Spring Clean Your Brand Part 2: How to Overhaul Your Marketing Campaign in 5 Simple Steps
If you’ve ever spent your precious Sundays {and Saturdays....and Friday nights} hunched over your keyboard, fuming with a pad of paper and a pen or pacing back and forth talking to yourself, all in the name of creating what you hoped would be an effective email, social or print marketing campaign...yet you’re just not seeing the results you want, it may be time to rethink your process.
I know what you may be thinking. That sounds like a lot of:
But don't worry, we're on your side.
So, to save you the Sunday anguish of realizing it’s 2:00 in the afternoon and you have yet to brush your teeth or eat a meal because you’ve been stuck at your laptop since 7:00 am {with a couple breaks to bang your head against the wall}, here's an achievable five step guide to overhauling your marketing campaigns in a way that allows you to one-and-done the set up so you can spend one Sunday every 3-6 months updating it rather than wasting precious time playing the guessing game and crossing your fingers real hard.
Step #1
Find Out What Your Target Audience Loves, Wants & Struggles With
The importance of this step cannot be overstated. It doesn’t matter how mind-numbingly fantastic the content you’re putting out into the world is if nobody’s reading or consuming it. Finding out what matters to your target audience, what their pain points are and what they like to engage in to feel _______ {happy, more successful, less stressed, entertained, insert appropriate word here} is essential to creating marketing campaigns that actually get results. Not to mention this step drastically reduces the amount of time you'll waste taking shots in the dark with your content. There’s a smorgasbord of options out there when it comes to analyzing your audience’s wants and needs, and luckily, it’s not rocket science {but it does take a little bit of focused effort upfront}. Some of our favorite options? Answerthepublic.com is an amazing online resource that allows you to enter keywords that relate to your business and see the most searched questions people are asking regarding your industry or service. It even goes so far as to break the results down into the types of questions being asked {i.e. "how" questions, "why" questions, "can" questions", "what" question, etc}. This site is a treasure trove of value for getting insight into your audience's pain points.
Other options include getting involved in relevant web spaces like Facebook groups or Reddit communities and paying attention to what people are talking about surrounding the subject of your industry. We’re also a sucker for the good ol’ straight forward approach of asking. Curious what people want from companies in your industry? Ask! {Another good reason to get involved in social spaces. The more socially involved you are, the more people you have to poll}. For even more ideas on how you can hack into your audience’s head and get unique insight on their questions, desires and pain points, check out this blog post on that exact topic.
Step #2
Create Tailored Content
Once you have a clear understanding of the solutions, deliverables and discussions your audience is craving, plan content around it. If your goal is to grow your email list, this can mean creating free content upgrades on your blog posts that provide your audience with helpful checklists, reports or other downloadables in exchange for their email address. If your goal is to get clients to pick up the phone and call you, this can mean creating content that helps answers some of their burning questions and offers a free “discovery/consultation call” to dive deeper into that hot topic. If your goal is to book face to face appointments, this can mean advertising the valuable take-aways the clients will receive during and after their meeting with you {make sure to give them a “sneak peak” of what these take aways will look like}. Whatever your goal, your content marketing efforts should always present RELEVANT value upfront and then promise further {relevant} value in exchange for an opt-in of some kind.
Step #3
Perform A/B Testing
A/B testing is the marketing equivalent of sending that “Do you like me? Check yes or no” message to your 5th grade sweetheart. It’s purpose is to understand what types of approaches people LOVE and RESPOND TO. Whether your main source of campaigning is email, print or social media marketing, it’s in your best interest to create two separate approaches to your offer and see which one gets more bites. Each one should contain the same general MESSAGE but be slightly different in it’s presentation (this can mean testing out different design layouts, different call to action prompts or different email subject lines depending on the type of campaign). Once you have your A vs B options ready to go, send them out into the world and TRACK which one gets a better response from your target audience. Are your funny email subjects getting more opens than your factual email subjects? Is your video landing page getting higher conversions than your written landing page? Take note of what people are responding to and do more of it.
Step #4
Tweak the Higher Performing Option & Automate It
Once the results are in from your A/B testing and it’s clear which option people are responding more enthusiastically to, go back and put some finesse into that approach. While "done is better than perfect” is an accurate sentiment in Steps 1-3, Step 4 is the time to let your inner perfectionist out and refine what’s working. Add additional value to your opt-in, add some cross links to other offers in your business, add social media sharing links, whatever you can do to increase engagement: increase away! Next, AUTOMATE the process so you can set it and forget it and move on to the incoming-producing activity.
- For print marketing campaigns -
Get ahead of the work and design a series of mailers all at once so all you have to do is send it to the printer on a specified date.
- For email marketing campaigns -
Write the campaign series and automate it using an email automation tool like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Constant Contact or a comparable service.
- For social media marketing campaigns -
Plan and design the images and post content for the campaign series and automate it using a social media automation tool like HootSuite, Agora Pulse, Buffer or a comparable service.
{Need help writing or designing a campaign series? Hit us up, yo!}
Step #5
Duplicate Across Platforms
Overhauling your marketing is a “one campaign” at a time effort. You’ll want to start this five step process with the campaign that moves the needle forward THE MOST in your business. If your business sells online training courses, this is probably your email marketing campaign. If your business sells roof repair services, this is probably your print marketing campaign. If your business is a brick and mortar or online retail store, this is probably your social media marketing campaign. Whatever your circumstance, it’s best to start with the #1 most impactful campaign for your business, get it running like a well-oiled machine, THEN move on to the next campaign with the same five step process.
READ THE REST OF THE SERIES:
Part 1: 5 Ways to Freshen Your Website.
Part 3: 5 Ways to Create an Extraordinary Client Experience.
Part 4: 5 Steps to Building a Brand Story That Sells
Want more entrepreneurial advice, tips and tricks to accelerate your business?
Sign up for our email list here.
{We only send the good stuff.}