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<\/a><\/p>\nIn this article, we'll step you through an effective structure for briefing marketing campaigns to an agency or in-house team that has been used by tens of thousands of businesses in different sectors including financial services, retail, travel and consumer brands. I will also answer some of the key questions about marketing campaigns.<\/p>\n
I originally developed the template for structuring one-day training courses on Creating Effective Marketing Campaigns<\/em> that I ran for the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK.\u00a0 We emailed the Word template to course participants after the training so that they could adapt it to their planning process. For the last 15 years, the template has been made available to Smart Insights members around the world to download. Unsurprisingly it's one of our most popular member downloads since every business needs marketing campaigns.<\/p>\n A campaign plan is a short-term integrated communications plan to generate leads or sales. Its purpose is to engage audiences, it typically has a content marketing focus and an integrated media schedule.<\/p>\n The purpose of marketing campaign planning is to identify relevant, integrated, marketing activities and channels to reach campaign objectives as well as influence customers. An effective campaign plan has an engaging, shareable, campaign concept that utilizes both online and offline marketing communications tools and digital media channels.<\/p>\n Campaign planning is the process of setting your goals for a campaign, understanding your audience, defining an engagement strategy and creating a budget for investing time\/money into different types of media including content.<\/p>\n A solid marketing campaign plan has:<\/p>\n Research shows that effective campaigns use integrated communications<\/a> across channels so that the campaign delivers on these goals for communications:<\/p>\n Luckily, there are a number of templates out there to guide marketers in planning and structuring their campaigns. Our free marketing plan template<\/a> recommends a campaign brief structure of six parts that we outline below.<\/p>\n Marketing plans template<\/strong><\/p>\n This download available to free members recommends how to structure 7 types of marketing plan including campaign plans.<\/p>\n Access the How to structure different types of marketing plans<\/a><\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div><\/span><\/p>\n Your marketing campaign plan should be used in order to maximize the reach of online campaigns and acquire new customers. Retention campaigns are used in larger organizations. Campaigns should be used and designed with specific goals in mind, such as:<\/p>\n Marketing campaign planning isn\u2019t just for big marketing departments. Organizations of any size, type and at any stage of existence can utilize a marketing campaign plan in order to achieve an effective campaign. Today, with the wide use of content marketing by businesses, a campaign plan to launch your content makes campaign planning more relevant to all businesses.<\/p>\n A marketing campaign plan does not need to be lengthy or complicated. Creating a simple campaign plan with clear actions can ensure that both small and larger organizations are focusing on their goals and the overall success of the business.<\/p>\n The stages of marketing campaigns and key issues that need to be included and answered in your campaign plan are:<\/p>\n Smart Insights Business Members can use our ready-made Microsoft Word marketing plan campaign template<\/a> to build, track, and present their campaign plans and briefs using this structure. It features a one-page summary for the whole campaign in these 6 parts and then, for larger businesses or campaigns, 1-2 pages detailing each part of the campaign.<\/p>\n A campaign plan template typically includes defining the following:<\/p>\n We recommend applying our RACE Framework to inform your campaign strategy. RACE is a practical strategic framework to help manage and improve results from your digital marketing.<\/p>\n If you're still establishing the scope of digital marketing within your organiziation, you can read our definitions of digital marketing, and 18 recommended digital marketing techniques, in Dr. Dave Chaffey's free blog 'what is digital marketing?<\/a>'.<\/p>\n Ultimately, our RACE Framework using best practices across digital marketing techniques to get more commercial value from investments in digital marketing. It's used by large corporations, individual founders, marketing managers, consultants, and everybody in between.<\/p>\n So, if you think your campaigns would benefit from a RACE strategy approach, download our free digital marketing plan template now to discover how you, too, can optimize and manage your marketing strategy across an integrated RACE funnel.<\/p>\n Free digital marketing plan template<\/strong><\/p>\n Our popular marketing planning template is structured across the Smart Insights RACE Framework. Join Smart Insights as a Free Member to download our digital marketing plan template today<\/p>\n Access the Free digital marketing plan template<\/a><\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div><\/span><\/p>\n The RACE Framework covers the full customer lifecycle or marketing funnel from acquisition to retention as shown in this infographic showing the goals for each part of RACE and how you can measure them.<\/p>\n You can use our RACE lifecycle diagram to track your marketing activities integrated across the reach, act, convert and engage stages of your customer's journeys from discovery, to purchase and loyalty. As shown below.<\/p>\n The RACE Framework will help simplify your approach to reviewing the performance of your marketing campaigns and taking actions to improve their effectiveness:<\/p>\n Find out more about the RACE Framework, with our dedicated marketing training and templates. Our marketing solutions guide you through the step-by-step process of planning, managing, and optimizing both your marketing campaigns and your marketing business as usual.<\/p>\n The RACE Framework is proven to drive growth. Find out how Smart Insights membership can boost your marketing performance across the board.<\/p>\n Free digital marketing plan template<\/strong><\/p>\n Our popular marketing planning template is structured across the Smart Insights RACE Framework. Join Smart Insights as a Free Member to download our digital marketing plan template today<\/p>\n Access the Free digital marketing plan template<\/a><\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div><\/span><\/p>\n To make sure your marketing campaign plan has all the essential features, I recommend also applying the SOSTAC\u00ae structure developed by PR Smith\u2014Dave Chaffey\u2019s co-author of the printed book Digital Marketing Excellence<\/em>.<\/p>\n SOSTAC\u00ae is a great framework for structuring business, marketing or digital marketing plans since it\u2019s relatively simple and logical, so it\u2019s easy to remember and to explain to colleagues or agencies. SOSTAC\u00ae is a strategic planning process framework that gives you a clear structure to work through to create and manage your plan.<\/p>\n Situation<\/strong>\u00a0analysis means \u2018Where are we now?<\/em>\u2019 For marketing campaign planners, questions include:<\/p>\n Objectives<\/strong>\u00a0mean \u2018Where do we want to be?<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n We recommend you create a conversion-based campaign forecasting model for your campaign so you can be more confident that it will reach the audience needed to give the required levels of business outcomes, i.e. leads and sales.<\/p>\n Strategy<\/strong>\u00a0means \u2018How do we get there?<\/em>\u2019 Strategy summarizes how to fulfil the objectives. It is the shortest part of the plan, but arguably, the most important, as it gives direction to all the subsequent tactics. It answers questions including:<\/p>\n Tactics<\/strong> are the details of the strategy. They highlight on a marketing campaign plan exactly which tactics occur when. Your chosen tactics should support and adhere to your customer\u2019s journey. Questions include:<\/p>\n To drive reach online to achieve your campaign goals I recommend you consider these 6 channels defined in this diagram.<\/p>\nWhat is a marketing campaign plan?<\/h4>\n
What is meant by campaign planning?<\/h4>\n
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What is an integrated marketing campaign?<\/h4>\n
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How do you create a marketing campaign plan?<\/h4>\n
\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n When to use a marketing campaign plan?<\/h3>\n
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What size of businesses need campaign planning?<\/h4>\n
How should a campaign plan be structured?<\/h3>\n
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\nWhat are we trying to achieve through our campaign and how will we know when we achieve it?<\/em><\/li>\n
\nWho are we trying to reach and influence?<\/em><\/li>\n
\nHow are we trying to position our company, products and services?<\/em>
\nWhich campaign or product offers will engage and convert our audience?<\/em><\/li>\n
\nWhich media channels will you use to reach and influence your target audience?<\/em>
\nWhat will be the sequence and integration of media activities?<\/em><\/li>\n
\nManaging the assets to form the campaign<\/li>\n
\nWhat needs to be tested before the campaign is live and adjusted during the campaign?<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\nCampaign plan example<\/h3>\n
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How to create your campaign strategy<\/h4>\n
\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n What is the RACE Framework?<\/h3>\n
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\n<\/strong>This initial phase of plan involves creating the overall digital strategy, objective setting and plan. It's likely that your campaign sits within a wider marketing plan, with strategic goals and KPIs. Our planning tools help integrate all your marketing campaigns to align the your marketing activities with your wider business vision.<\/li>\n
\n<\/strong>Reach involves building awareness and visibility of your brand, products and services on other websites and in offline media in order to build traffic by driving visits to different web presences like your main site, microsites or social media pages. It involves maximizing reach over time to create multiple interactions using different paid, owned and earned media touchpoints.<\/li>\n
\n<\/strong>Act is short for Interact. It\u2019s a separate stage from conversion, encouraging interactions on websites and in social media. For most businesses, the main aim of Act is to generate online leads. So, it\u2019s about persuading site visitors or prospects to take the next step, the next Action on their customer journey when they initially reach your site or social network presence.This may mean finding out more about a company or its products, searching to find a product or reading a blog post. You should define these actions as top-level goals of the funnel in analytics. Goals can include \u201cViewed product\u201d, \u201cAdded to Basket\u201d, \u201cRegistered as a member\u201d or \u201cSigned up for an e-newsletter. Act is also about encouraging participation. This can be the sharing of content via social media or customer reviews (strictly, part of Engage).<\/li>\n
\n<\/strong>This is simply conversion to sale, online or offline. It involves getting your audience to take that vital next step which turns them into paying customers whether the payment is taken through online e-commerce transactions or offline channels.<\/li>\n
\n<\/strong>This is long-term customer engagement and communications that is, developing a long-term relationship with first-time buyers to build customer loyalty as repeat purchases using communications on your site, social presence, email and direct interactions to boost customer lifetime value. It can be measured by repeat actions such as repeat sales and sharing content through social media. We also need to measure the percentage of active customers (or email subscribers) and customer satisfaction and recommendation using other systems.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/a><\/p>\nWhy use the RACE Framework for campaign planning?<\/h3>\n
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\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n Applying PR Smith's SOSTAC\u00ae to RACE campaign planning<\/h3>\n
So, what does SOSTAC\u00ae stand for?<\/h3>\n
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Campaign planning tactics for marketers<\/h4>\n