Hello, clever soul,
What makes the ultimate marketing campaign?
According to Mark Ritson (yes, the same one behind Marketing Week’s brilliant Mini MBA programme), the best strategies follow 9 simple steps.
Here’s how they break down:
1. Diagnosis (Qualitative and Quantitative)
Before you can put a strategy in place, you need to do your research. What marketing challenges do you hope to overcome with your campaign? Ensure you use qualitative (stuff you can’t count) and quantitative (stuff you can) methods.
2. Clear Strategic Objectives
You can set clear strategic objectives once you’ve correctly diagnosed the issue. These goals must be realistic and measurable.
3. Long, Mass-marketing Branding
Byron Sharp explains in How Brands Grow that building a brand requires time and targeting a broad pool of potential buyers. All brands start small, but growing market share is the only way to improve your brand’s long-term odds of survival.
4. Shorter, Targeted Performance
Your messaging can become more targeted and rational as a prospective customer gets closer to purchase. This is where digital channels become your friend, allowing you to segment audiences efficiently. According to Les Binet and Peter Field, you should allocate 60% of your budget to emotive, mass brand-building marketing and 40% to short-term, rational messaging.
5. Tight, Differentiated Positioning
Brand positioning is all about where your brand sits in the minds of your customers compared to your competitors. You need yours to be clear, concise and differentiated. E.g., the German carmaker BMW defines itself as the brand for ‘driving enthusiasts’ within the luxury segment.
6. Heavy, Consistent Codification (I.e. use of distinctive brand assets)
A distinctive brand asset is something unique and ownable by a brand. It forms part of the brand’s overall ‘identity’ and can be a colour, logo, icon, character, pattern, tone of voice or even an audio device. McDonald’s ‘Golden Arches’, Nike’s ‘Swoosh’ and Disney’s ‘Mikey Mouse’ are good examples of these unique brand identifiers.
7. Greater Investment Than Competitors
Why does Coca-Cola spend the most on marketing despite being the category leader? The answer is to maintain its number one position. You can’t expect to be successful in the long term with a low-cost ‘viral’ campaign. You need to cough up the cash.
8. Astonishing Creativity
The IPA’s research shows that 43% of emotionally driven ad campaigns had a significant positive impact on sales and customer loyalty after three years or more. In contrast, rational campaigns saw that level of success 23% of the time. Over the long term, creatively led campaigns yield the best return on investment.
9. Multiple Integrated Channels
Your target audience isn’t just hanging out in one place. Multiple channels increase your chances of getting noticed. Also, multiple channels allow you to maintain a consistent brand message; the more someone sees your message, the more likely they are to remember it.
The Takeaway
If the above points sound straightforward, that’s the point. The best marketers follow these fundamentals relentlessly.
Treat this as your ultimate marketing checklist. Keep it simple. Stick to it. And watch your results improve.
Good luck!
Big love,
Chris & the 42courses team x
