5 steps that guide the planning of a digital marketing campaign
Everyone continues to rely on digital platforms and devices to shop, consume news, listen to music, and connect with their social networks. In fact, Oberlo, a dropshipping app for Shopify, reports that smartphone users will only increase in the coming years, topping 7 billion in 2024 (up from 6.4 billion in 2021) before rising further to 7.5 billion by 2026. As a result, advertisers are investing more and more in the digital media space to connect with their consumers. Here’s an example:
According to the PwC’s 2021 IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report, all major channels increased significantly compared with a year ago, particularly across digital audio, social media, search, and digital video (including connected TV [CTV] and over-the-top [OTT]). The report also states digital advertising soared 35% to $189B in 2021.
It's no secret that you need to utilize digital advertising to reach your target audience, but it can be overwhelming to start planning your marketing campaign. That’s when you can lean on the expertise of a digital marketing agency. To give you an idea of what you can expect, let’s preview our process at Vimarc.
DIGITAL PLANNING PROCESS
Digital will continue to dominate the media conversation, so marketers must be as strategic as possible when planning for these campaigns. While we customize our campaigns based on the unique goals and budgets of each client, we always follow the same discovery and assessment process before setting up any new campaign.
Here are the steps that guide our planning, along with a real-world example:
STEP 1
We kick off all campaign planning sessions by listening to and understanding your business objectives. We then dive deep into figuring out the objective for a particular medium.
STEP 2
During this time, we talk about any primary and secondary KPIs while also discussing any past KPI benchmarks that you have to share.
STEP 3
At the beginning of every marketing campaign, understanding the target audience(s) is critical. If the client has a current list of their audience, that’s perfect. We’ll take the time to comb over it to see how it can be utilized in the area(s) on which we’re focusing. Next, we’ll look at what your site analytics are telling us and how visitors navigate your site. All of this allows us to segment and prioritize our budget to be efficient with our ad spending.
STEP 4
As part of campaign planning, we’ll work with you on identifying budget parameters and determining flight schedules or when the ads will run.
STEP 5
Using the information that was gathered and factoring in any other media (print, outdoor, TV) that you’re executing, we identify the proper digital media channels within the strategic digital campaign plan.
Now that the plan is outlined, there are a couple of more areas to cover when preparing for the campaign launch.
CAMPAIGN URL AND SOCIAL MEDIA
To track campaign effectiveness, we must identify where we’re pointing your consumers on the web. Here are the questions we ask to find out this information.
Does a lead/contact/registration form need to be created?
What can be tracked or connected?
Will we use Google Analytics and Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) codes?
Can we place a pixel to track conversions?
What are the details of your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or other social media account pages?
CREATIVE ASSET DEVELOPMENT
Using a strategic approach, our team works closely with you to develop the proper digital assets. These assets are based on the specs of the various digital channels selected for the plan. Utilizing creative best practices and any data from previous campaigns, we’ll write, design, and produce all creative assets prior to launch.
So that you know how we do it, let’s take a look at one of our most recent and most successful campaigns.
LEADER DOGS FOR THE BLIND 2021
END-OF-YEAR CAMPAIGN
And check out these impressive results!
The 2021 digital campaign resulted in 2,633 individual donations which was a donation growth of 42.25% over 2020.
HOW CAN WE HELP?
Maybe you’ve already embraced digital with open arms. And after reading this blog, you have an even better idea of planning a digital marketing campaign. Congrats! But if you want a little more guidance or for us to walk you through the steps, let’s connect. We’re always hear to listen.
