What are marketing campaigns? Types and examples

Marketing campaigns can help you create awareness and a lasting impression on your prospective customers. You can promote your products or services and make people take your desired action. 

Marketing campaigns can help you build brand recognition among people who might not be aware of your brand. Here, in this blog, we will discuss marketing campaigns definition, types of marketing campaigns, marketing campaign strategy, and how to create a marketing campaign. 

What is a marketing campaign?

A marketing campaign is a set of marketing activities executed to promote a company’s products or services. Marketing campaigns involve different types of channels like radio, television, events, and digital media. You should incorporate those marketing channels in your marketing campaigns which has your target audience. 

Decide the clear objectives that you aim to achieve through the different marketing campaigns. There are many large companies that have different product lines. They can have many active marketing campaigns at the same time. For example, they can have a marketing campaign to promote their new product and another marketing campaign for the seasonal sale. 

Types of marketing campaigns 

You can use different channels for creating a campaign marketing strategy. For a marketing campaign, you can use a combination of various channels or a single marketing medium. Try to choose channels that your target audience most uses. Now, we will tell you about marketing campaign types that you can implement. 

1. Email marketing campaigns 

An email marketing campaign can help you connect with new and existing customers. Each email in an email marketing campaign is sent with one common end goal. For example, you’re sending emails to prospective customers. The common goal of all the emails in that campaign would be to make prospects take action. 

To create a successful email marketing campaign, you should try to personalize your emails. Instead of just promoting your brand, try to focus on the pain points of your target audience. You can describe how you can help them to resolve their problem with your products or services. 

2. Social media marketing campaigns 

Nowadays, most of the people use different social media channels. You can use social media campaigns to drive new customers and increase customer engagement. It can help you to push customers ahead in the funnel with distinct types of content like informative, comparison, and customer reviews, etc. 

For social media marketing campaigns you can use organic and paid methods. Make sure you create social media content to inform, educate, and entertain your customers. Try to focus on the social media platforms from where you’re getting maximum customers. 

3. Direct mail marketing campaigns 

Direct mail can be intrusive yet an effective way to expand your reach. You can provide in-depth information and promotional material to your prospective customers. As per the statistics, it has the third highest ROI in marketing campaigns after social media and email. You can provide coupons and offers in direct mail to boost conversions. 

4. Event marketing 

By doing event marketing, you can introduce your business to potential customers and partners. You can attend events and buy a booth to show your product demo to the prospects and businesses that might be interested. 

You can participate in trade shows to create brand awareness and present yourself in front of the right audience. According to a report, trade shows made around 13.2 billion dollars in revenue in the year 2017. 

5. Pay-per-click marketing campaigns 

Pay-per-click marketing campaigns are a type of online advertisement. In a PPC ad, each time a prospect clicks on your ad, you’re charged for that. Your PPC ad placement depends on the amount you bid for a keyword and how relevant it is to the searched term. 

To get the best results from PPC, make sure you bid on the right keywords. Once you know who your target audience is, you can easily find what keywords they’re using to search for your product or service. 

6. Public relations marketing campaigns 

Public relations can help you create brand awareness and spread the positive word about your business through news, media, and references. You can hire public relations agency that can help you build a good brand image and establish credibility. Public relations marketing campaigns involve promoting your brand through news, press releases, and external websites. 

Components of marketing campaigns 

There are many components of marketing campaigns that help make them successful. In this section, we will discuss the key components of marketing campaigns. 

• Goals and KPIs: To conduct a successful marketing campaign, you must set and define the goals and KPIs. Make sure you set specific and measurable goals & KPIs. Decide which metrics will be used to track the progress of your campaign. For example, you aim to achieve a 2-5% open rate with your email marketing campaigns.
• Marketing channels: Decide which marketing channels will be used to post and distribute content. For example, if you’re running a social media campaign, determine which social media channels you’ll be utilizing.
• Budget: For executing a marketing campaign, you should first decide on the budget. Calculate the cost required to run a marketing campaign. It can depend on multiple factors like agency or freelance costs and paid ad costs.
• Type of Content: Determine the type of content you’ll be creating for the marketing campaign. Try to incorporate different types of content such as videos, blogs, images, gifs, etc. By putting distinct types of content, you can attract new customers and keep it interesting for the existing ones.
• Team: Before setting up a marketing campaign, decide which team and members will be responsible for which part of the campaign. Ensure that you assign people to work on different aspects of a marketing campaign.

How to create a successful marketing campaign?

For success marketing campaign, you should plan your marketing campaign well. You should decide on your campaign objectives and how you will achieve them through marketing campaigns. 

A marketing campaign is dependent on different tasks. To ensure your marketing campaign’s success, you must make sure all tasks are aligned. Here, we will provide you with a step-by-step guide for creating a marketing campaign that delivers results. 

1. Define the scope of your marketing campaign plan 

A marketing campaign plan can help you provide direction to your team members. You can define the marketing campaign strategies, activities, resources, budget, and KPIs. By doing marketing campaign planning, you can ensure each task is done well and on time. 

To start off, decide your marketing campaign’s goal, like: 

• Increase brand awareness
• Improve customer engagement
• Boost sales and revenue
• Increase customer loyalty & retention

Instead of focusing on different goals, have a single goal to keep your scope well-defined. Try to add creativity and experimentation to get the best out of your marketing campaigns. However, don’t forget the original aim of your marketing campaign. Try to create messages with which your target audience resonates so that they are driven to persuade the journey down the funnel. 

2. Have clear marketing campaign objectives 

Have clear marketing campaign objectives that are measurable and attainable. Make sure your marketing campaign objectives are directly related to your main goal. While planning marketing campaigns objectives, keep SMART in your mind,

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Time-sensitive
• Realistic

Your marketing campaign objectives can be related to increasing your profits and brand awareness. Set actionable and achievable goals with numerical values for different KPIs. For example, the number of clicks you want to get through your marketing campaign and the revenue you expect to generate. 

3. Identify your target audience 

Identifying your target audience for the marketing campaign. By defining your target audience you can create relevant messages and drive better results. Don’t waste your marketing budget by keeping your target audience broad. The more specific you are, the higher will be the conversions. 

You can specify the characteristics of your target audience like, 

• Age
• Gender
• Profession
• Location
• Needs
• Interests

All this information can help you to take important marketing campaign decisions. Think about how your products or services can help people. Which people would require your products or services? Have a look at your existing customers to define the characteristics of your target audience. 

4. Create the right marketing message 

When it comes to campaign marketing strategy, make sure your objectives are aligned with your big-picture business goals. The best marketing campaigns have the essence of brand values, concepts, colors, and messages. 

Determine what you want to convey to your target audience and how you can deliver it best. Don’t just focus on selling products or services but on providing value to your prospects. Create marketing messages that address how your products or services will help solve prospects’ problems. 

Have a persuasive tone to push your potential customers to take action. Bring out creativity so as to grasp your target audience’s attention. Make sure that your campaign marketing strategy is feasible with all the required resources available.

5. Choose the marketing channels 

For the success of your marketing campaign, you should pick the right marketing channels. See on which marketing channel most of your prospective customers are available. For example, if you have a lot of traffic coming to your website and blogs, then you can continue to stick to them. However, if you want to tap new audiences, then you can consider other marketing channels and paid advertising. 

For running marketing campaigns, you have four distinct types of media channels: 

• Owned media: This includes websites, social media accounts, and mailing lists.
• Paid media: It consists of search engine advertising and paid ads.
• Earned media: It includes network marketing and PR placements.
• Shared media: It includes running marketing campaigns on third-party websites.

Nowadays, many marketing channels have emerged and it has become difficult to select one. You can use a multichannel marketing strategy that can help you achieve your business goals. Focus on the media channels that can aid you in attracting the right audience. 

6. Fix a marketing campaign timeline 

By fixing a marketing campaign timeline, you can decide on the dedicated resources and the team members accountable. You can determine the timeline for distinct aspects of your marketing campaign. However, remember no matter how good your marketing campaign planning is, it’s always tough to get the desired results.

For the marketing campaign timeline, estimate the hours required for different tasks. Attribute these activities to people within your team. This way you can decide the appropriate marketing campaign launch date. 

7. Decide the marketing campaign budget 

For conducting a marketing campaign, you need to invest money. You should research the important things required to create a marketing campaign. For example, to conduct a search engine marketing campaign, you need a social media marketer who’ll bid on the right keywords. Other things you need for a marketing campaign would be a copywriter and graphic designer. 

You should calculate the baseline costs along with outside costs. See how much is the marketing campaign cost compared to your total marketing budget. If it is too much then assess the costs listed and find ways to cut down on it. 

As per a CMO Survey, the marketing budget depends on the type of Industry. Have a look at the average figures for different industries: 

• 21% of revenue for a consulting company
• 21% of revenue in technology
• 18% in healthcare
• 3% in construction
• 3% in education
• 1% in energy

By estimating the costs of your marketing campaigns, you can know how much money you require to implement your marketing plan. With so many marketing channels available, you can effectively reach your target audience and boost revenue. 

8. Decide the metrics to measure your marketing campaign success 

By measuring the KPIs, you can know how successful your marketing campaign was. You can understand where you’re lacking and what you need to improve about your marketing campaigns. 

With metrics and analytics, you can evaluate your marketing campaign from start to end. You can set KPIs for reach, clicks, or revenue. Choose the metrics to measure that matter the most for your marketing campaign goal. 

For example, if you want to increase your brand awareness, then you should focus on metrics like the number of social media likes, comments, shares, and follows. There are different KPIs you can measure based on your marketing campaign goal such as,

• Click through rates
• Conversion rates
• Number of sales
• Customer engagement rate
• Number of website sessions

By tracking and measuring your marketing campaign metrics, you can compare them against KPIs. You can find out at which stage of the marketing funnel, leads are slipping and how you can target them better. 

9. Review and improve your marketing campaign 

To constantly improve your marketing campaigns, review the campaign results, and make strategic changes. You can find out which type of marketing messages work better or invest in the marketing channels that reap results. 

Reviewing your marketing campaign data is important. It can help you avoid making the same mistakes in your future marketing campaigns. With Webmaxy eGrowth marketing insights, you can find out which marketing campaign is working the best and worst. 

Marketing campaign examples 

Now, you know how to create a marketing campaign with simple steps. In this section, we will give you marketing campaign examples to give you an idea of how to implement these steps practically. 

1. Cheerios: #GoodGoesRound marketing campaign 

This marketing campaign called Good Goes Round was run by General Mills via Cheerios brand. It was created to raise money to provide one million free meals. They created a distinct landing page, video marketing content, and hashtag (#GoodGoesRound) to separate it from the parent brand. They also did paid marketing to promote the “Good Goes Round” URL on Google. This gave the marketing campaign high visibility which led to its success. 

2. Dove’s: Real beauty marketing campaign 

Dove’s: Real Beauty marketing campaign was a huge success. The aim of this marketing campaign was to build confidence in women and celebrate their differences. The company’s vision was to promote beauty equality. This campaign was started in the year 2004 and it boosted Dove’s sales from $2.5 billion to $4 billion. Their vision of improving women’s self-esteem made them the top soap brand in the United States. 

3. Coca-Cola: Share a coke marketing campaign 

Share a Coke marketing campaign was launched in the year 2011 at first in Australia. The aim of this marketing campaign was to build personal relationships with customers and encourage them to share Coke with their loved ones. Coke printed the 150 most popular names on the Coke bottles. The campaign was so successful that it was conducted in different countries across the globe. 

4. Apple: Shot on iPhone marketing campaign 

Apple: Shot on iPhone marketing campaign was launched in the year 2014. The campaign highlighted the iPhone’s high-tech camera feature and promoted user-generated content. They asked their customers to share photos taken on iPhones on social media using the hashtag #ShotoniPhone. The best photos were displayed on billboards, buildings, and public spaces across the world. Apple received millions of tags on Instagram and Twitter making it more popular among people. 

Marketing campaigns: The conclusion 

Marketing campaigns can help you to conduct your marketing efforts in a specific interval of time to achieve a business goal. You can create marketing campaigns by incorporating different marketing channels like social media platforms, email marketing, influencer marketing, video marketing, etc. 

Webmaxy eGrowth is an eCommerce management platform that can help you analyze your marketing campaigns performance in one dashboard. You can see the number of conversions and the amount of revenue you’re generating from different campaigns. You can make data-driven decisions for your marketing efforts. 

Additionally, Webmaxy eGrowth comes with a wide range of features like a KPI dashboard, audience segmentation, social campaigns, marketing automation, email marketing, Whatsapp marketing, customer loyalty, help desk, and retargeting. 

Schedule a demo with our experts to learn more about Webmaxy eGrowth, or email us at [email protected]. 

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