It’s not enough to plant a garden. Even if you do the work – get your hands dirty, shove some seeds into the soil, and feel proud of a job well done – you haven’t really finished the job. You still have to water it, fertilize it, and protect it from pests and animals that may prevent your garden from growing into its full, beautiful potential.
Similarly, it’s not enough to create your digital brand.
After you’ve identified your brand and its defining elements, set up social media channels that comply with and project your brand image, and fine-tuned your website content to represent your brand voice – what comes next?
It’s time to water your brand and watch it grow. It’s time to implement a digital marketing campaign.
Boosting Your Brand With Effective Digital Marketing Campaigns
Social media has made branding easier — it’s an immediate and inexpensive way to reach your consumers as part of a digital marketing campaign.
It has also made branding harder — a flawed campaign attempt can reach far and wide before you have a chance to correct it.
I’m sure you’ll all remember the Pepsi ad from earlier this year that received so much criticism and backlash, it was renounced and removed by Pepsi Global within hours of its release. The criticism was vast and varied, but there’s an important lesson to apply in your digital marketing campaigns:
If you’re going to produce digital content to foster brand growth, be sure it’s content you’re proud of and prepared to stand behind.
How can you be sure? Because you’re going to plan out every detail using this seven-step approach.
1. Do The Research
Has anyone done a campaign like the one you’re planning to do? How can you make it different, and more importantly, how can you make it better?
Research your competitors, and make sure to identify how your brand stands apart. Make a note of these details — you’ll want them later on when you’re brainstorming messaging and language.
Let’s take an example of a small local business — like a clothing and jewelry boutique. The boutique maintains its Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, has an SEO-optimized website, a regularly updated blog, and a steady influx of regular customers. They’re ready to make a push with their brand.
In conducting research, our boutique would identify competitors — probably other small boutiques, as well as national clothing retailers with franchises in the area. The boutique would also clearly define why shopping with them is a better option: better prices, higher quality, more pleasant shopping experience?
We’ll assume they settled on two of those things. Our boutique is the best shopping option because of its high-quality goods and customer-centric shopping experience. Now let’s plan a campaign.
2. Set Objectives and Goals
Get real about your purpose. What is the objective of this campaign? Do you just want to grow brand awareness and favorability, or do you want to attach a business growth component to your branding initiative? Are you trying to raise awareness about an upcoming event or a new business offering?
For our boutique, the objective is going to be expanding its digital presence to make its brand known beyond its immediate community, while still nurturing the relationship the boutique already has with local customers.
Once you’ve made the objective clear, set goals that will serve as milestones. You’ve heard of S.M.A.R.T. goals, so apply that here. Make your campaign goals:
- As Specific as possible.
- Measurable by social media or sales metrics.
- Attainable within the period of time your campaign will be running.
- Relevant to your objectives.
- Timely (be sure your campaign has an end date).
The boutique from our example will set goals that work towards the objective — expanding its digital presence. Some goals might include:
- Gain 500 followers on Instagram
- Increase digital sales by 5% in the next quarter
- Be featured in a popular fashion blog in the next 3 months
3. Identify Target Audience
In order to deliver an effective digital marketing campaign, you’ll need to identify the audience you are hoping to reach. Will this particular digital campaign be fostering relationships you already have, or are you trying to attract a new audience?
What is the composition of the target audience? Think demographic (sex, age range, income level), as well as geographic (do you want to target people in a specific area?).
The boutique wants to grow its digital presence in order to gain customers that may not be in their immediate area. To start, our campaign could target new audiences across the state with the same age range and sex that they see in their local shoppers.
4. Define Messaging
The audience is who you want to engage. Messaging is what you’ll tell them once they’re listening. What do you want your audience to know about your campaign, your objectives, and your brand?
No matter what your objectives might be, make sure your communication is meaningful. Remember:
You are nurturing your brand, and you want to do so with strong, positive, and clear messaging.
5. Develop A Strategy
You know your audience now, and you know the message you’d like to share with them. What’s the best way to do this? You have many channels available to disseminate your message, and you may want to use them all. On the other hand, you might find that only a couple of distribution channels are a good fit for your campaign.
The strategy that makes up your digital marketing campaign may include things like:
- Landing pages on your website or topic-specific blogs
- Specific social media content or contests
- Videos and other promotional tools
- Community or virtual events
Consider what strategies will have the biggest impact on your audience (and what will spread your campaign messaging most effectively) when choosing campaign components.
Returning to our boutique example, they may consider some options like:
- Instagram giveaways that encourage followers to tag their friends
- E-mail marketing campaigns with discount codes for new customers
- Shopping experience video to be shared on social channels
6. Set Tactics
For the next step, you’ll get detailed. Like, really detailed. Who is doing what, and what exactly are they doing, and when exactly will they have it done? This is where the “measurable” part of your goals and objectives will be tested.
If you’re developing content for your website, decide who is writing, who is designing, who is programming, and when it will all be completed. If you’re creating a campaign video, choose a scriptwriter, a videographer, and some talent.
Don’t be afraid to delegate — you can’t do it all yourself! But be sure to follow up on the tasks you assign out to make sure you’ll meet progress deadlines and get the campaign rolling on time. Meeting deadlines is imperative to the success of your campaign and to your ability to measure goal achievement accurately.
7. Measure Results
Measure your success! What worked and what didn’t? How did your target audiences respond? Use information collected to create best practices (or make a note of things you could do better) for your next campaign.
Want to discuss digital marketing campaigns or learn how best to foster your brand reputation? Reunion Marketing can help. If you have any questions, reach out to our team for a free digital analysis to learn how our method can help make your digital presence more effective.