9 Questions You Must Ask for Effective Marketing Campaigns

Creating growth through the employment of compelling marketing campaigns requires that you have the answers to nine fundamental questions.

Let’s face it: people always create marketing campaigns without these answers. But, if you want to do it right (and get the desired results), you must set a clear campaign goal, taking inspiration from the best marketing campaigns. Additionally, defining your campaign objectives is crucial for planning and strategizing before launching your digital advertising campaign.

#1 What do we want?

Before creating a marketing campaign, you must define your objectives and know what you are trying to achieve for a successful marketing campaign. Some typical objectives are:

  1. Increase brand and product awareness
  2. Collect subscribers
  3. Stimulate engagement
  4. Schedule demonstrations
  5. Get webinar signups
  6. Deliver free trials
  7. Etc.

These goals and objectives should be detailed enough to be meaningful and measurable. SMART objectives are a good framework for this:

Specific - Get 100 new subscribers, schedule 12 new demonstrations, sign up for five new free trials, etc.

Measurable - How will we measure (in quantitative terms) our results? To increase brand awareness, there must be a plan to measure success (like an ongoing brand tracking survey). Some things are easy to measure, and some are not so easy. But you must be able to define a measurable goal.

Achievable - what’s the point of having an objective that can’t be achieved? Ensure that whatever your goal is, it can be completed within the available timeframe and budget.

Relevant - Does the objective matter to the business? If you are trying to grow your revenue, will ebook downloads help? There are many objectives and ways to achieve them, but you need to be sure that whatever you plan will help you accomplish the goal.

Time-Bound - Any objective should have a time component. When will it start? When will it end?

#2 Who Can Give it To Us?

This question addresses the campaign audience. What target audience or ideal customer are we trying to move to action, including both existing and potential customers?

The best practice for this question when building effective marketing campaigns is to know the persona, what problem the persona is trying to solve, and where they are on the path to purchase. Knowing these things will help ensure that the campaign is effective in stimulating the desired goal.

This is pretty easy if you send a marketing email to an opted-in list of prospects. However, more attention is needed to define the audience if you use social media, SEO, or paid search.

Using look-alike audiences, demographic targeting, propensity targeting, search advertising, or other more technical approaches to audience definition requires significant effort and know-how to be effective.

#3 What does our target audience need to hear?

This is all about marketing messages and the marketing strategies used to deliver them. How do we provide the right message to the target audience that will drive them to take the action we desire?

Messaging requires experience with copywriting, the art of persuasion, the use of action or power words, appropriate images, and good use of calls to action, among other things.

Using a story to paint a picture of the problem and your product’s ability to solve it can be an incredibly compelling way to deliver the message.

Remember that every viable prospect understands that they have a need. The need creates a desire to move away from a problem or fear and towards an aspiration. Some products are more problem-oriented, and some are more aspiration-oriented. It would be best to discover this reality when you create your value propositions.

#4 Who do they need to hear it from?

All messages come from someone. Sometimes, the messenger can be you, speaking to your prospect personally. Other times, you need someone the audience trusts, such as an influencer.

Choosing the right messenger is crucial for communicating your unique selling points and gaining a competitive advantage, especially in social media campaigns.

You must overcome skepticism and doubt regardless of who is delivering the message. Trust icons, certifications, testimonials, or reviews can help with this.

The messenger must be appropriate to the situation. For example, you can’t sell skin cream that will reduce wrinkles if a veterinarian delivers the message (unless we’re talking about wrinkles on your cat…).

If the messenger isn’t you or another influential person in your organization, it should be a celebrity, influencer, or someone believable and trustworthy.

Here’s a simple framework for how the messenger might deliver your message:

  1. Hi, I’m Professor Smith.
  2. I’m here to talk about your problem with x…
  3. I know all about x because…
  4. Here’s why you can trust me
  5. So, as I was saying about x…
  6. Please take this action to solve your problem with x

#5 How do we get them to hear it?

A snail with a large shell slowly crawls on a surface. On its back, it carries a small, brown, wrapped package secured with string. Attached to the package is a small branch dangling a ripe strawberry—an imaginative nod to effective marketing campaigns against a blurred, vibrant green background.

Now, we come to delivery, which is crucial to drive traffic and achieve the goal of increasing the number of visitors to your website. This encompasses things like:

  1. What channel(s) will we use (blog, radio, TV, out-of-home, email, social media, etc.)?
  2. What format will we use?
  3. When will we deliver it (day of the week, time of day, etc.)?
  4. What is our tone of voice?

Delivery is essential to the coherence of the entire campaign. A good message that is poorly delivered will not work. Similarly, you will sound like a con artist if you have a weak proposition but excellent delivery.

Delivery is also important to the campaign's ROI because some channels work well for one type of goal while not so well for another. For example, an ebook is very effective for delivering detailed information but not so much for building awareness. Radio works well for brand building and awareness, but you can't communicate detailed features and benefits. And so on.

So, you must select a channel or a group appropriate to your campaign objective, audience, message, and delivery. Any dissonance here will reduce the campaign's effectiveness.

#6 What have we got?

What resources are available to us, and what strengths can we exploit to boost sales and achieve our campaign goals?

Resources include budget, brand assets, samples, events, landing pages, websites, and a direct mail campaign. Anything of value that can be marshaled to build a compelling campaign.

A woman sits at a desk with an open laptop in front of her, writing in a notebook with a pen. She appears to be concentrating on effective marketing campaigns. There are papers, a smartphone, and a glass of iced tea on the desk. A bookshelf is visible in the background.

 #7 What marketing strategies do we need to develop?

If gaps exist between what we have available and what we need to succeed, a plan must be specifically designed to close them. If the gap can't be closed on time, the campaign must be dropped, adjusted, or delayed. There’s no point in kicking off a campaign doomed to fail due to a lack of resources, as this will also impact the success of future campaigns.

If there are challenges that may affect the campaign, they need to be identified, and proactive steps to address them need to be developed. Wargaming, brainstorming, mind mapping, and other similar frameworks or tools can help with exploring gaps and challenges and developing contingency plans.

#8 How do we begin?

The proverb goes, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” And every campaign starts with a first step.

Silhouette of a person walking across a textured surface. The image captures the lower half of their body, emphasizing the feet and shadow cast on the ground. Much like effective marketing campaigns, the lighting creates a dramatic contrast between the figure and the illuminated floor.

Moving forward, build a detailed and comprehensive campaign plan that addresses everything you have built using the seven questions above, considering different types of marketing campaigns. Ensure you know where you are now, where you want to end up, and how to get there. Not to mention your work defining the resources, gaps, and challenges of the campaign environment.

#9 How will we know if our marketing campaigns are working?

Since we created SMART objectives in question #1, our campaign performance has measurable and meaningful components. Here, we want to think through and prepare the monitoring methods, measuring, evaluating, and reporting on the results of our work.

Tools like Google Analytics, Ahrefs, Semrush, SpyFu, and Google Search Console can accurately measure digital campaigns, including tracking performance on the search engine results page. For offline or traditional advertising campaigns, insights from market research providers, channel partners, or retail scanner data can help.

No matter where or how you plan to deliver your campaign, you must have the means to measure its performance. Otherwise, you are blindly implementing a campaign you’ll never know how well it worked.

For complex omni- or multi-channel campaigns, you must implement a multi-touch attribution model that considers each touch the prospect had with the campaign.

And most importantly, you will need to be able to generate the Return on Investment (ROI) for the campaign. This is usually pretty straightforward: what I spend is divided by what I earn.

A group of people are seated and facing a presenter standing in front of a screen. One person in the foreground has their hand raised, suggesting they are asking a question or seeking attention. The setting appears to be a business planning conference, lecture, or classroom.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Marketing Campaigns

How do I determine the target audience for my marketing campaign?
Analyze your customer base, identifying their demographics, behaviors, and preferences. Use this data to create detailed buyer personas that reflect your ideal customers. Also, research your competitors' audiences and use market segmentation to refine your target audience. Understanding who your customers are and what they care about will help you craft more personalized and compelling marketing messages.

What metrics should I track to measure the success of my marketing campaign?
Key metrics include conversion rate, return on investment (ROI), customer acquisition cost (CAC), and engagement levels. Depending on the type of campaign, you may also want to track click-through rates (CTR), social media engagement, website traffic, and lead generation. The most important metrics will depend on your specific goals, such as increasing brand awareness, generating leads, or boosting sales.

How can I align my marketing campaign with my business goals?
Start by clearly defining your business goals, such as increasing revenue, expanding your customer base, or building brand awareness. Then, tailor your marketing strategy to support these objectives. For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, focus on campaigns that maximize reach and visibility through social media, content marketing, or PR efforts. If your goal is revenue growth, your campaign should focus on lead generation and conversion tactics.

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Mark Hope - Asymmetric

About the author

Mark A. Hope is the co-founder and Partner at Asymmetric Marketing, an innovative agency dedicated to creating high-performance sales and marketing systems, campaigns, processes, and strategies tailored for small businesses. With extensive experience spanning various industries, Asymmetric Marketing excels in delivering customized solutions that drive growth and success. If you’re looking to implement the strategies discussed in this article or need expert guidance on enhancing your marketing efforts, Mark is here to help. Contact him at 608-410-4450 or via email at mark.hope@asymmetric.pro.

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