research to build a world around them, and has created a story outline (plot) that includes an end point. The time to start writing the story itself has arrived.

A great place to start with creating content and assets for your marketing campaign is to think about your existing branding and how you’ve presented it to the world. To a certain degree, raising – or at least maintaining – brand awareness is at the heart of every marketing campaign whether stated in the objective(s) or not: the simple act of placing a logo in an advert or marketing materials makes this so.

Therefore, although it’s important for the campaign to have its own visual identity, presentation, mission, and story it is telling, keeping brand recognition in mind when deciding on elements like colour schemes, tone of voice, logo, images, font etc. allows what makes your brand unique to come through in the final message. Some of these elements should be lines that run through every campaign. There’s a reason why we as consumers automatically associate certain colours with certain brands (yellow: McDonald’s. Blue: Facebook).

Because you’ve decided on the platforms that will present the marketing campaign, you can create content that best tells your marketing story through those channels. You might create assets with elements of animation and interactivity for display ads on websites, for example. Or you might use gamification to make an asset more engaging and to create a great digital experience.

If you have in-house teams that work on the platforms your campaign will be presented on, bring them in as part of the concept and content creation process. They can offer invaluable insight on how marketing stories are told on individual platforms.

Take time to work on content that makes sense for the stage of the customer journey the target audience is at. Some stages require big, bold (but not salesy) messaging that grabs a customer’s attention and pulls them in (Awareness stage); others require more sales-driven language and images that pushes customers towards buying a product or service (Consideration stage).

Make sure you refer back to your measurement and metrics as these may play a part in how some of the assets function in the back end and the elements they contain on the front-end (think back to the click-to-call example I mentioned earlier: it will need tracking and phone access capabilities added in the back end and a “Call Us” CTA added to the front-end design that the customer sees).

This stage of creating your marketing campaign can contain a lot of moving parts and be lengthy but it’s something you should throw yourself completely into and try to have fun with: the more you enjoy this creative process, the more likely it is that your target audience will enjoy experiencing what you’ve delivered. Think of some of the greatest movies (or books or music) of all time and the ones you personally adore… then consider how much time, dedication and love was poured into creating them.

 

5. Launch your marketing campaign

The story has now been written and it’s time to publish and distribute your work to the world. How and where this is done are very much determined by all the decisions you’ve made in the previous stages (audience demographics, measuring success, types of creative assets, story being told etc.).

What you can also do is look at past campaigns you might have been involved with, current and past channels your brand has used for promotion and how that went, and any emerging platforms you feel is worth experimenting with. Also consider the strengths and weaknesses of each channel and exactly how it will help you achieve your marketing campaign objectives.

It’s worth repeating that it’s vital you really, and I mean really, know your target audience. This will make it so much easier to know where and how they are best reached.

The objective example we’ve been using in this article is targeted at customers in the 24-35 age group. This group is made up of Millennials, so they are likely very tech-savvy and constantly on some sort of digital device or another. It makes perfect sense then, that they are targeted on digital platforms. It’s possible to narrow down further to which digital platforms they use exactly by referring back to all that lovely audience research that was done earlier (opens the oven and brings out a cake).

Finally, just because you’ve decided a certain channel doesn’t fit into your campaign doesn’t mean you should completely ignore it. If one of these platforms allows you to leverage the marketing assets you’ve already created, go ahead and use it; it’s at no extra cost after all.

Also, with online, you can often use the same digital marketing collateral to promote on platforms for free. To return to the footwear company example, images of shoes created for the marketing campaign can be published on sites like Pinterest and Instagram. Video ads can be uploaded to the brand’s YouTube channel or turned into GIFs for Snapchat and Twitter. If the campaign includes a write up, this could be published on a platform like Medium.

And of course, your digital assets can live on your website.

 

6. Tweak, Track and Improve Your Marketing Campaign

Unlike our author, once your story is out there, you can continue to make changes and improve on what isn’t working by measuring the response of the audience to the campaign. While this is also possible for traditional channels (at a much higher cost and time frame), it is especially so with the digital marketing component of campaigns.

Monitor your campaign on each platform to make sure the technical difficulties and bugs that are bound to come with digital assets and platforms are fixed immediately and don’t end up providing a bad digital experience to the audience.

Refer back to the benchmarks you set to see how the campaign is progressing. If progress is slow, do you need to add more platforms or assets to the campaign? Or is all that is required an additional CTA here, a bigger font there?

Don’t panic and start making wholesale changes just because things aren’t going perfectly: this could throw customers off and send out a message of how unsure your brand is of itself. Instead, think strategically and only make tweaks (I have faith that this is all you’ll need to do because you’ve put so much effort into the other stages – go you!) when necessary.

To once again reference storytelling: this is also the stage where – like a movie studio – you need to keep an eye on your budget. You don’t want to end up like 2013’s The Lone Ranger that went from an initial $70 million budget that rose up to $225 million during filming and ended up making zero difference to the quality and performance of it.

Consider this step your version of “during filming.” Don’t allow the panic of benchmarks yet to be met or slow progress push you to make rash decisions.

I will always advise clients to anticipate and be innovative in their adoption of new marketing technology, but like a film director getting too giddy over a new piece of technology that causes him to go over budget, I would also say be weary of the temptations of “The new it thing!” in digital once a campaign has launched. It’s important that the emergence of a new channel doesn’t derail your initial plans. Plus, you’ll be surprised how quick these new platforms rise then fall.

 

7. Measure and Analyse Your Campaign

Aaaaand breath. Because I have faith in you, I’d like to believe your campaign will meet its time-bound deadline. So, what have you learned? Did you achieve your objective? Did your audience respond how you anticipated they would? Was the campaign delivered within budget? Did you choose the right metrics and KPIs from the start with which to measure success? What was the return in investment?

These are all questions that can be answered using all the data your marketing campaign will provide. This data has to be analysed alongside goals, channels, and content as thoroughly as possible in order to have an in-depth understanding of how the marketing campaign performed.

You are now the author and his publisher examining how many books his story sold, what regions they sold the most in and amongst which age group and sex…Inspecting the platforms on which the book sold the most, the genres these buyers usually go for and what reviewers both professional and amateur are saying about the story. Our author’s publisher will tell him how this data should inform not only the next story he is to work on (a sequel perhaps…or in an entirely new genre), but how it should be marketed.

This is exactly what you need to do. More than just using it to measure success, analyse your data and let it inform your decisions for any future marketing campaigns. Your next one might be for a totally different product or have different objectives, but the lessons you’ve learned will be invaluable to how you will approach it.

Knowledge from a well planned and executed campaign can also be used as assets across other departments of your business.

To summarise, the following are 7 steps for creating and delivering a marketing campaign:

  1. Pinpoint the purpose of your marketing campaign
  2. Decide exactly how you will measure your marketing campaign
  3. Know your target audience
  4. Create the content and assets for your marketing campaign
  5. Launch your marketing campaign
  6. Tweak, track, and improve your marketing campaign
  7. Measure and analyse your marketing campaign

Here’s to you creating a successful marketing campaign with this blueprint. SMACK is a creative digital agency that can help you develop great marketing campaigns and produce memorable creative assets across multiple channels. Contact us today.

Some Frequently Asked Marketing Campaign Questions

 

What is the difference between a marketing campaign and an advertising campaign?

While often used interchangeably, there are distinct differences between a marketing campaign and an advertising campaign. A marketing campaign encompasses a broader range of activities aimed at promoting a product, service, or brand to achieve specific business objectives. This includes market research, strategic planning, product development, pricing, distribution and promotion, of which advertising is just one component.

Advertising campaigns, on the other hand, focus specifically on the promotion aspect of marketing, utilising various channels such as print, television, radio, digital and outdoor media to communicate messages and reach target audiences. In essence, marketing campaigns encompass a comprehensive approach to achieving business goals, while advertising campaigns concentrate solely on promotional activities.

 

What is an integrated marketing campaign?

An integrated marketing campaign is a strategic approach that synchronises various marketing channels and tactics to deliver a cohesive and unified brand message to target audiences. Unlike standalone marketing initiatives, an integrated campaign leverages multiple touchpoints such as digital advertising, social media, email marketing, public relations and offline channels to create a seamless brand experience.

By ensuring consistency in messaging, imagery and branding across all channels, an integrated marketing campaign aims to amplify the impact of each individual component while reinforcing brand identity and driving desired outcomes. This holistic approach allows businesses to reach audiences at different stages of the customer journey and maximises engagement by delivering relevant and timely messages across multiple platforms. In essence, an integrated marketing campaign orchestrates a symphony of marketing efforts to create a harmonious and memorable brand experience for consumers.

 

Which goals can you achieve for your marketing campaign by using automated bidding?

Automated bidding in marketing campaigns offers a plethora of benefits in achieving various goals efficiently and effectively. By leveraging automated bidding strategies, businesses can streamline their advertising efforts and optimise performance across different key performance indicators (KPIs).

One primary goal that automated bidding can help achieve is maximising return on investment (ROI) by automatically adjusting bids based on factors such as conversion likelihood, ad position and cost per acquisition (CPA). This ensures that ad spend is allocated to the most valuable opportunities, ultimately driving higher returns and profitability.

Furthermore, automated bidding can also aid in enhancing campaign reach and visibility. By dynamically adjusting bids in real-time to capitalise on fluctuations in demand and competition, automated bidding strategies enable businesses to maintain a competitive presence in the digital landscape and increase ad exposure to relevant audiences. This can lead to higher click-through rates (CTR), improved ad placement and ultimately greater brand awareness and market share.

 

What is the most important thing to consider when optimising a search engine marketing campaign?

When it comes to optimising a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign, one must prioritise relevance above all else. Relevance is the cornerstone of a successful SEM strategy as it directly impacts ad quality, user experience and ultimately campaign performance. Ensuring that your ads, keywords and landing pages are highly relevant to the user’s search intent is paramount in driving engagement, conversions and overall campaign success.

First and foremost, relevance begins with keyword selection. Conducting thorough keyword research to identify the most relevant and high-performing keywords for your target audience is essential. By understanding the search queries that users are entering into search engines, you can align your keyword strategy with their intent and preferences, ensuring that your ads appear in front of the right audience at the right time.

Equally important is the relevance of your ad copy and messaging. Crafting compelling and relevant ad copy that speaks directly to the user’s needs, desires and pain points is crucial in capturing their attention and driving clicks. Your ad copy should clearly communicate the value proposition of your product or service, highlight key benefits and include a strong call-to-action (CTA) to encourage user engagement.

Furthermore, relevance extends beyond just the ad itself to the landing page experience. Once a user clicks on your ad, they should be directed to a landing page that is highly relevant to their search query and expectations. Optimising your landing pages with relevant content, visuals and CTAs that align with the user’s intent can significantly improve conversion rates and overall campaign performance.

Additionally, ongoing optimisation and refinement are key to maintaining relevance throughout your SEM campaign. Continuously monitor and analyse performance metrics such as click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate and quality score to identify areas for improvement and optimisation. By regularly testing different ad creatives, keywords and landing page variations, you can refine your strategy to ensure maximum relevance and effectiveness.

 

Which type of influencer might be primarily behind the scenes in your marketing campaign?

When considering influencers for your marketing campaign, it’s essential to recognise that not all influencers operate in the spotlight. In fact, there is a distinct category of influencers known as ‘behind-the-scenes influencers’ who play a vital role in shaping brand perception and driving engagement without necessarily being the face of the campaign. These influencers typically operate behind the scenes, leveraging their expertise, connections and industry knowledge to amplify your brand’s message and reach.

One type of behind-the-scenes influencer is the industry expert or thought leader. These individuals are highly respected and influential within their niche or industry, often possessing specialised knowledge, insights and credibility that command attention and trust from their audience. While they may not have a massive following or celebrity status, their endorsement and validation can carry significant weight and influence among key stakeholders, including industry professionals, decision-makers and consumers.

 

Here’s to you creating a successful marketing campaign with this blueprint. SMACK is a creative digital agency that can help you develop great marketing campaigns and produce memorable creative assets across multiple channels. Contact us today.