An advertising campaign is a wonderful opportunity to promote your brand and your products, or showcase your story. But how do you make sure it is as effective as possible? From determining your objectives to measuring performance, we’ll present you with the 7 essential steps to creating a campaign that positively impacts your consumers and, by extension, your business.
OVERVIEW
Tip #1 – Know your target and your market
Creating an advertising campaign without setting your targets is like shooting a bow and arrow blindfolded. You’re going to struggle to hit the bull’s eye!
First and foremost, think about the personas you want to address via your campaign. Based on your profile of the ideal customer, pinpoint their needs, the relationship they have with your brand, their consumption habits, etc. There you are; you’ve found your core target.
Now you know the drill. Identify your primary targets and then your secondary targets – those who can play a role as brand advocates.
Launching an advertising campaign also means following fundamental marketing rules. There’s no point in reinventing the wheel every time. In any case, you must master the rules of your market, analyze the positioning of the competition and keep up-to-date with current trends in order to make the most out of publishing your advertisements.
Targets, a market. Very good. But what’s next?
Tip #2 – Determine your advertising objectives and performance indicators
No matter what message you want to get across, it must always meet one or more objectives. These objectives must then be evaluated using the indicators. This is the basis of any communication strategy.
Overall, there are 3 major objectives:
You’re aiming to make your brand or product better known.
Examples of indicators to measure: brand awareness, contact impact, brand attribution, etc.
You’re aiming to encourage people to love your brand or product.
Examples of indicators to measure: appeal, consideration, image, relevance, etc.
You’re aiming to make your target act or react.
Examples of indicators to measure: purchase intent, intent to visit the store, etc.
Think of your objective as the compass of your campaign. It helps you get your bearings at the beginning and guides you throughout your campaign.
To define your objective, you can use the SMART method, a must-have in your methodology toolkit that will effectively guide you through project.
Specific: Your objective should be clear, specific and understood by all. Measurable: It should be measurable in a quantitative or qualitative way. Achievable: Don’t shoot for the moon; set a goal in line with your resources and abilities. Realistic: Ditto – your aim must make sense alongside your strategy. Time-bound: Set deadlines to track the achievement milestones of your objective over time.
Once again, your target audience will be able to give you very relevant answers. To get them to act, ask yourself, for example:
What do they already know about your brand or product, and what should they take away from your campaign? What do they think of you currently, and what do they need to think after hearing your message? How do they feel about you and how should they feel after hearing your message?
The bridges between these starting and finishing points, combined with the SMART method, will help you determine effective objectives that are consistent with your strategy.
Now, let’s move on to your message.
Tip #3 – Defining your campaign message
An advertising campaign is basically a message or statement delivered in a public space. But what exactly have you got to say?
Do you want to list all the changes that your product will bring to your target audience’s lives? Announce a major event involving your brand? Tease an unmissable promotional offer?
Your advertising message is the very heart of your campaign. Without a clearly defined message, your campaign will fall flat because it will have little impact on anybody.
On average, a person views 1,200 advertising messages per day.
That’s a huge number! So, some advice: Keep your message short, catchy and easy to remember, rather than some long speech that will drown in the ocean of advertising.
Tip #4 – Anticipate the necessary budget
You know this better than anyone, but it is always good to be given a reminder: You don’t set your budget before your objectives.
If your goals are too ambitious for your budget, it’s preferable to tone them down. That way, you can avoid the frustration of unrealistic goals.
Development costs, creative processes, production, media buying, monitoring and analysis tools, contingencies, etc.
Your advertising campaign must be budgeted for with the utmost precision if it is to be successful.
Depending on your circumstances, several methods can help you set a consistent budget:
according to your available resources: simply invest within your means by average cost: define it according to the number of people you want to reach by alignment with the competition: base your budget on the average of your competition by percentage of sales: according to the revenue you hope to generate through your campaign by sales response: this method entails finding a balance between 2 indicators: perception, or how your target audience interprets your message, and the saturation threshold, which corresponds to the budgetary limit where you will not be able to improve your visibility or your sales.
Tip #5 – Choose the right distribution channels
To be effective, your campaign must be published where your audience is located, and on the channel(s) most suited to your objectives and budget.
First, think about your target audience and where you can reach them. You wouldn’t spend your entire budget on a TV spot that targets the teenage TikTok generation.
Second, stick to the budget you set. You simply can’t launch a multi-media campaign without putting a lot of money into it.
With limited budgets, take a more judicious approach by selecting channels that may be less expensive, but which allow for more precise targeting: mailing campaigns, sponsored posts on social networks, advertising on smart TVs, etc.
And even if you have an advertising budget equivalent to the GDP of Guatemala, the most important thing is to always make sure that your ROI is as positive as possible.
Tip #6 – Identify the resources to be allocated to the project
Your advertising campaign will draw on material, human and financial resources.
Can you (and do you want to) bring all the skills in-house or will you call on the expertise of an agency?
Make a list of all the resources at your disposal:
Material resources: premises, software, hardware, etc. Human resources: project managers, illustrators, assemblers, photographers, editors, etc. Financial resources: salary costs, service providers, distribution, etc. The channels you already own: social networks, websites, blogs, podcasts, etc. Advertising agencies: to buy and then publish your messages on third-party media spaces
Following this step, you may realize that you lack resources or skills in-house.
It is at this point that the question of using a communications agency may arise. Advertising isn’t a job that can be improvised. A poor message can have drastic consequences for your business, while a quality ad often results in an increase in business.
In the majority of cases, having an agency work with you is the best investment you can make in your campaign.
However, working with an agency is not all plain sailing. You’ll need to incorporate additional processes and contacts into your work habits.
To make the partnership as effective as possible, we recommend 3 key steps:
define your brand image objectives ahead of time provide the agency with a clear and concise brief, including any existing brand elements set regular milestones to validate each step forward together, leading to more agility and less frustration
Tip #7 – Measure the performance of your campaign
That’s it, your campaign has launched! But watch out, the work’s not done yet.
You’ve invested in your campaign and now it’s time to prove that your goals have been attained and that your work deserves to be highlighted.
This is where the brand lift (or post-test) comes into play. By implementing this type of measure, you can evaluate the impact of your campaign on your consumers with indicators that have been chosen according to your objectives (memorization, attribution, approval, impact on image, consideration, purchase intention, etc.).
The method is very simple. It consists of questioning two groups of individuals: one has been exposed to your advertisement, the other one has not. The differences between the results of the two groups will therefore help you understand to what extent your campaign has really impacted your consumers.
In an environment where budgets are increasingly complex to obtain and maintain, brand lift has become a must to ensure that an advertising campaign has a strong ROI:
👉 If you take care of the campaign design and publishing in-house, you will have all the keys you need to prove whether or not your objectives have been met, as well as relevant insights to optimize your future campaigns.
👉 If you are supported by a media or advertising agency, request that a brand lift be carried out via a recognized and trusted third party like Happydemics for the same reasons.
