5 Elements of a Successful Marketing Campaign

Marketing campaigns can do so much more than get your product or service in front of a customer. Campaigns are what give brands their personality, tell a company’s story and make them memorable to their audience.

So often, campaigns are based on data analytics, and can feel force-fed by search engine algorithms and paid media. Sure, paying attention to your analytics may help you improve your conversion rates; but will it make your brand memorable?

In this post, I’ll dive into the 5 key elements of a successful marketing campaign.

#1: Customer Research

The first element of a successful marketing campaign is customer research. You might think you know who your customer is, but it's often surprising to find unexpected nuances within your customer base.

When I was in college, I interned for a kid's toy brand, and while we initially pictured our target customer to be a young mom, in her thirties, who run errands between her digital marketing job and soccer practice with a latte in hand – we soon found that was far from the truth.

We set up a pop-up shop in LA, and I tracked the individuals who came into the store; what they picked up, how long they spent hovering around which items, and what the ultimately purchased. We found that men entered the store far more often than women, and that they were more likely to purchase multiple items than their female counterparts. What’s more, these men were not in their early thirties, but their forties and fifties.

With today’s capabilities to target advertisements based on consumer demographics, it’s so important that you get it right. Your customer may not be exactly who you think they are! Start by using the best keyword research tools to boost your SEO and social media campaigns.

#2: Content That Resonates

Once you’ve done some customer research and have established who your true target audience is, it’ll be time to create content that resonates. Does your audience appreciate humor? Do they have time to watch a 3-minute video or will they skip past it and move on to something else? Are they more likely to browse on a computer, or will they be scrolling on their smart phone? These are all questions that you should ask yourself when putting together your content.

Check out our post on Top 10 Social Media Content Ideas for Anyone and How to Use AI In Content Creation for more tips on creating content that resonates with your audience.

#3: A Content Promotion Strategy

Next, you’ll have to consider how best to promote your content. Consider the platforms that you will use to reach your audience, the time of day that they are most active, and the frequency by which you’ll target them. Check out our post on How to Automate Your Social Media Posting Using Category Tags in Cloud Campaign for tips on setting up your posting schedule. You can also use content recycling on your best performing content to maximize its reach and engagement.

If you are operating in a competitive space, also consider whether you will use paid or organic promotion. Consider the keywords that best suit your content strategy. And are there any partners or influencers that you might want to work with to help in your promotion? Do you want to use a text message API or web platform to incorporate SMS into your promotion strategy? Check out our post on Where to Invest Your Marketing Budget and PPC Strategies From The Experts for more tips.

#4: A Call to Action

Include a call to action to ensure that your customers know what you want them to do once they’ve seen your content. Are you trying to generate traffic to information about a new product launch? Are you looking to capture emails for future targeting? Or are you hoping they will buy your product on the spot?

Whatever the call to action is, be sure that it is clear for your audience. If you're using a customizable social media management platform like Cloud Campaign, you can use Categories to easily tag your CTAs to monitor their performance. Check out our post on How to Use Categories to Organize Your Content Library and How to Use Category Tags In Performance Reports & Content Experiments for more tips!

#5: Campaign Analysis

Finally, you’ll want to track how your campaign is doing. As I said at the start of this post, be sure that any analysis that you do doesn’t over power the sentiment of your campaign. With retargeting especially, consumers often feel as though they are being “watched”.

Your campaigns should win business, but should do so subtly and in a non-invasive way. Some simple strategies involve A-B testing your content. And you can compare the success of a campaign on different social platforms. Check out our post on Social Media Reporting For Agencies for more tips on campaign analysis and how to determine if your social content is performing.

When all is said and done, be sure that your content is painting your brand in a positive light, and that it tells the story that you want to tell.

There’s so much more to a marketing campaign than impressions, clicks and conversions. They are your opportunity to get in front of people and tell them who you are. That's why we built Cloud Campaign - to help agencies like yours deliver the best results possible at scale. Give us a try for two weeks free and hop on a demo with our team to learn how Cloud Campaign can fit into your agency.