What is a marketing campaign? Campaign planning made easy

Gone are the days of scattergun marketing. These days, leading marketers work at the campaign level – which sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is. So, what is a marketing campaign, and how is it different from what you’re doing now? In this article we’ll cover: 

• What a marketing campaign actually is
• How a marketing campaign differs from an overall marketing strategy
• Why consumer data is the key to making campaign planning easy

To get fully clued-up and ready to set off with your marketing campaigns, check out our beginner’s guide to campaign planning – it’s totally free! 

What is a marketing campaign? 

A marketing campaign is a structured, organised effort to market something, with a specific end goal in mind. Rather than being a ‘thing’ a campaign is more of a way of working; campaigns feature collaborative input from all areas of the marketing team, and span multiple channels, all with the aim of moving one particular metric or promoting one company goal. 

The best marketing campaigns are focused – they promote one thing, whether it’s brand awareness or a new product release, to a specific audience. All of this structure doesn’t mean that campaigns aren’t creative, however. Creating stunning visuals and messaging that align with your brand and the focus of your campaign is all part of the process – check out our round-up of the most creative ad campaigns of 2019 for some inspo. 

To get an understanding of why it’s important to plan out campaigns, we asked a campaign marketer to tell us three key benefits of campaign planning. 

How does a marketing campaign differ from a marketing strategy?

While a marketing campaign is a focused effort to promote a specific thing, a marketing strategy is much more holistic. Your overall strategy encompasses all of your marketing efforts, with longer-term goals and many smaller strategies sitting within it (e.g. your content marketing strategy, your demand generation strategy, etc.), all aligned to create an overall vision. 

Think of it this way – if you’re a snack company, your marketing strategy will incorporate many different marketing activities, e.g. refining your brand’s purpose, testing packaging, or running a podcast for snack fans. When you release a new snack product, you consult the overall marketing strategy to build a marketing campaign that’s visually cohesive, full of great messaging, and reaches the right people in the right places. 

How to use consumer data to make campaign planning easy

There are so many ways to run a successful marketing campaign, and a lot of your strategy will depend on the specifics of your brand – your industry, who you’re marketing to, and a whole lot more besides. Campaign templates can be helpful, but in our opinion, there’s no substitute for real-life consumer data. 

You can use consumer surveys to inform multiple steps in the campaign planning process, including: 

1. Understanding your audience – use consumer profiling surveys to assess who your target audience is, how best to segment them, and what kinds of channels work best for them. 
2. Message testing – not sure what kind of copy will resonate best with your target audience? Send out a survey and see which messaging your audience likes best
3. Test your creative assets – test out graphics, video, and audio to see whether they work before you send them out into the wild
4. Measure your campaign success – use pre- and post-campaign measurement surveys to understand the impact of your marketing campaigns amongst your target audience 

Hungry to start using consumer data to plan truly impactful marketing campaigns? Get your free copy of our beginner’s guide to campaign planning, and we’ll get you up and running: