6. Planning in 7 steps.
1. Setting campaign goals.
2. Defining your audience.
3. Developing messaging themes.
4. Choosing the right channels.
5. Budgeting time and money.
6. Creating effective content.
7. Measuring and adapting.
7. Goals.
Goals help set a direction for the
campaign and make our choices
more strategic.
Step 1:
8. Goals.
Get specific about your goals
Prioritize them
Attach a metric of success
Identify mid-campaign benchmarks
Step 1: Setting campaign goals
9. Goal Metric Benchmark
Increase the number
of quality applicants
to this program.
500 applicants
2015: 228
2016: 421
Increase the
diversity of
applicants
Age: 30% under 40
Ethnicity: 60% non-White
Geography 50% outside metro
2016:
20% under 40
50% non-White
30% outside metro
Increase awareness
about the program
20,000 pageviews of the
program’s landing page
2015: 7,000
2016: 16,000
Example: Applications
Step 1: Setting campaign goals
10. Our campaign goal is
to…
in the amount
of…compared to…
Step 1: Setting campaign goals
13. Segment Description Channel
Broadway nerds
Age 25 - 45, expressed interest
in Broadway shows, living
within a 100-miles of us.
Cares about Tony wins, actors,
show history, flashy, songs
Email (past similar
ticket buyers)
Facebook, Twitter
“Frozen” parents
Parents of kids age 3-13, living
within 50-miles of us. Cares
about fulfilling kid’s dreams,
family ticket price, will the
venue be “kid friendly”?
Facebook
Example: Ticket Sales
Step 2: Defining your audience
14. Our audience is…
they want to know…
and can be found via…
Step 2: Defining your audience
16. Messaging.
Create a headline idea for each segment
Address a need, subvert an expectation
Explore multiple approaches and test your ideas
Step 3: Developing messaging themes
17. Segment Theme
Parents of
alumni
Help us change the life of a student in need
Local business
supporter
We’ve been attracting tourists to our city for 40 years
National
foundation
Our unique method has had a global impact on the field
Long-time ticket
buyer
Meet future Oscar winners before anyone else, while
they’re still in training
Example: Major donors
Step 3: Developing messaging themes
18. In order to be
convinced, the
audience of…
needs to know…
Step 3: Developing messaging themes
19. Channels.
There are many different places to
reach your audiences. Each
channel has its strengths and
weaknesses.
Step 4:
20. Channels.
Email is cheap & effective (if you have a list)
Social can go broad (if there’s time/money)
Online ads can be complicated
Website is a conversion tool, not outreach
Offline is expensive, best for awareness
Step 4: Choosing the right channels
21. Segment Channel Purpose
Current members Email
Show our value by
providing useful content
Lapsed member Email survey & phone calls Ask how we can help them
Conference
attendee
Social media & on-site
Convert their energy on-
site to a new membership
“The Field” Social media ads & website
Target users similar to our
members, make them
aware we exist, drive to
website to provide details
Example: Membership
Step 4: Choosing the right channels
24. Budgeting.
First, evaluate previous campaigns’ budgets
Prefer digital to print (usually)
Pay for “cost per click” when possible
Adjust your budget mid-campaign
Build an editorial calendar: pre/during/post
Step 5: Budgeting your time and money
25. Channel Money Time Result
Social Media
Facebook: $5,000
Twitter: $2,500
Instagram: $2,500
50 hours 60%
Online Ads $1,000 10 hours 5%
Email $0 30 hours 20%
Direct outreach $0 20 hours 15%
Internal Comm. $0 20 hours -
TOTAL $11,000 130 hours 500 applications
Example: Applications
Step 5: Budgeting your time and money
28. Content.
Wait until the end of your campaign
planning process to start creating
content.
Step 6:
29. Content.
Create an asset list of “haves” and “needs”
Preference videos to images to text
Keep it simple, short, evocative
Before printing, test your ideas in digital
Step 6: Creating effective content
32. Adapting.
Your campaign plan isn’t set in
stone, it might need to change
during the campaign when you learn
what’s working.
Step 7:
33. Adapting.
Use UTM codes to measure digital efforts and unique
landing pages or discount codes to measure offline efforts
Choose 2-3 points in campaign to
re-evaluate your approach and adapt
Step 7: Measuring and adapting
34. Channel Cost Result CPR
Facebook $4,766 + 20 hrs 581 $8.23 + 2 min
Twitter $4,468 + 35 hrs 297 $15.04 + 7 min
Instagram $269 + 5 hrs 34 $7.91 + 9 min
Display Ads $730 + 10 hrs 66 $11.06 + 9 min
Email 30 hours 1714 1 minute
Other 10 hours 66 9 minutes
TOTAL $10,233 + 110 hrs 2,758
Example: Applications
Step 7: Measuring and adapting
36. Planning in 7 steps.
1. Setting campaign goals.
2. Defining your audience.
3. Developing messaging themes.
4. Choosing the right channels.
5. Budgeting time and money.
6. Creating effective content.
7. Measuring and adapting.
37. Our campaign goal is to…in the amount
of…compared to…Our audience is…they
want to know…and can be found via…In
order to be convinced, the audience
of…needs to know…It’s best to
reach…via…so that we can…We’re going to
spend…on…where we expect to
achieve…We’re using content from…and
need to create…We’re using…to
measure…and plan to check on results
when…
This session is about a framework for thinking about your marketing (or any kind of!) campaign
I’m Devon
Co-Founder of Measure
We work with arts orgs & other non profits on strategy
This isn’t rocket science. It’s more about planning strategically.
It’s not meant to capture every detail, it’s about guiding your decisions and making sure everyone’s on the same page with the big picture.
I’m going to walk through my advice, examples from real campaigns, and ask you to try to apply the framework to your own organization or campaign by filling in the blank
Who has an upcoming campaign in mind? I might call on you :)
I think there are 7 critical pieces to any campaign plan. You could probably squeeze all 7 of these onto a one-page doc. That’s a good idea!
For any campaign, first start with your goals.
You might be surprised that different stakeholders or partners have different goals for a project. Talking about them helps set the direction for the whole team.
My advice is to:
Get specific about what it looks like to achieve a goal
Limit your goals to no more than 4 (and prioritize)
Think of a specific quant/qual metric for each
Identify a way to tell how far toward your goal you’ve been able to reach, before you reach it (KPI)
Example from a campaign to attract applicants to a program.
We had 3 prioritized goals (quantity, diversity, awareness)
3 big pieces of info for each: description, metric, why we chose that metric.
High level: increase numbers. Specific: 500. Why? last year’s growth.
Some goals might just have a “how we’ll know we achieved this” description rather than a number
Try it for yourself:
Goal:
Metric:
Benchmark from previous campaign, year, peers, aud research
Audience should be the next thing you’re thinking about for any campaign
We often treat audiences too broadly —> “Millennials” or “Ticket buyers”
Creating empathy for who those people *really* are helps shape our campaign
Advice:
Segment them into small groups with similar needs
Do quick audience research about them
Start thinking about where/how you can actually reach them
Real campaign about selling performance tickets
Two big audiences with very different needs & desires
Helps us adapt the messages, content, the channel, even the budget
You don’t have to be spot on, but try to research some
You try it:
Segment audience
Wants/Perceptions
Where/how to find them
From understanding our audiences flows to messaging
But we often get caught up in too many details
Ask the typical marketing person what an audience should know about your campaign, and you often hear paragraphs of information.
We can only retain a few key details.
Often, we need *persuasion* more than *logistics*
My advice:
In campaign planning, nail down the one idea each audience needs to know.
Think about what they need to hear, not (only) what you want to say
You can test your messaging approaches with an audience. If it’s for an upcoming show, stick around the lobby & chat.
Real campaign for a major gifts campaign:
4 segments of potential major donors
1 theme for each. What to emphasize in our communication with them to raise money for a scholarship.
Focus on what that audience cares about.
You try it:
Segment:
convincing theme:
Now we have goals, audience, and themes, let’s talk Channels.
Overwhelming how many places are audiences might be found
Digital & analog.
They’ve gotten quite complicated
In general
If you have an email list, preference email. If you don’t, start building one!
Social takes time or money or both to be effective, but it can go really broad (for all age groups, depending on platform)
Online ads tend to need specialized help (AdWords or Display) and honestly I’ve yet to see them outperform social/email ads
Website is the place to *convert* visitors. Messaging themes are important, as are transactional ease
Offline (print, radio, tv, billboards, posters, in-person) can be much more expensive (& can’t change course)
Real example from a membership campaign
Use different channels for different segments, and then you can tailor your messaging & approach
In your plan, talk about WHY you made those choices
Your turn:
Segment
Channel
Purpose
Once you have key channels figured out, time to talk about budget
I think it’s best to work backwards when building out your budget. What you think is going to be achieved on each channel, and so how much you’re willing to spend there.
Don’t forget to account for your time too.
Look at previous campaigns’ budgets & how successful each channel was.
As we’ve said, digital > print because you can change it, and usually less per result.
When digital, use “cost per click” buying (social ads). Cost per conversion can be tricky - remember the ad platform has a profit motive too.
Build points in time to review your budget and make changes based on which channel/segment is performing best.
In your editorial calendar, identify what needs to happen throughout the whole length of campaign.
Real example from a campaign to solicit applications
Look at money & time
Project what you think the result is going to be
Plan for your own internal project management too. Set expectations around meetings & reporting.
Real example for that same campaign.
We broke out each stream of work per channel,
and listed prep/launch/monitoring/reporting
This can help with cross-channel messaging in particular
You try it:
Budget for time & money
On each channel
Project what you think that will achieve
Play around with numbers until you have a balanced ROI
Save content creation and planning until one of the very last things you start to think about in the campaign. Everything else before this should be driving your choices here.
Think of what you already have (photos from past shows, quotes from audience members or reviews, etc) and what you still need.
For digital campaigns, videos are best (social: 5-30 seconds)
Keep visuals & text short & sweet
If you have to print posters, postcards, etc, try testing those messages on digital first and see which of your messaging themes works best
Real example from a ticket sales campaign on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
Same performer had come through before, so we’re re-using some assets & used some new
Had tested lots of language in previous campaign.
Still, videos work best by far
Keep to 1-2 sentences only.
Your turn:
Asset list of haves & needs
Part of your planning process should be anticipating what might go right or wrong and how you can adapt. That means you need to know what to be measuring so you know WHEN it’s going right or wrong.
Also helpful to conduct a post-mortem after all campaigns and capture your learnings in some short bullet points you can keep handy for next campaign.
UTM codes help track digital (google or ask)
For offline, create unique codes to track or send visitors to unique pages on your site
In order to measure effectiveness, need to know how people learned. When you ask them, they usually just remember WOM
You set mid-campaign benchmarks, use them at intervals
Real example from campaign to solicit applications
Actual cost, how many applications started,
Results captured via Google Analytics
Cost per result in time & money
We checked these results weekly over 10-week campaign, each week making small adjustments + 2 big adjustments based on insights of the whole team.
When you have the real results, go back and check to see how close they match your predictions. You’ll get better at predictions.
Your turn:
Tools to measure
Metric of success
Timeline of when to check them
We made it through 7 steps/7 critical decision steps for any campaign.
If you created a one-page plan, this is roughly what it would look like.