What is a Campaign in Digital Marketing?

Do you get regular emails from your favorite skincare company offering promos and special offers? Do you click on interesting ads listed on top of Google searches? Do you binge-read blog posts from your favorite business consultant Jonas Muthoni? All of these web-based marketing efforts are examples of digital marketing campaigns.

We all interact with tons of campaigns daily online. And you, too can create your own digital marketing campaigns. In this article, we will answer the question “What is campaign in digital marketing” and give you some ideas of how to start your own based on your business goals.

What is a Digital Marketing Campaign?

A digital marketing campaign is the execution of a company’s marketing strategy through efforts that increase engagement, conversions, revenue, or website traffic. Companies use one or more digital channels and marketing tools to carry out their digital marketing campaigns.

Digital marketing campaigns are not to be confused with marketing plans. Digital marketing plans include the overall strategy that encompass the brand’s long-term objectives, while campaigns are more focused on achieving a specific goal.

The most successful online campaigns cover multiple marketing channels. This is because most consumers engage with brands through more than just one channel. If your company is only specifically targeting one channel, you might miss out on possible customer interactions on other channels.

Stages of a digital marketing campaign

So how exactly does a company get started with their campaign? Here are the three stages of an online marketing campaign:

• Plan: First, figure out the goals of your campaign based on your marketing budget. Get clear on what exactly you’re promoting, whether it be a new product, service, feature, resource, or brand message. Who are your target customers? Come up with the theme or concept that will attract these customers. Then establish which channels you’ll use and what will be featured on each channel. Lastly, determine how long you want your campaign to run.
• Develop: Develop and execute the strategy of your campaign. What voice and brand messaging do you want to emit? What are the target keywords you will need in order to get the attentions of your audience? Be sure that all the channels are integrated and consistent with each other.
• Manage: Once you have executed the campaign, you can analyze its success in real time. Make sure to have full visibility of all your campaign’s touchpoints. This will make it easy to determine which actions were driven by each marketing decision made. Use analytics metrics to track key performance indicators (KPIs). Google Analytics helps you view metrics regarding your website, while social media platforms each have their own analytics platform. You can track where and how customers engaged with your campaign. Did the decisions you made have a positive effect on engagement, conversions, revenue, or website traffic? If so, use these new insights on a regular basis when planning your next marketing efforts. If they did not seem to have an effect, brainstorm new ways to implement your next campaign.

Digital Marketing Strategies for Each Campaign Goal

As we mentioned in the planning stage of your campaign, you must determine the goals of what you would like to achieve. Some of the most common goals marketers may have are:

• Acquire more leads/customers
• Convert more customers
• Retain customers and build trust

Depending on which of these three goals you have, you can choose the strategy that will best suit what is needed. Next we will cover the three main goals and the types of digital marketing strategies you can try to meet each goal.

Get more leads/customers

Are you a new small business looking to expand, an established company launching a new product, or an expanding company moving to a new location?

If you want to get more leads/customers who haven’t heard about your brand, you’ll be wanting to implement an acquisition marketing campaign. The goal is to find people who might be interested in your product/service or that are a fit for your buyer’s personas.
When you have a clear idea of who your buyer’s persona is, you will find it much easier to develop your campaign around the ideal buyer’s goals and challenges. You can do this by performing some market research on your existing customers. What are their demographics? Hobbies? Pain points?

Use any information you can find to create the profile of your average customer. Then build your campaign with a few of these marketing tactics you can use to get more potential customers:

• Search engine optimization (SEO): SEO improves the visibility of your company on search results pages. This makes it easier for your audience to find you. If they look up your type of product or service online and you pop up first on the page, they will likely click on your link. Being ranked high on search pages builds your authority, and drives traffic to your website organically.
• Pay-per-click (PPC): If you don’t want to wait for the slow-going, long-term benefits of SEO, try PPC advertising. If you decide to place Google ad campaigns, you will find them listed above the organic search results. Placing a PPC ad gives your ad a higher chance of being clicked on (64.6% of people looking to buy will click on Google ads!). You can also place PPC ads on other search engines or social media platforms like Facebook Ads. Placing a PPC ad is not only cost effective (you only have to pay when your ad is clicked), but customers will develop brand awareness quicker.
• Social media marketing: Presenting your digital campaign on various social media channels is a good way to get your content in front of fresh sets of eyes. Especially if you create quality content that grabs attention, is entertaining, inspirational, or informational. An effective way to expand your social media presence is to enlist the help of influencers. These social media stars can present your product/service to their audience and dramatically expand your reach. Other suggestions include appearing on popular podcasts or creating challenges/contest on you social media profiles. These are surefire ways to get your brand name out there.

Get more conversions

Companies ideal target for conversions is about 30%. If you aren’t making sales even though you are getting a smooth flow of traffic to your website, you may need to work on increasing the conversion rate.

Conversion campaigns have the goal of getting more leads and sales. To do this, you must add quality or extra incentive for the customer to take the plunge.

Here are a few campaign strategies you can use to boost conversions:

• Content marketing: Creating high-quality content helps educate leads about your brand, expertise, and your product/service. When your target market knows what exactly you have to offer, they are more likely to convert. Be sure to implement a content marketing strategy that is consistent and has a clearly defined audience and value proposition. The type of content you use to execute your campaign can be anything from blog articles to YouTube videos to memes. Video marketing has been an especially effective way to boost conversions. Videos are highly shareable, and are often considered more interesting and engaging than content that is text-based. Evidence has shown that adding a video to landing pages can increase conversions by 80%!
• Calls to action (CTAs): CTAs get the audience to take the actions that move them further down the sales funnel. If you aren’t being clear about the next recommended action the customer should take, they will likely not go the direction you want them to. Something as simple as creating an effective CTA may be the needed push to get your lead to convert! CTA examples could be “Buy now and get 50% off!”, “Subscribe to our mailing list”, or “Click here to learn more”. CTAs use strong action words and provoke excitement or enthusiasm. Place a CTA on every page of your website to direct the customer in the right direction. This will no doubt help increase your conversion rate.
• Website optimization: If devices aren’t compatible with your website, or if it is too slow or has too many pop-ups, users are likely to click off the page. In the age of sleek, quick websites, nobody has the time to deal with these minor inconveniences. That’s why it is imperative that your website navigation is quick, clear, and easy for its visitors. Optimize your website to be used by all possible devices: mobile phones, tablets, and desktop devices. Also be sure that the placement of your content is well-designed and easy to read.

Build customer loyalty and trust

After you’ve attracted your audience and then converted them, the next campaign goal is to keep ‘em coming back for more. When they have built trust in you from past purchases, they are more likely to spend more money than new customers.

And getting repeat business from the same customers will not only translate to more sales, but these customers are your best brand ambassadors. Happy customers are sure to tell their friends and family about your brand with raving success stories. This easily leads new customer traffic coming your way.

For a successful customer retention campaign, you must make that return experience fun, rewarding, and personalized.

Here are a few marketing tactics to include in your customer retention campaign:

• Retargeting/Remarketing: Utilizing retargeting/remarketing ads is an effective way to regain your customer’s attention as well as increase the conversion rate. Oftentimes a lead will check out your site, get distracted, and not buy anything. Sometimes they need a little reminder that you’re there with a viable product/service for purchase. Retargeting/remarketing ads can be placed in front of website visitors who frequently visited your site or previous customers. These retargeting ads work through cookies that were added when the visitor visited your site. It is also possible to place remarketing ads with the contacts in your contact list.
• Automation: Even though automating processes may seem impersonal, it actually can provide a whole new level of personalization to customers. Us humans are less consistent and much more likely to err when it comes to emailing back a customer. We can now automate your email marketing campaigns to avoid this common problem; one example is automated emails that include personalized offers. These are offers the customer is sure to be interested in based on their purchase behaviors and history. Another example is using automation to identify your top customers and reward them with a free gift. Automation can also collect customer feedback, and use it to recommend them products/ services they may be interested in in the future.
• Educate your customers: After your customer has purchased, that shouldn’t be the end of your interaction. There is a natural hunger and curiosity for more information that will help them better enjoy your product/service. You can educate your customers by creating content that provides lots of background information surrounding your offering. Include a blog on your website detailing the ins-and-outs that customers might face, a video how-to on how to use the product/service, as well as any related topics that can be of interest. With this helpful information, you are teaching them how they can fully enjoy your product, which leads to customer satisfaction.
• Stay in touch: Keeping open communication through email and social media is the best way for your customer base to feel connected. Make sure to encourage them to ask questions, and to give feedback or testimonials. Showing you care about your customers even after they’ve made the purchase builds trust and loyalty that is sure to last many purchases to come.

Know Your Goals and Build Your Campaign

Knowing what your current business goals are will help you build an effective digital marketing campaign.

If you’d like to gain more leads, consider working on SEO, PPC, and social media marketing.

If more conversions are your goal, try focusing on content, CTAs, and optimizing your website.

If you’d like to build loyalty and trust within existing customers, retargeting/remarketing ads, automation, education, and staying in touch with your customers might just do the trick.