How To Plan a Campaign

CAMPAIGNThis past week I interviewed for a job. They wanted to know how I plan for a campaign. I came up with a document that I am going to share here. I gave a great presentation but unfortunately didn’t get the job.

Create a Calendar

  • Excel
    • Use an Excel document to keep everyone on the same timeline
    • Includes: Deadlines, publication dates, etc.
  • Outlook/Calendar
    • After calendar has been set put in events/notifications to act as a follow up to get everything done on time

Planning

Strategy

  • Create an overall strategy on what is needed for each month
    • Documents that need to be created
    • Creative elements that need to be produced
    • Promotion of content – Including social and paid promotion
    • Create a place to store documents and files can easily be shared by stake holders
  • Update on how the plans are going each month
    • Keep everyone in the loop with the campaign
      • Delays and reason for them
      • Completed items
      • Changes in the plan for the month
  • Set KPIs
    • Set what are the KPI’s to judge the success of the campaign.

Implementing

Content

  • Check List
    • Create a check list every month on what is needed to make sure nothing gets missed
  • Avoid issues as much as possible
    • Early is better – when possible have all content in place before publication date
  • Set content in proper channels
    • Have all content set and ready to go in content systems (blog/WordPress) in advance of publication date

Promotion

  • Have all creative elements ready for publication in a central location
  • Get content written before hand and approve by all stake holders
  • Update calendar on promotion if needed
    • Date and time of publication
    • Wording of promotion if possible (including social media posts)

Adjust

  • Adjust strategy as needed through the month is something is working better or worse than expected.

Post Campaign

Analytics

  • Access KPI
    • Did we reach the goal?
    • Why or why not?
    • How can the process be improved?

Recommendations

  • Debrief after each campaign to point out the pros and cons of the campaign
  • Compare to other campaigns and on a quarterly review and judge the overall strategy and how to adjust the remaining months.
  • Compile a yearly report comparing campaigns and make recommendations

If you have any questions please feel free to ask. Download the Campaigns Document.

Tim is the founder of Element33. A social media agency specializing in education, management and strategy for small businesses. He comes from a traditional marketing agency but has embraced all things digital. He considers himself a marketing nerd and believes that all marketing is tied together. This means no matter what silo you are in, social, email, seach, etc, changes in one will affect the other!

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