How to Create a Digital Marketing Campaign

You’ve interacted with a business’s digital marketing campaigns before.   You may have seen digital ads, blog content, emails, videos...and probably a lot more. All of these things can be a part of your own digital marketing strategy,   so I’m going to tell you how to use your business’s resources to create a digital marketing campaign plan that actually works. But how do you define a digital marketing campaign? 

What is a Digital Marketing Campaign?

Digital marketing can include both paid and unpaid strategies.

A digital marketing campaign can include both paid and unpaid strategies.  

• Unpaid marketing strategies are referred to as,   
• Paid strategies involve some level of spend or investment. 

Some common strategies you’ll find in a digital marketing campaign plan are: 

• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Digital advertising  
• Content marketing
• Email marketing  
• Social media marketing  
• Web design And more! 

You’ll hear more about these strategies in just a bit. Generally, the goal of your digital marketing campaigns is to grow your business,   but how you go about that varies from company to company. Some businesses may want to increase website traffic,  while others might see conversions as a more valuable key performance indicator (KPI). 

How to Create Your Digital Marketing Campaign Plan

You shouldn’t create an online marketing campaign without first making a plan. Planning your campaigns might not be as glamorous as launching them, but it’s definitely just as important. A plan helps guide your strategy so that everything you do aligns with your brand and your goals. You don’t want to end up with a disjointed campaign that’s way over your budget, do you?

 Step 1. Decide whether to hire an agency or work in-house 

Decide whether to hire an agency or work in-house  Would you rather your marketing be handled by an outside agency or an in-house team?   Or would a small in-house team be best supplemented by an agency’s services? Each choice has its pros and cons. With an agency, some of the pros are:

• expertise from working on many campaigns,   
• Access to software and tools that could cost your business a lot of money,   
• Ability to easily add on new services without having to train or hire someone new. 
• On the flip side, some cons are that the agency might not be near your location, 
• And you may not have as much control over the day-to-day tasks for your strategy. 

Honestly, though, a good agency will have a lot of processes in place to keep you in the loop,   encourage feedback, and show exactly how your budget is driving results. The benefits of an in-house team include its accessibility (since they’re direct employees), complete control over the strategy, and 100% focus on your business. 

But going in-house can cost a lot in time and resources,   like software costs, team salaries, and training. And the expertise is limited to who you hire,   so expanding to a new marketing channel might require more training or recruiting. 

 Step 2. Understand your business 

Understand your business Are you taking notes? Most businesses want the public to see them in a specific way. Branding can help with that. Know your brand is much more than your logo and the colors you use on your website,   although those are very important. 

Your brand also includes your business’s personality or tone. Are you laid back? Sassy?   Scholarly? However you’d describe your business,   you should make sure to communicate with that tone in mind across all of your marketing channels. 

 Identify your unique selling propositions (USPs) - In addition to your tone, you should be aware of what makes your business different from all other businesses. If you’re having trouble identifying your USPs, ask yourself why someone should give you their hard-earned money. Why is your business better than the rest? It could be that your yogurt shop makes everything from scratch, or your plumbing company guarantees service at all hours of the day. Whatever your USPs are, you’ll want to mention them in your digital marketing campaigns. 

 Fine-tune your audience targeting - The goal of digital marketing is not to cast a wide net and hope some of the people who see your stuff become your customers.

Creating personas can help put a face to the people who have previously invested in your products or services. 

• Who typically interacts with your business, whether online or in-person?   
• What do they like to do in their free time? 
• What type of information are they looking for?

 If your audience consists of professionals in your industry,   you probably don’t need to create content for beginners. It works the other way, too.  

If you’re an electrician, for example, the average consumer will not understand industry jargon. And why do they need to? They’re hiring you, so they don’t have to be the experts.   You’ll have to keep your campaigns simple and make an effort to explain anything complex. 

Before I move on to setting goals for your online marketing campaign,   I just want to cover that it’s important to understand your environment. 

Analyze competitors - digital marketing campaigns Spend some time doing a competitor analysis, including a SWOT analysis,  to better understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities,   and threats surrounding your business. You won’t regret gaining this knowledge.

 Step 3. Set your budget and goals 

Setting campaign goals!   And also your budget! Set your budget and goals  Why are you investing your time — and your money — into a digital marketing campaign?   Are you trying to generate more website traffic? Do you want to increase sales? Every business needs a unique set of goals that drives campaign decisions. For a service-based business, you might want to focus on increasing qualified leads and phone calls. An eCommerce business might be better off focusing on sales. You can break those broad goals down into smaller, more specific KPIs. 

The SMART goals method can help you figure out what goals your business can actually hit. 

• SMART stands for specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Timely

 If you’ve done digital marketing before,   you can take a look at past campaigns to figure out a benchmark for your new strategy. Then, figure out how much you can spend. 

 Step 4. Choose your channels 

Choose your channels Okay, it’s rapid-fire marketing time. Defining six popular digital marketing channels. Two minutes on the clock. Go! 

Search engine optimization (SEO) - Optimizing your website so that it shows up in search engines like Google and Bing.

Digital advertising: - Paying for your content to show up online in places like search engines, social media channels, and other websites.  

Content marketing:-  Creating things like blog posts, videos, infographics,   and guides to answer people’s questions online.

Email marketing:-  Sending targeted email messages to your audience to turn subscribers into customers.

Social media marketing: - Curating, creating, and sharing paid and organic content across social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linked In, and Pinterest.

Web design:-  Make sure your website works well, is easy to navigate, and looks good,   so it creates a good user experience.

Choose the channels that make the most sense for you. You don’t have to do all of them.   You want to be where your audience is and do what works for your goals and your budget.

Review your results

Review your results  Whether you launched a video ad, amped up your SEO strategy, created a LinkedIn account,   or debuted a fresh web design, set time aside to review your campaign performance. Using tools like Google Analytics, Ahrefs, or even our Marketing Cloud FX platform, you can monitor all of your campaigns and see if they’re hitting the goals you set earlier on in your campaign plan.

Just remember: The Internet changes quite often.

If you see some not-so-great results, make some tweaks to your campaign. Don’t count it as a setback. Look at unexpected results as an opportunity to learn. Success can be as simple as adjusting your audience targeting or slightly altering your website design. 

And the most important part of any online marketing campaign? Let your creativity loose!   Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Take creative risks.  You can always pause a campaign or switch things up if your original idea wasn’t THE idea. 

Before you launch your digital marketing campaign, you should take some time to research the different marketing channels available to you. 

These channels include: Search engine optimization (SEO), Digital Advertising, Content marketing, Email marketing, Social media marketing, and Web design.

You don't need to be on every channel in order to see results. The most important thing to remember is that you need to be where your customers are.

Every business has different goals, so your strategy may look different from your competitors' strategies. You might be focused on increasing leads, while another business is focused on growing website traffic. 

So, what is a digital marketing campaign? I hope I answered that—and so much more.   If you have any questions, drop them in the comments. We’d love to answer them.