A campaign initiative is creating an identity for a product or service that is defined by time. For instance, you could design a campaign initiative around an upcoming holiday sale, or a new product launch.

This campaign can be deployed through print and digital vehicles like print ads, video, social media, website pages, cold calling, and email campaigns.

One main goal is to increase awareness and generate sales. The bigger the campaign initiative, the greater the reach and the more sophisticated the scope of the campaign. However, you want to be mindful of not overdoing it. Sending out too many campaign emails is a quick way to unsubscribe and you don’t want that.

Your Next Campaign

Campaign Step 1: Defining. Brainstorm individually and then with a small team of trusted advisors to nail down your initial concept.

Campaign Step 2: Building. Take your initial concept comps and pitch the campaign to your team. With a few graphic elements designed, you can present a well defined campaign to your whole team and get them excited to jump on board!

Campaign Step 3: Growing. Create an offer or lead magnet around your campaign to grow your audience. This will be your main energy going into launch day!

Campaign Step 4: Ongoing. Ride the launch day enthusiasm as you work on your content pipeline and schedule (with deadlines!) new content for the campaign.

Campaign Step 5: Scaling. Analyze and track what is succeeding and keep doing that! Deliver great customer service, fulfill your orders, and continue to grow your campaign.

Campaign Step 1: Defining

It’s time to get your team excited for the campaign! To start, involve a small group of trusted advisors to begin brainstorming with you to kickstart the concept.e

When in a concept meeting you share with your team:

• What the campaign is about
• Why it is needed
• How they can help
• Ask for any feedback
• Get their buy-in BEFORE you nail down the concept

Work together to define your brand script for this campaign. What amazing offer can you create? How can you generate excitement about a new product or service? Think about what would make your customer want to jump up and take action to be sure not to miss out?

Name that campaign

You don’t have to have a catchy slogan to achieve a successful campaign, but you DO need to come up with something that gets people to pay attention. You can see (and hear) examples of “sticky” and memorable slogans all around you each day.

See if you can remember these famous campaigns:

• Maybe she’s born with it
• Where’s the beef?
• Because you’re worth it
• Quicker Picker Upper
• America runs on Dunkin’

It might be just as easy as the name of your product if it is something distinguishable from other products. If it doesn’t work, try to give it a name that is identifiable.

If it is a service, try and work to create something that is memorable. “Cleaning Service” isn’t really catchy enough. But “Spring into Clean Bundle” or “Spring into Clean Savings” has more of an identity to it.

Keep an open mind

There are usually awesome ideas generated from those around you who have differing viewpoints or skill sets. Be willing to listen to and consider a bunch of terrible (often laughable!) ideas but continue to push forward as you never know what will spark the perfect inspiration.

I have found that sometimes offering up a wacky idea that I know is awful not only lightens the mood but boosts the willingness of others to share. If the meeting goes off course, keep the enthusiasm but move the team back to discussing the main goal of the campaign.

After your brainstorming sesh, take some time to let those ideas marinate before moving forward. Weed through the ideas and see what stands out. Hopefully you have come away with some high quality concepts as well as a list of hurdles you may have to work through with the help of your team.

Share your revised list of ideas with your trusted advisors and get their feedback again before taking it to the larger group. Your goal is to nail down a concept that the larger team can help you flush out in the look and feel.

Bring it to life

Once you and your trusted advisors have agreed upon a final concept, make it come to life with graphic elements before you pitch the concept to your whole team. You may only need one or two elements to present on the pitch so don’t worry about having the designer flush out every last detail but you want your team to have a feel for the campaign. As an added bonus, this helps you see all your brainstorming come to life and keeps you energized!

Campaign Step 2: Building

Pitch your revised campaign to your whole team

Once you have a few graphic elements designed, it is time to present a well defined campaign to your whole team and get them excited to jump on board!

Present actual campaign mockups from landing pages to social media and print postcards. Your advisors will experience the campaign through your audience’s eyes and ears. Ride with your team member’s enthusiasm!

The goal is to talk about the problem you need to solve, your solution, why your company is poised to offer that solution.

Ensure your team members that you’ve considered the extra work a campaign can create as well as solutions in your well thought out timeline.

Outcomes to share with your team through the pitch:

• The problem
• Your solution
• Campaign name (with styled graphics)
• The campaign hero image
• Campaign video (optional)
• Landing page mockup
• The call-to-action
• Campaign timeline

As a business owner, you’re enthusiastic and love your business. Having your design concepts thought out and polished will go a long way in helping your team capture your vision for the campaign. Stoke the small flames within each of them, helping the fire and passion for the project to grow!

Determine your timeline

Often, the best campaigns can take months to conceptualize, create and execute. Beginning with your launch date, work backwards to determine a realistic timeline for production. Take feedback from your team on how you can best support them throughout the launch. After solidifying your launch timeline, assign a lead for each task, schedule check-ins and determine what success looks like if you’re able to meet your goals.

Begin by determining your launch date and work backwards to set deadlines throughout. You will also want to make space for any follow-up work after the launch of your campaign for analysis and future recommendations.

Assigned team responsibilities

Next, assign each team member their tasks in creating the visuals and written copy that will define your campaign. These assets will be the leading impression of the entire initiative, so make sure all design elements use the exact same colors, fonts and general feel. With these assets you will then be able to build a landing page, which is a specific page on your website just for this campaign that might not look like the rest of your website but has all of the visual identity elements from your new campaign. You can create a content calendar schedule to track your assets, so you know what content is being published when.

Reference the list below to ensure you have the assets created to update all your channels to match your campaign. Remember to Unify all of your marketing with this particular initiative’s identity for the greatest impact.

Campaign Launch Checklist: Campaign landing page, Website home page, Social media channels, Email signature, Window clings, Clothing freebies/giveaways, Promotional videos, Digital video ads, Digital image ads, Print ads, Email campaign template

Campaign Step 3: Growing

At this stage, work on creating a lead magnet around your campaign. Offer free content in exchange for someone’s email address, and continue to reach out to them during the campaign.

Launch day!

Launch day can be nerve-wracking. You never know how things will take shape and be received by your target audience. Will you have quick success? Slow and steady sales? Or dead in the water? If it is the latter, don’t hesitate to pivot, or push with more energy. Sometimes patience, listening, and data can help get you out of your slump, so collect as much of it as you can.

Campaign Step 4: Ongoing

Work on your content pipeline and schedule (with deadlines!) new content for the campaign. A good campaign will have 7-10 customer touchpoints so define a strategy for what they are before the campaign begins.

Campaign Step 5: Scaling

Analyze and track what is succeeding and keep doing that! Deliver great customer service, fulfill your orders, and continue to grow your campaign. After some time you will begin to see your ROI grow. Review your sales numbers. You don’t want to spend money you don’t have, so start small and make sure your ad works. If not, adjust as needed before spending more money to push it out to larger audiences.

Download a copy of our free team marketing worksheets here. Want to learn even more? Check out our book and video course, Unify Your Marketing.