Launching a marketing campaign can be overwhelming. If you’ve done one before, you know that it involves a lot of research and planning. A marketing campaign aims to reach the brand’s target consumers in various ways. It includes social media, search engine optimization, television and radio advertising, and many more.
Successful marketing campaigns don’t just happen overnight, yep there’s no such thing as overnight success in marketing. Let’s be honest, creating a marketing plan can be nerve-racking. You need to make sure that you will make a good impression on your target audience for them to be able to remember and trust your brand.
Yes, it takes a lot of time and effort. But once you pull off a good one, it will have a positive effect on your brand.
Aside from establishing goals, knowing your audience, and planning your content, here are four more things that every business should consider before launching a marketing campaign:
Creating or increasing awareness through collaboration
One important thing to consider when launching a campaign is collaboration. In the business and digital world, collaboration is one of the most powerful tool that can help promote or advertise a brand.
Collaborating with different brands and organizations can help boost your business. Partner with a brand with a similar target market and share the same values as yours, this will increase your brand’s awareness dramatically. Even your favorite YouTube content creators collaborate with each other to reach a wider audience, promote their channel, and to widen their viewership.
An example of a successful collaboration that happened recently is the partnership of Procter & Gamble’s Tide, National Football League (NFL), and NBC. The Tide “Not For Laundry” campaign featured football star Peyton Manning, “The Voice” coach Gwen Stefani, and the cast of “Superstore” as they get in an argument over when is the best night for laundry.
You know it’s a successful campaign because people who are watching Sunday Night Football are all talking about it. Well played, right?
Good Monster did this with one of our startups when we first launched. We reached out to other brands that didn’t sell jeans, but we have the same target market. The result? we garnered over a thousand new followers and our partner brands also got the chance to give their audience something for free. It’s a win-win situation.
When used correctly and strategically, collaborations will help you reach a wider audience without spending too much money.
Invest in high exposure opportunities
Whether you have an established company or you’re just starting with your business, you need to generate a high exposure for your brand. You can’t just kick off a marketing campaign out there immediately, you must have the right place and perfect timing to launch it. By doing this, you can entice a lot of possible customers.
Look for events in your area that are suitable for your business. Let’s say you’re running a startup that sells sporting goods, you can sponsor a community league where you can give athletes some of your products that they can wear during the event. You can also put up a booth where you can promote your products to the event attendees.
Another example is the Christmas Miracle Campaign of Canadian airline WestJet. It was first launched in 2013 where virtual Santa Claus asked the passengers at the airports in Ontario, Toronto, and Hamilton—who were all waiting for their flights to Calgary— what they want for Christmas. After all the passengers have arrived, they were all surprised by all the holiday gifts waiting for them at the baggage claim area. The campaign was loved by everyone and even won the Shorty Awards for the Best Viral Campaign. That’s the power of investing in a high exposure opportunity.
Use a simple yet effective hashtag
If you’re thinking of using hashtags for an online marketing campaign, you might want to use unbranded ones because these are more effective and it can be used easily and organically by anyone. Internet users tend to post more generic hashtags on Instagram, Twitter, and other social networking sites.
Take it from KFC. It’s unclear where the #NationalFriedChickenDay originated, but they are one of the first brands who took advantage of using the hashtag to gain attention online. It became an annual tradition for KFC, and even other fast-food chains followed, to celebrate the online holiday by offering promotions. In 2018, KFC Australia offered the chance to win free fried chicken for a year.
But be careful in using hashtags. Here’s a story about a branded hashtag that flopped. In 2012, an American fast-food company launched a Twitter campaign that aims to inspire people to share heart-warming stories about McDonald’s Happy Meals. But instead of becoming viral in a positive way, the campaign attracted Internet users to share their #McDHorrorStories.
Finding the perfect hashtag can be tricky, but if you find the right one, it will surely help you gain social media attention. In this world full of social media savvy consumers, a hashtag campaign can be the key to increase the visibility of your brand. Study your audience and learn what they want to see online.
Reuse and be creative
When launching a campaign, think of something that can be reused in the future. Reusing is not bad especially if it was well-received by your target market.
One benefit of repurposing is that it’s cost and time-efficient. Leveraging existing assets can save you more time and money that can be used for other marketing or advertising materials.
If you have an existing video about how to become a good entrepreneur, you can get useful information from that video to write a blog post for your website. Then, you can use that blog post to record a podcast, with that you can also create an infographic, and the list goes on.
The WestJet Christmas Miracle campaign is also a great example. After its successful launch in 2013, the airline has continued to create Christmas Miracle videos every year. Yes, the videos have different themes, but the idea of letting people feel the Christmas spirit is still the same. Last year, the concept was “Uniting Through Traditions,” where a Blue Santa reunites friends and families.
It’s challenging to create fresh content and satisfy people nowadays, but if you have limited resources, repurposing content proves to be helpful. Think outside the box and make sure that it will not become too repetitive for your target market.
