The word campaign has evolved from military terminology of ‘taking the camp’, which I think is pretty relevant because some of the marketers I know tend to not always work with military precision.
Maybe that is why marketers have adopted the terminology with such vigour, as it reminds us that we should act in accordance with very clear goals and with a discipline that is required to achieve the standards and objectives we have set for ourselves.
Below are my suggested disciplines to manage a marketing campaign effectively.
Set a goal or three
A campaign is not a campaign unless you have goals. The SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals approach is a useful method to ensure the goals are well defined. Goal setting can be easier said than done and when there are so many uncertainties it can seem frivolous to say you want 20 leads when you just don’t know how many you will get. However, it’s important to remember goals can be changed and updated, in fact, it’s essential to keep evolving your goals as you improve. So, go ahead and set some clear goals that are linked to actual business results for your law firm.
Know your stakeholders and your metrics
Marketers sometimes talk about vanity and sanity metrics, meaning a vanity metric won’t have any impact on your business, but a sanity metric will be something of value like a qualified lead. It is essential to track metrics all the way along the customer journey which if looked at in isolation can be considered vanity but as a collective could ultimately lead to those qualified leads and paying clients. What is important is that you have clear conversations with the partners and management to agree the success metrics of the campaign and how that aligns with the overall business objectives. This will lead to a clear guide to decision-making as well as ensuring internal expectations can be managed, met, and exceeded.
Have a target audience
It can be tempting to say “we don’t have a big budget” or “we are a small firm, so we just want to reach anyone that can afford us” or “anyone who needs our services”. However even by saying that, you are segmenting those you can reach. So not only is it important that you are getting the most out of your spend by having clear targets but your tone of voice, imagery, messaging can also all be targeted to your intended target audience which will allow you to ensure you are getting the most out of your campaign.
Stay true to your brand
The fact that you are in a position to run a marketing campaign means that you have a brand worth protecting, campaigns can be an exciting and stressful time with a lot of moving parts. This means that the need to be disciplined in ensuring that you are adhering to your brand becomes even more important. Your brand should be well developed to allow for creative execution in a campaign but there will always be a point that the brand is pushed beyond where the brand can flex too. At this point, you can undo the hard work that has gone into developing and building your brand. As your brand no longer becomes recognisable or worse becomes too offensive etc. So, make sure you know where the boundary is of your brand expression before a campaign starts and then play within those boundaries.
Map the whole campaign journey
Any campaign is made up of a multitude of brand touchpoints that will include things that you very intentionally planned as part of the campaign including emails, webpages, physical mail, events, etc. In the real world, it will also include touchpoints that you perhaps hadn’t thought about. You should be aiming to ensure that the customer journey can happen seamlessly across different mediums with different people handling those touchpoints. So, if someone responds to your campaign by searching for you on LinkedIn instead of clicking on your Google Ad will they find the correct details; if they decide to phone instead of sending an email will they talk to someone who is well informed about the campaign? If they decide to sign up / instruct/buy from you, is your whole team ready to onboard them excellently? A great campaign needs to consider all the elements and ensure that the whole team is prepared.
Try an internal launch
Internal campaign launches are often ignored, overlooked or not prioritised but a good internal launch can often be the key differentiator between a good campaign and an excellent campaign. Make time and effort to launch internally before you launch to the world. Not only will this give you an opportunity to iron out any kinks in the campaign and test the mechanics of the campaign (you would far rather a member of your team picks up a spelling mistake than your customer), but it allows the team to buy into the product or service and become real advocates for the campaign.
At Conscious, we have a team that has learned through experience the lessons of running successful campaigns by executing them across the country with large and small budgets, so if you would like to chat to us about your next campaign reach out to us at sales@conscious.co.uk
Don’t forget to celebrate the success of your campaigns and continue to learn from them too.