Marketing Campaigns 101

By Waltz Staff

August 15, 2024 Tools

TL;DR:

Marketing campaigns can be powerful yet manageable tools for reaching business goals. They don’t need huge budgets or rigid timelines. With strategic planning, audience clarity and thoughtful channel selection, any organization can run effective campaigns. Waltz Creative shows how campaigns can be simple, impactful and even enjoyable.

Marketing campaigns help promote goals, services or messages in a focused, structured way.
Campaigns can be flexible in format—short-term, recurring or multichannel.
Every organization, regardless of size, should use campaign thinking.
Core campaign elements strategy, audience and channels.
Campaign thinking saves time and boosts engagement when efforts are coordinated.
Campaigns are more efficient than scattered marketing and build stronger audience connection.
You don’t need a massive budget—just intentional planning and execution.

Marketing campaigns are exciting, but also a significant amount of work. Brainstorming strategizing, budgeting, creating, launching, adjusting, measuring success… Are you exhausted just thinking about all this?

Marketing campaigns can be simultaneously irresistible and overwhelming, exciting and daunting. When done well, they can increase your sales and help you reach more people, and you can have a ton of fun along the way. When done poorly, they can use a tremendous number of resources and be demoralizing for your team.

Today, though, marketing campaigns can follow non-traditional formats. They can have small budgets, loose schedules and recurring themes. You may even find a campaign approach to be more effective, efficient and affordable than ad hoc marketing.

We’ve partnered with hundreds of businesses and nonprofits over the last two decades. We want to help change the way YOU think about campaigns. We believe marketing campaigns should be achievable and accessible for every team and organization, and most importantly, fun. Join us at Waltz Creative as we take a deep dive into the world of campaign marketing.

What is a marketing campaign?

Marketing campaigns are focused efforts to promote a product or service, reach a specific goal or build awareness. Let’s unpack that a bit. We’ll work backward for this to make the most sense.

Regardless of type or industry, your organization has goals. Maybe those goals are sales numbers, or a mission to engage a specific number of people in an activity. Maybe you’re trying to change hearts and minds. Maybe you want to influence people’s behavior or get supporters for a community effort.

Now, reaching that goal likely depends on the participation of others. You need people to buy what you’re selling, contract with you or take some sort of action. You can’t reach your goal in a vacuum. You need to get the word out about what you’re doing, why people should care and what you need them to do.

So you focus your efforts on doing so. You think of the best ways to get the word out, make people care and call them to action. A marketing campaign does just that.

The important thing to notice is that the definition of a marketing campaign is quite broad. They have no specific time, channel or budget limitations.

A marketing campaign could be any or none of the following:

A social media campaign repeating one specific message
A B2B campaign introducing a product solution to existing clients
A PSA campaign on local radio and public access television
A digital marketing campaign enticing users to click through
An email series providing value to potential customers to build brand trust
A direct mail campaign sending coupons to residents of a particular neighborhood
A fundraising campaign with a central message for a nonprofit
A series of unified messages across a few key channels for a year or more
A two-week blitz of hyper-focused content across any and every channel to promote an upcoming event

In fact, we highly recommend zooming out when initiating any new marketing effort. This will help you determine if you can look at it through a campaign lens. We’ll talk more about that below.

Who should use a marketing campaign?

This one is easy.

YOU!

You should be using marketing campaigns to increase the impact of your business or organization. They’ll help you better reach your audience(s) and your goals.

And we’re going to walk you through just how to do so. Spoiler alert: it’s not as difficult as you may think.

Elements of a successful marketing campaign

Let’s get into some nuts and bolts. While campaigns can take many different forms, all campaigns have some common elements. Getting these things right can make or break your campaign.

(Interested in a little outside insight? We’re offering a complimentary consultation with our creative director. This call will make sure you’ve got all the right pieces in order!).

The other thing to remember as we dive in is that all these elements must work together in harmony. This is necessary for your campaign to get the best results. Just like a professionally choreographed dance, the wrong moves or timing will throw the whole thing off.

Thinking of your marketing efforts as campaigns—from the onset—can save you time and money in the long run. Zooming out and looking at the larger picture allows for more effective use of your resources. This can also make your audience feel more connected to you and your messaging.

Strategy

Let’s start with the overarching element that holds everything together: your marketing campaign strategy. This is where you define the plan. Not how you’ll execute on the plan, but rather the overall approach. Picture a campaign to increase sales of a digital product to help dads build connections with one another.

You may strategize to reach dads through funny social media content. You could also strategize a way to reach moms, as moms typically invest in parenting help. By demonstrating the value of your product to moms, they may either buy the product or share it with your target audience: dads.

Of course, neither of the examples above are comprehensive strategies, but they represent a good starting point, an approach. They also begin laying the groundwork for some of the other elements you’ll need. When you put all these elements together, you’ll have an excellent and comprehensive plan.

Audience(s)

Who do you need to reach for your strategy to be successful? What basic demographics can you identify? Are they existing customers or users, or completely new to your company?

Do they have any knowledge of your product or service? Are they already engaged with a competitor, or do they not yet have a solution for their need? What sort of barriers might they face in deciding to take action?

We often find clients have a hard time narrowing down their audience. Many of our clients feel their product or service could benefit everyone, so they want a broad audience.

But best practice is to get as granular as possible with defining your audience. Having multiple audiences, or primary and secondary audiences, is okay. But the more specific you can get, the better your campaign will work for you.

Remember the example above of the digital product for dads? Having a two-pronged approach, reaching moms and dads, could work great. And defining moms and dads as two different audiences under the same goal will be much more effective than just trying to reach “parents.”

Channels

Where will you reach your audience? Do they listen to the radio? Are they on Instagram daily? Do they read a specific publication?

Choosing the channels through which to reach your audience involves understanding a few things. First, you must define your audience well. Second, you need to understand where they get their information or where they spend their time. Third, it’s important to ensure the channels you choose make it easy for people to act.

For example:

Sending direct mail flyers with coupons could be a great channel to promote the opening of a new ice cream shop down the street.
Buying print ads in a local paper as a B2B commercial agriculture brand likely won’t work. However, buying print ads in a trade magazine would likely be effective.
Sending direct mail flyers to get people to engage in a digital offering may be a bit trickier. This is because it requires people to translate paper information into digital platforms.
Having a solid presence at a relevant trade show, with relevant takeaways for potential buyers, is an excellent channel. This can help you explore new contracting or wholesale opportunities.

The other consideration you’ll want to think about when selecting your channels is how much you must spend. Which brings us to…

Budget

Determining your marketing campaign’s budget is a bit of a dance in and of itself.

Say you’re opening that new ice cream shop and you want to reach 1000 neighbors with the news. What’s more, you’ve determined direct mail is the best way to do so. You’re off to a great start! But you’ll need to take some key steps to set your campaign up for success.

You’ll need to first ensure you have the budget to send mail to 1000 people, of course. What you send could take many different forms, and the form you choose will determine printing costs, postage rates and more. Consulting with your creative team (or the print house) to determine the optimal format to meet your budget and have the impact you’re looking for.

Some companies do this by setting a marketing campaign budget and then determining how to spend it. Others do some research on what they would need to spend to hit their goals, and then figure out how to make it work within their larger budget. Whatever your approach to your marketing campaign strategy, it’s important to know how much you’re willing to spend.

Don’t forget to include all the costs, not just the cost of buying advertising space or printing flyers. Remember to include any costs for professional design, copywriting, campaign management and any other needs you have. This will ensure you have every element accounted for to make your launch a successful marketing campaign.

Calls to Action

You know where you’re going to reach people, and who those people are. So what are you asking them to do? This is your call to action, or CTA.

If you’re selling homes, you likely won’t have a “BUY NOW!” button. If you’re trying to get everyday people to engage in a conversation about ending homelessness, your call to action probably won’t be to read a detailed policy brief about affordable housing initiatives.

However, it’s also worth noting that CTAs are often different when comparing digital marketing campaigns with physical ones. Consider how physical media lacks the clickability of digital experiences such as social or email marketing campaigns. Take this into account when planning your CTA strategy to ensure your audience knows how to take action.

You may have already determined the basics of your call(s) to action in your strategy. But if not, don’t worry!

A call to action simply needs to connect to your campaign’s aim. The goal is usually to motivate your audience to take concrete action. Return to your strategy work with your team to identify the specific, immediate step you want people to take after seeing your campaign. This focused approach will help a natural and actionable CTA emerge from your strategic foundation.

Common CTAs to engage your target market include things like:

Buy now
Connect with our sales team
Get a product demo
Sign up for more information
Get a free trial
Join the interest list
Learn more
Visit us
Take a tour
Get tickets today

Content + Visuals

As a creative agency, this is our favorite part of any marketing plan. All the other elements we’ve discussed so far are absolutely critical. But making it all come to life is, well, the best!

With a solid channel strategy, audience, calls to action and budget determined, you can start to think about your content. What sort of messaging will you use? What is the voice and tone? Do the channels you are using require long-format written content, or 10-second videos? Do you need just a single perfect headline, or intriguing social content that will keep people scrolling?

Once you have your content, think about how it will be presented. Will the visuals be punchy and colorful? Are you going for something tranquil and relaxing? What emotion do you want your audience to feel, and how can you combine visuals and content to evoke that emotion? Emotions often drive action, so this is a great place to start when developing your visuals.

Once you’ve got things underway, remember that consistency is key. You want your audience to recognize your campaign every single time they’re exposed to it. This, after all, is what builds trust and drives engagement.

Measuring Success

Finally, you need to understand how you will measure your success. This is where all the fun acronyms come in—KPIs (key performance indicators), ROI (return on investment), CTR (click-through rate) and more.

There’s no right way to determine success. However, understanding what you’re hoping for in terms of campaign outcomes can help you see the forest for the trees. It’s what determines if all that planning and investing you just did had the desired effect. This is why savvy marketers swear by data driven campaigns today!

Decide what you will measure and how you will measure it, and be sure to build in a way to track it. This could be through digital analytics or something simpler. Remember that tradeshow you attended? Maybe you simply count the number of inbound calls you get in the first month after sending out the flyers. Measuring success doesn’t have to be complicated, but it can help you when making future decisions.

Tying it all together

It can be helpful to document all of the above elements in a central place.

Some people create what’s called a campaign brief. This document outlines all the different elements and provides guidance for the creative content and visuals. Others create spreadsheets with a tab for each element and a calendar that maps out exactly how the campaign will play out. Still others manage campaigns and all related elements in a project management system like Trello or Asana.

Regardless of what works best for your organization, having a place to keep track of all the moving pieces can save time down the road. Our free, downloadable Campaign Planner is a great place to start!

How to apply a campaign lens to all marketing efforts

As mentioned above, approaching all of your marketing efforts with a campaign lens can save you time, money and effort. Even better, it can be significantly more effective than the alternative. Using a campaign lens, a marketer can move from scattered, uncoordinated efforts to a more graceful, choreographed approach.

We often have clients who end up piecemealing campaigns together over time, without even realizing they are doing so. For example, a client is launching a new B2B product. They ask us to help name the product and create a logo for it. A couple months later, they need a sales sheet. Down the line, they’re looking for some social media graphics. And in the next quarter, they realize there is a great launch opportunity at an industry event.

All of these efforts are valuable. Can we tackle each of these deliverables ad hoc? Absolutely. But what if the client were to take the long view when first naming and branding the project? What if we thought about the arc of the year, the cadence, the story that their customers will hear as it unfolds?

This is what we mean when talking about zooming out. Taking time to identify opportunities for a coherent, smart and deliberate marketing campaign strategy can pay dividends in the long run.

It’s important with this approach to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Zooming out does not mean you need to create a detailed tactical calendar (though if that’s your style, go for it!). Instead, it means looking ahead. It means planning for a long-term audience experience. And it means crafting strategies and assets with that experience in mind.

Sometimes this is as simple as remembering your annual end-of-year fundraising campaign when you are planning in January and ensuring all efforts support it.

When clients back up and look at the long game, we always see tremendously more effective results. We have a specific process we use to help clients take this holistic approach. To that end, we often develop a creative brief that becomes a touchpoint for months.

Curious whether this way of planning would work for you? Schedule a complimentary call with our creative director to discuss.

Different approaches to campaigns

Despite including so many common elements, there are many different ways to approach a successful marketing campaign. In fact, you may have run campaigns in the past that you didn’t even think of as a marketing campaign. Or maybe you shied away from running a campaign because it just felt too big and overwhelming.

We have been at this for a long time—21 years and counting—and we have seen successful campaigns executed in many different ways. A campaign does not need to be overwhelming, or cost you $80,000. Let’s look at some of the ways we approach this type of work with our clients. Please note this is not an exhaustive list of different types of marketing campaigns; it’s an example of how we conceptualize campaigns when working with clients.

The Big Launch

Sometimes you have a new product or service and you just want to shout it from the rooftops. In these cases, we work with clients to learn why their existing customers—or new ones—will be drawn to the product or service. We then partner to create a campaign that will launch across as many channels as possible with targeted messaging.

Often, these campaigns have a “teaser” period, when the company is alluding to what is coming in order to build hype. Big launches typically have a clear start and end date, and should fit into a larger marketing strategy.

The Drumbeat

Often the best way to get a message out there is to just keep beating your drum. You are likely familiar with this approach from social media. Companies find the approach that works best and just keep at it, week after week, with messaging that is consistent, solid and often evergreen.

This can be very effective as it centralizes your resources, honing in on what you know works. It also builds familiarity and trust with your audience.

The Holiday Focus

Some companies like to ride the coattails of various holidays, especially if it fits their product or service.

Mapping out a year-long campaign dovetailing with national holidays can be a holistic way to approach marketing. But of course, you can also just plan around one or two key holidays. What suits your business and your customer expectations is always best, after all.

The downside is that a lot of organizations do this, so, holidays can be particularly “noisy” from a marketing perspective. But if it fits with your brand, this can be a great way to structure a campaign. And, some customers plan on holiday sales, depending on the industry. For example, car dealerships are known for having sales around Memorial Day and Labor Day. As such, their customers may already be well primed for a campaign around that time.

Multiple Phase

We love working with clients on multi-phased approaches. Sometimes, a client needs to first educate their audience about an issue, then engage them in conversation. Only then is it appropriate to ask them to donate or buy. Approaching a campaign through multiple phases can be cost-effective, user-friendly, and can let you hone your message as you go.

When looking at a multi-phase campaign, we’ll usually start by zooming out and determining the end result. We’ll then break that down into multiple phases, and plan for each one simultaneously. This allows for each phase to harmonize beautifully with the other phases. As a bonus, it sets the entire effort up for optimal impact.

It also allows your physical or digital marketing campaign to accomplish different goals across different media channels as needed. You may need to begin your push with increased brand awareness. But once your brand is established, a pivot into content that builds trust likely calls for new approaches to the creative.

Multiple phased campaigns also empower your marketing team to adapt when the campaign doesn’t yield the needed results. Today’s audiences are savvier than ever, after all. And so nimble-footed pivots in real time as needed should almost always be a part of your routine.

PSA

Ah, the good old public service announcement. These days, PSA campaigns are used to call attention to any social issue or community engagement opportunity. PSA campaigns can have long or short timelines, and should always have a clear call to action.

We always like to look at a PSA campaign in the context of the organization’s larger marketing strategy. We ask questions like, “how does creating awareness or engaging this community support the organization’s larger goals?” Again, taking the bird’s eye view can pay off in the long run.

The Big Idea

Regardless of how you approach your campaign, what your budget is or how your campaign fits into your larger marketing strategy, it’s important to hold onto why you’re doing this in the first place. The Big Idea ties everything together. It’s the foundation for your marketing campaign’s reason for being.

As Simon Sinek famously said, “People don't buy what you do; people buy why you do it.” Your Big Idea is the driving force behind everything your organization does. Getting crystal clear on the Big Idea and your WHY behind the Big Idea can guide all of your efforts.

Before we dive into any campaign strategizing, visuals or content creation with a client, we always get clear on their Big Idea and the problem they’re trying to solve. Our work serves to increase the impact of companies and organizations all over the world. And we do that by understanding what drives you.

We often go through a discovery process that looks at much more than what creative assets you already have in place. By understanding what makes you tick, we can better help you reach the audiences you need to reach to achieve your goals.

Sometimes clients are too close to their own Big Idea to distill it down. In these cases, it can be helpful to play “the why game” (also known as root cause analysis). This involves asking “why” at least five times over.

Say you’re launching the digital product for new dads, to help them connect with other dads. Here’s how the why game could go:

Why have you created this product?
To help new dads connect with other dads.
Why is that connection important?
Because dads often don’t build parenting connections as readily as moms, and connection makes parenting easier.
Why do we want to make parenting easier?
Because parents who have an easier time may be more likely to connect better with their kids.
Why do we want parents to connect better with their kids?
Because kids who have stronger connections with their parents have better outcomes in life.
Why are those better outcomes important?
Because healthier and more stable community members make for more communities that can better thrive.

And that’s your “why.” You’re not building digital products because you love digital products. You’re launching this product to help communities thrive. And that is what we want your audience to ultimately understand.

What’s next

Depending on where you are in your marketing efforts, the ideas and approaches we’ve outlined above may be a lot. And they may well be something you start to implement slowly, over time. Or, maybe you have some planning you’re just about to kick off, and you can change your framework now. Download our free Marketing Campaign Planner to start organizing your thoughts.

Download Our Free Marketing Campaign Planner

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Whether you are moving forward full steam, or about to dive into a big effort, we would love to be your sounding board. If you are interested in learning about how marketing campaigns can increase your impact among your audiences, or looking for some honest feedback that you can implement right away, book a free strategy session with our creative director.