Is a creative marketing campaign worth the time, effort and investment? There’s only one way to find out…
Just as a quick recap: in blog 1 we introduced the concept of a marketing campaign, and in blog 2 we looked at how to come up with some great ideas to ensure that your campaign leads to sales (hurrah!) For this, the final part in the series, we’ll look at how to measure success.
Assess and refine
Arguably the most overlooked part of running a marketing campaign is checking whether it’s doing what you wanted it to in the first place. And then tweaking and refining it to make it perform even better. We say arguably because it’s just one part of the process.
So how can you do that? How can you accurately calculate ROI?
First, return to those SMART objectives you defined back in the planning stages (see blog 1). Scrutinise them and think about whether you’ve done what you set out to do. Did you achieve your goals? And even if you only saw a partial improvement in the area, was it still worthwhile?
Remember you set your goal at a particular level for a reason; if you saw results that were not as good as you hoped, the campaign may have worked, but was it worthwhile? Did you get the return you needed for the budget you invested?
After all that’s the important bit right there, was it worth the time, energy and cash you put into it?
It doesn’t end there
That said, even if your campaign didn’t quite hit the heights that you’d hoped for, all is not lost. Brand awareness, reach and reinforcement are all valuable – if largely unquantifiable – outcomes, and if nothing else, it’s always, always good to be actively marketing. Someone will have noticed. And you never know when they’ll get in touch.
Don’t forget the data
The data you collected during your campaign, whether from leads, enquiries, sign-ups or conversations will be useful data. It can help you get to know your audience better – perhaps to inform future campaigns. You might be able to learn more about the way your audience speak and the platforms on which they spend time, so you can start to converse with them on their own terms.
Alternatively, this newfound knowledge might inspire you to come up with new product ideas or tweaks to existing ones that mean they meet your audience’s needs better. The data you collect during your campaign really can help to expand your marketing efforts as a whole.
And don’t forget that, as a team, it’s important to sit down and review everything you’ve done. There will be plenty of lessons to be learned, that you can take on to inform and improve future campaigns.
The moral of this story?
The definition of a marketing campaign can be wide-ranging and as straightforward or as complicated as you wish to make it. Your campaign might push a strong sales message, or it might not. It might be disseminated via every channel possible, or could purely rely on word of mouth to be found. It all depends on your objective for the campaign and the results you hope to gain.
A marketing campaign doesn’t have to be simply a series of posts shared on social media or ads on local billboards. It can truly be anything you want it to be. You just need the right creative partner – ahem – and the conviction to step up and give it a go.
Are you ready to launch a campaign and kickstart your sales? We’d love to have a chat to you about it. Email Sim at sim@sim7creative.co.uk