How to Plan a Marketing Campaign: A Comprehensive Guide with Examples
A well-written marketing campaign is a key part of any business's success. It can help you to attract new clients, retain old ones and give your brand an identity that people love. It can feel overwhelming trying to developing a marketing campaign if you are a small business owner that doesn’t specialize in marketing. That’s why we’ve created this comprehensive guide that will simplify how you set up your marketing campaigns.
When it comes to planning a successful marketing campaign, there are a few key factors to consider. First, you need to decide what the goal of your campaign is - do you want to drive sales, increase brand awareness, or something else? Once you have a clear goal in mind, you need to create a plan for how you're going to reach it. This plan should include all of the steps you need to take to reach your goal, such as who you'll target, what channels you'll use, what content you'll create, and when you'll launch. To help illustrate the process, we have created a mockup marketing campaign brief that we will be using as an example for how to set up a marketing campaign!
The power of Marketing Briefs
I love exploring brand briefs on Instagram. If you're not familiar with what those are, check out Instagram accounts like @hellotayloramy or the hashtag #briefbabes where you can explore endless amounts of really inspiring brand briefs!
It got me thinking about how there needs to be this sort of helpful guidance and inspiration for the world of marketing, so this week I am going to share my first DoGoodBiz Brief with you!
The purpose of a brief is to provide an outline of project guidelines so that everyone working on the project is on the same page, having the same information to work with. A brief can help you strategize, plan, and set in motion a particular project. In this case, we will be working with a marketing brief. In later newsletters, I'll share some other briefs I often create for our team and clients, such as content briefs and design briefs. If you have any requests for specific examples you'd love to see a brief around, drop me an email! Briefs are meant to be collaborative in nature, after all.
An example marketing campaign brief:
Meet your client: A sustainable food brand named FoodCommune
About FoodCommune:
FoodCommune's mission is to make it easy for people to make sustainable lifestyle choices that will improve their wellbeing and the wellbeing of surrounding communities by providing easy access to education, recipes, and meals.
Their goal is to provide comprehensive education and quality products in a sustainable way while providing local communities with access to resources and food that can improve overall wellbeing.
They strive to empower individuals to make informed decisions that will positively impact their lives and the lives of those around them. They are committed to helping people make healthy, responsible choices that will promote a better future for us all.
What they offer:
Paid courses and free online education resource hub
Meal delivery service sourced by local products
Online product shop
Their target audience:
Health conscious people who want to make more environmentally sustainable food choices in a practical and affordable way.
People who want to learn about sustainable food and eating.
People who want to help improve their personal health and the wellbeing of their surrounding communities.
Campaign Purpose:
Defining your campaign purpose will help you ultimately to also define the strategies you implement to execute said campaign! Your campaign purpose will identify what the overall goals are for your campaign. In our case, we are focusing on creating brand awareness as well as interest in brand offers, so our campaign purpose needs to be structured around that. It is important to know WHAT you are trying to accomplish in order to get clear on your purpose as well as your strategies.
FoodCommune's Campaign Purpose:
Become a go-to resource for practical, evidence based and accessible tips, tutorials and resources for local communities wanting to improve the quality of food they eat and lifestyle choices they make.
Share stories and case studies about real people facing relatable situations, linking education and products to solutions.
Create a culture of community involvement, educating people about local farmers, food sources and practices, empowering people to get involved in their local community's well being while also improving their personal health.
Create awareness, interest and a customer base for meal delivery services.
Create awareness, interest and a customer base for online courses and educational resources.
From the above campaign purpose, we now know that our marketing campaign for FoodCommune needs to focus on:
Creating and sharing education based content
Targeting specific locations that the brand is wanting to serve
Creating story and case study style content
Audience growth that aligns with locations being targeted and types of people being targeted
Share information about OneCommune's meal delivery services
Share information about OneCommune's educational offers
This, in turn, helps us become ready to move into strategizing the campaign! A good marketing strategy is essential for any business, large or small, to succeed in today's environment. It is the foundation for a successful marketing campaign because it was helps you begin establishing the activities that need to be implemented for the campaign you are drafting. Your marketing strategies should be tailored to the individual needs of your business, and that’s why our Studio focuses so much on personalized marketing services!
You marketing strategy will often involve researching your industry, target market, and target audience, then creating a plan to reach and relate with that market. Your strategy can often include advertising, designing promotional assets, content approaches, public relations, and other methods to spread the word about your brand and its products or services. Once the strategy has been developed, it should be implemented and monitored over time to ensure progress is being made and objectives are being met.
Marketing Strategy & Planning
When defining the marketing strategy for a brand, it is essential to ensure that strategies support and reflect the brand's values, purpose, and guidelines. Your marketing strategy defines what is needed to execute your marketing goals, whereas your marketing plan outlines the activities you will implement to execute the strategy. This is something that often isn't emphasized enough, but it is what helps a brand ensure that they are practicing what they preach! In the case for sustainable brands, this is even more important because without aligning strategy to what the brand stands for, you could easily wind up getting caught up in greenwashing.
When establishing your strategy and marketing plan, it is critical to ensure that it is developed in alignment with your overall marketing goals. For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, you might start by creating a series of content that will run across a variety of platforms, that is focused on “light lift” content that is positioned in front of your target audience. This could include blog posts, videos, podcasts, or social media posts.
For campaigns focused on driving sales, the process is a bit different. You should start by identifying what products or services you want to promote and decide on a budget for the campaign. Then, you need to create content that will encourage people to purchase from you by educating your community about your products or services. This could include special offers, discounts, and promotions.
These are just a few examples of how you can plan a successful marketing campaign. No matter what your goal is, it's important to take the time to create a strategy that will help you reach it. By taking the time to properly plan your campaign, you'll be able to maximize your chances of success.
Continuing with our marketing brief, here is an example of how we set up our brief, FoodCommune's, Marketing Strategy:
Implement sustainable marketing practices:
Mission focused content
Educational content
Product awareness content
Tutorial content
Brand (triple bottom line) impact content
Channels OneCommune will use to market:
The channels your brand chooses should be where your target market is at!
Instagram
Blog
Email List
Local outreach
Activities OneCommune will conduct to implement strategy:
Your activities should relate to the channels you are using to market your brand as well as the brand's purpose and strategies.
Brand partnerships
Community partnerships
Free educational downloads
Weekly blog marketing
Weekly email marketing
Daily social media marketing
And there we have it! We have set up a marketing brief that outlines this mockup brand's approach to marketing that will help them build brand awareness and start creating interest in their offers!
From here, we would set up our PLAN and begin implementing specific activities, monitoring progress and advancing our strategies over time. The work doesn't stop here! Your marketing campaign brief will most likely change over time as you implement activities and track your results. Tracking results is critical to marketing campaigns as it informs what's working and what's not. As an example, our Studio updates our active or evergreen marketing campaign briefs every month as well as updates our content strategies every month!
I hope you find this mockup marketing brief interesting to read through and I also hope it helps you generate some cool ideas for things you can do to enhance your own marketing efforts! With this guide, you'll be able to create a marketing campaign that will achieve your goals and help your business thrive.
Until next time…
Natalie Brite - DoGoodBiz Studio
