Whether you're planning and running an online marketing campaign with a digital marketing agency, a freelancer or on your own, the first step is to think carefully about what you want to achieve and the steps you need to take to get there. Here are what we think are the most important steps to take when planning your campaign.
CPM, audience, CTR, conversion, lead, brief…
Just a few terms that you might have come across in online marketing articles or in conversations with professionals. But what do these strange words and shortcuts mean and do YOU need them? Let’s find out!
Prepare the perfect brief
A brief is a summary document in which the client informs the marketing person or agency in detail what they want to engage the marketing person or agency to do.
#m1-y#How to write a brief?##
● Describe exactly what the service/product is: why it is good for the user, what they get out of it.
● Where do you want to deliver this message to them? On Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Ads? Maybe send them a newsletter?
● What is the minimum level of sales, how many orders do you want to achieve with your ads? (As tempting as it is, don't write "very much" here. Try to set a specific number, a reasonable minimum target that fits in with your financial strategy).
● Do you want to exclude certain groups (e.g. self-employed or living in certain counties, under 20s or over 40s ) or do you want to be excluded from competitor keywords? Or, conversely, do you want to be ranked first even if someone searches for your competitor's services?
● Think about how long you would like to run this campaign (periodically, occasionally or continuously?)
● What budget do you have, how much are you spending on this campaign?
● Do you have your own pictures, videos, texts or would you like to ask an expert to help you?
If you're unsure about which platforms would be good for you to advertise on, or what the ideal budget is for your goals, feel free to ask the specialist you've hired for help. They will suggest suitable options and help you fill in the missing parts of your brief, and will then prepare a campaign plan in response.
How the campaign plan is made
Whether you start working with an agency, an independent marketing consultant or you want to start your own online marketing campaigns, you need a campaign plan! It's important because you can see the whole process in one view, and you'll have something to compare the results with at the end. The campaign plan should include what campaigns you want to run, from when to when, on what budget, with what objectives, for whom, and with what visuals.
Plan your campaign message: what do you want to communicate to users? Who should be your target audience, to whom do you want to deliver this message?
You can use a number of built-in tools to plan your online marketing campaigns: the Facebook Ads Manager shows you, as you edit, how many people your chosen campaign type can reach from your target audience, how many clicks you can expect, within the budget you set, and the same is available in Google Ads.
The target audience is the virtual group of people we want to reach with our ads. To define your audience well, you need to know how old they are, where they live, what their habits are, what they like, what they are interested in, what their family situation is, what stage of life they are at. We can easily do this by using our personal experience (e.g. by profiling your business's customers and clients) or by using analytics tools built into your website or social media profiles and set up accordingly. And if you have never had a customer, but you have an idea of who your product or service is aimed at, you can create Buyer Personas: describe what your potential customer looks like, how old they are, what their job is, what their income is, do they have a pet, how they think - do they like reading, going to the cinema? Are they more interested in fashion or cars? Do they like to travel or stay at home? The better you personalise, the more precisely you describe, the better you can target your audience and the more effectively you can advertise. Because there is no such thing as wanting to sell to everyone. If you think like that, it will cost a lot of money to market online and you may not be satisfied with the results.
The plan is ready, what next?
We've seen the brief and the structure of the well-developed campaign plan, and now we know why it's important. To dive into more details, check out other related articles on our blog!
#promobox#Do you think you'd rather entrust your online marketing tasks to someone who's comfortable with campaign management and knows what SEO or CTR is all about?##
