Most businesses have now progressed to having a basic digital marketing plan and understand how social media and email newsletters in particular can prove highly effective in attracting new customers and interest in our products and services. And so the next step is to develop and run successful campaigns using your digital marketing capabilities and a range of social networks and digital platforms.
What is a digital campaign?
Digital campaigns, like conventional marketing campaigns, are designed to engage customers (existing and new) with a key issue pertinent to your business, products and services. Some campaigns can be focussed specifically on increasing sales, bookings, interest, whilst others will relate to wider issues and demonstrate support on a national or global scale.
We think its all about using opportunity, a set time-scale, a clear call-to-action, and some brilliant social media which makes a great digital marketing campaign. And so be ready to use social media planning tools, news-jacking techniques and a range of great digital design and visuals to bring your campaigns to life. Be entertaining as well as engaging, and make the most of key messages to get your points across.
To get you thinking more about campaigns and their use, here are some examples which we hope you’ll enjoy :
(hyperlinks to further information about each campaign are below the infographic)
Bleed for England
Bodyform : The Truth
Hilton Hotels : Stop Clicking Around
WWF : Last Selfie
How to Get Your Campaign Underway
– here are our Top Tips to get things moving :
- Have a Goal for your Campaign – what is your ‘call-to-action’ and desired result? What would be different if your campaign proves highly successful? e.g. increased digital community (social media, website hits, blog subscribers), increased brand awareness, increase sales.
- Know your Audience? – be clear about who you are aiming to reach with the campaign and then research their use of digital and preferred channels, particularly social media use. And don’t forget that you will maximise the potential of any campaign by using back-links to your own website well to draw people through to your owned content.
- Campaign Competitors – have a good look around at other campaigns which are working well online and assess how they’ve achieved success. Look to see if your major business competitors are actively running a campaign – what are they focussing on and how could you improve your plans as a result?
- Prepare a Plan – but be ready to flex. How will you maximise news opportunities? Campaigns definitely need to be planned and structured, but don’t miss the opportunity to ‘piggy-back’ on topical news (news-jacking) relevant to the issue or use another brand with strong digital footprints to support or endorse your campaign. Does the plan make sense – do a check with someone to objectively review your campaign and see if it works.
- Review your Budgets and Resources – what time and money will you have to put towards the success of the campaign? Do you need to consider paid-advertising (Google Adwords and Facebook adverts for example) alongside use of time to generate great content and updates, responding to engagement on social networks.
- Use all of your Digital Tools – make sure you’ve got your website, blog, social media channels and scheduling tools all set up ready for the campaign and use the opportunity to refresh and improve your profiles (words and images). And remember that certain tools will help to bring subjects to life e.g. video on YouTube, images on Instagram, swift updated content on Twitter, etc.
- Click-through – What’s Next- ensure that people who use the links from your campaign messages to your website get to the right landing pages, and to content which will help them to engage even more with your business, organisation or project. Don’t miss the opportunity to add to your customer base, business relationships or wider stakeholder group. Building brand awareness is a major part of great digital campaigns.
- Set a Clear Timescale – be clear about the campaign start and end dates – what are the key milestones and fit with your wider marketing plans? What other key events will work alongside and in support of your campaign?
- Measure the Success – make sure you are clear about the numbers before you start – website statistics, social media footprints – invest some time in learning and setting up the tools which you can use to regularly monitor response and engagement with your campaign. This could include Google Analytics, Hootsuite, Klout and others.
- Research your subject – thoroughly and establish links online with others interested in the same or similar issues. Good use of hashtags in particular can help you to align your campaign with others of a similar nature. Use BuzzSumo and Hashtagify to research linked words and phrases.
And finally, a lesson to learn from when Campaigns go Wrong….
There are examples of campaigns which didn’t have the desired effect or response, and here are just a few. Look and learn!
“Kellogg’s has been forced to apologise after offering to exchange re-tweets for breakfasts for vulnerable children. The cereal manufacturer posted “1RT=1 breakfast for a vulnerable child” this month as part of its Give a Child a Breakfast campaign. The message was immediately attacked for cynically trying to squeeze advertising from starving children.”
See more about this story here