Campaign

Planning
INTRODUCTION
Vision without action is only dreaming, action without vision is only passing time, but
vision with action can change the world. - Nelson Mandela
Every Organization- no matter its size, aim, or budget- wants to be successful. That
means setting goals, realizing a vision for change and having an impact on peoples lives.
The goals your organization sets may be complex or challenging- from ending internet
censorship protecting and freeing political prisoners to creating conditions for a societys
access to information. The journey from setting aims to actually achieving results that will
have an impact on peoples lives is a demanding one.
While your organization may undertake routine work towards its overall mandate, it is
when it seeks to make a significant advance on a specific issue that it launches a
campaign.
Unless your campaign contains a big idea, it pass like a ship in the right.
DAVID OGILVY

A campaign is a series of co-ordinate actions, organized within a strategy that aims to

achieve concrete objectives in a specific timeframe.
In order to successful in, achieving change, a campaign needs tpo align with the overall
framework of the organization- its vision and mission
Vision: The image of an ideal future towards which your organization wants to
contribute with its work. For example, the international freedom of expression exchange
(IFEX) strives for a world where freedom of expression is defined, respected and upheld

Mission: it states what your organization does to contribute to make its vision a reality; it
is its central purpose. For example, As the leading global network defending and
promoting freedom of expression, IEFX enhances its members work by creating distinct
opportunities for capacity building, joint advocacy and increase visibility
It is from this conceptual term of reference that the organization has established its
identity, developed its policies and hired its staff. The vision achieve and how it will
achieve it. The campaign should also align with and figure into the organizations strategic
plan- the outline of a how a group makes its mission operational. Thus, the issue chosen
for a compaign should already be part of your organizations mission and strategic plan. If
its not, there is risk of setting out on a path leading to frustration and failure since this
plan guides decision making around the use of resources based on your organizations
objectives.
MEANING OF CAMPAIGN PLANNING
The process whereby combatant commanders and subordinate joint force commanders
translate national or theater strategic and operational concepts through the development
of campaign plans. Campaign planning may begin during deliberate planning when the
actual threat, national guidance, and available resources become evident, but is normally
not completed until after the National Command Authorities select the course of action
during crisis action planning. Campaign planning is conducted when contemplated
military operations exceed the scope of a single major joint operation.
Advertising campaigns are the groups of advertising messages which are similar in
nature. They share same messages and themes placed in different types of medias at
some fixed times. The time frames of advertising campaigns are fixed and specifically
defined.
The very prime thing before making an ad campaign is to know-

STRATEGY AND PLANNING PROCESS IN ADVERTISEMENT CAMPAIGN

Why you are advertising and what are you advertising?
Why refers to the objective of advertising campaign. The objective of an advertising
campaign is to:o Inform people about your product
o Convince them to buy the product
o Make your product available to the customers
The process of making an advertising campaign is as follows:
Research: first step is to do a market research for the product to be advertised. One
needs to find out the product demand, competitors, etc.
Know the target audience: one need to know who are going to buy the product and who
should be targeted.
Setting the budget: the next step is to set the budget keeping in mind all the factors like
media, presentations, paper works, etc which have a role in the process of advertising
and the places where there is a need of funds.

Deciding a proper theme: the theme for the campaign has to be decided as in the colors
to be used, the graphics should be similar or almost similar in all ads, the music and the
voices to be used, the designing of the ads, the way the message will be delivered, the
language to be used, jingles, etc.
Selection of media: the media or number of Medias selected should be the one which
will reach the target customers.
Media scheduling: the scheduling has to be done accurately so that the ad will be visible
or be read or be audible to the targeted customers at the right time.
Executing the campaign: finally the campaign has to be executed and then the
feedback has to be noted.
Mostly used media tools are print media and electronic media. Print media includes
newspaper, magazines, pamphlets, banners, and hoardings. Electronic media includes
radio, television, e-mails, sending message on mobiles, and telephonic advertising. The
only point to remember is getting a proper frequency for the ad campaign so that the ad is
visible and grasping time for customers is good enough.
All campaigns do not have fix duration. Some campaigns are seasonal and some run all
year round. All campaigns differ in timings. Some advertising campaigns are media
based, some are area based, some are product based, and some are objective based. It
is seen that generally advertising campaigns run successfully, but in case if the purpose is
not solved in any case, then the theory is redone, required changes are made using the
experience, and the remaining campaign is carried forward.

DEFINING ADVERTISING OBJECTIVE

Companies have many objectives when advertising their products and services. These
objectives vary according to their industries, available distribution channels and overall
marketing strategies. The key with all advertising is attracting the right buyers. These are
people who are more apt to buy a company's wares based on demographics like age and
income, for example. Advertising managers should also repeat their messages often
enough to familiarize consumers with their offerings.
Increasing Sales and Profits
One of the major objectives of advertising is to increase sales and profits. Some
companies, like Internet businesses, only use advertising to apprise people about their
products and services. These companies don't have sales departments. Hence, they can
only sell products and earn profits if they are actively advertising. Some forms of
advertising lend themselves more to producing immediate profits. For example, direct
response advertising, which asks consumers for money in the ads, is specifically geared
toward building sales and profits.
Encourage Trial and Usage
Companies often use advertising to encourage trial and usage of new products. These
companies run their advertising to introduce their products to the public. They inform
people where to buy the products, and also offer special incentives to first-time buyers.
For example, a fast food restaurant may offer consumers "$1 off" on a new $3 chicken
meal. Similarly, consumer products companies advertise to get consumers to try and use

their products. Their sales and profits increase when customers start making regular
purchases of their brands.
Reminder Advertising
Some businesses use advertising to help customers recall "satisfaction" they had with
products in the past, according to marketing expert Cynthia M. Frisby of the University of
Missouri. This is often called reminder advertising. Companies that use reminder
advertising are often marketing older, more established products. They advertise these
products less frequently just to remind customers they are still selling the products. For
example, some companies run commercials for 40-year-old games, toys and other items
during the holidays.
Follow-Up
It is not enough to just advertise to achieve key objectives. Companies must deliver what
they promise in the ads. For example, manufacturers and retailers must ensure enough
products are in stock when these ads break. They must also provide excellent customer
service, answering questions about products and providing fair refund policies.
Companies should also develop computer databases on customers, when possible, so
they can periodically send them coupons or special promotions.

PLANNING AN ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN

1. Executive Summary:
a. What is the plan being designed to accomplish?
b. What are the advertising objectives?
c. What is the advertising strategy?
2. Situation Analysis:
a. Current market situation-include assessment of key direct competitors, competitive
positioning, SWOT analysis, business/industry situation
b. Sales history, share of market; previous pricing strategies employed

c. Current advertising agency-how long theyve been the agency of record and summary
of recent advertising strategies
d. Target market description
i. Primary
ii. Secondary
iii. Market characteristics
e. Marketing Mix Decisions-appropriate pricing, product, distribution and communication
positioning for the primary target market
3. Advertising Objectives:
a. Direct or indirect action?
b. How much this plan is expected to achieve in terms of purchase behaviour?
c. Quantified expressions of objectives
i. Quantities or percentages
ii. Length of time for achievement of objectives
iii. Potential additional measures of measurement
4. Advertising Strategy:
a. Product or market positioning
b. Product differentiation

c. Lifecycle
d. Kim Lord grid purchase-decision position
5. Directives to the Creative Department: Write a Creative Brief:
a. Summary of communication media to be used in advertising campaign (media
suggested)
b. Summary of primary target audience.
i. Who is the prospect: behavioristic, geographic, demographic, and or psychographic.
ii. Why does the consumer buy our product/service? Does the consumer have specific
wants or needs that this product relates to? Emotional or rational appeal?
iii. What does the product have that satisfies customers needs?
iv. Where and when will these messages be communicated?
v. What style, approach or tone will the campaign embrace?
1. General copy suggestions, guidelines
2. Do not create ads! This will emanate from your creative direction. Not your job in this
project.
6. Evaluating the Effectiveness of campaign:
a. Appropriately designed testing, evaluation and monitoring of advertising campaign
success,
b. How will you prove to your client that you have been successful?

c. Be strategic and well aligned with your overall campaign here.

d. Increasing sales is not enough. Think about what your campaign is trying to achieve
and establish meaningful and measurable objectives.
David Ogilvy in his book Confessions of an Advertising Man prescribed the following
eleven commandments for creating advertising campaigns:
1. What you say is more important than how you say it.
2. Unless your campaign is built around a great idea, it will flop.
3. Give the facts. The consumer isnt a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence
if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy
anything. She wants all the information you can give her.
4. You cannot bore people into buying. We make advertisements that people want to
read. You cant save souls in an empty church.
5. Be well mannered, but dont clown.
6. Make your advertising contemporary.
7. Committees can criticise advertisements, but they cannot write them.
8. If you are lucky enough to write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops pulling.
9. Never write an advertisement, which you wouldnt want, your family to read. Good
products can be sold by honest advertising. If you dont think the product is good, you
have no business to be advertising it. If you tell lies, or weasel, you do your client a

disservice, you increase your load of guilt, and you fan the flames of public resentment
against the whole business of advertising.
10. It is the total personality of a brand rather than any trivial product difference, which
decides its ultimate position in the market.
11. Dont be a copycat. Nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else in
advertising.
THE CAMPAIGN PLANNING CYCLE
Devised by Stephen King, the London based Advertising professional, the planning cycle
is one of the most sound and simple ways to study how advertising campaigns are
developed

The Advertising planning cycle helps in isolating the roles of each department in an
agency such as Client Servicing, Creative, Media and Research. It guides the agency
through various stages of formulating, creating, releasing and evaluating an advertising
campaign.
The first two questions are research based, the agency needs to find out how the brand is
perceived, the current profile of its consumers and what trends are influencing the
segment and the category.
The third question is answered based on the clients' objective and here the advertising
strategy comes into the picture. Research is also carried out to generate and evaluate
creative ideas.

The fourth question, is concerned mostly with the creative process of planning and
generating themes for the campaign. The media analysis and planning also plays a major
role during this stage.
The final stage involves evaluating the effect of the campaign in the marketplace, in order
to improve upon it or provide guidance for new campaigns. And finally when this stage
has been reached, its time to start the process again.
THE CAMPAIGN CYCLE
Another useful way of understanding campaign planning is through the campaign cycle.
This builds on the areas of work carried out by the campaigner in the planning process
(as above) and grounds them in the context of the broader campaign process. Here,
campaigns are viewed cyclically, planned on the premise that they will perpetuate
themselves until the issue is no longer relevant.

Description of the campaign planning cycle diagram

The campaign planning cycle involves the following stages.

Analysing the issue.

Developing a strategy.
Planning the campaign.
Campaign delivery and monitoring progress.
Evaluation.

Steps to success understanding the outcomes/impact of your campaign

Whats important is to think about the impact the change in the world - you want to
achieve and then the possible methods you could use to achieve that, rather than thinking
of a method first. A realistic plan of how you are going to do this will help you to campaign
effectively. Without this, it will be difficult to assess your progress and achievements and
understand what is or isnt working well.
The real impact of your campaign can be harder to identify or measure than the
achievement of campaign goals. While you may have helped contribute to a specific
policy change, it can be harder to see and to track how (and if) that has lead to a change
in peoples lives.
For example, securing commitments from rich countries to increase overseas aid may
represent a great campaign victory, but it is only a meaningful victory if it makes a positive
difference to peoples lives. This may require international campaigning to help build
southern advocacy capacity, to help ensure that southern governments use and spend
the money wisely.
Unintended consequences of campaigns
Campaigns can sometimes have unexpected, and even negative impacts, as a result of
your campaigns objectives. For example, a charity successfully campaigned to end the
down-rating of welfare benefits for long-stay hospital patients to a weekly allowance of
15.90, ensuring that the patients original level of benefit, pre-admittance was
maintained. An unexpected consequence of this victory was that the very small number of
patients who hadnt been in receipt of benefits before going into the hospital, no longer
received this weekly allowance. This was initially overlooked as a potential side effect of
the campaign.

THE CAMPAIGN IMPACT CHAIN

The process which leads to your campaigns impact is outlined in the following diagram,
taken from NCVO's' Is your campaign making a difference?'.

The diagram shows two related processes. The first process starts with the campaign,
moves to the social/political effects of changes secured and ends with improvement in
people's lives. Each stage correlates to the related process which starts with activities,
moves to outcomes and ends with impact.
Your campaign plan should be detailed, but shouldnt be set in stone. It should be a
working document that you review and amend as the campaign goes on and things
change.
Campaign tactics: the right tool for the right job
Tactics are about choosing the right tool or method for your particular campaign. Theres
no right or wrong way to campaign, no one method that will work for all your campaigns,
its about choosing the right tactic for that particular campaign at the particular time youre
doing it.
If your campaign involves amending an important but highly detailed clause in an existing
piece of legislation, you may not immediately choose to chain yourself to the front doors
of the town hall.
Conversely, if you are campaigning on an issue that the government has consistently
ignored or opposed, you might not want to devote a large part of your time to an insider
lobbying approach to change.
Campaigners need to know what efforts will create the greatest impact and need to be
clear about the methods that are most likely to bring about the change they are hoping to
achieve. Campaigners who are used to a certain type of campaign may start to view that
particular activity (for example, protesting or lobbying) as campaigning, rather than as
a tool of their campaign.

Using the wrong tactics usually leads to an ineffective campaign that fails to achieve its
intended impact. At times, the wrong tactics can actually be damaging to the cause or
issue in question.
One common pitfall comes from choosing your tactics before you have developed an
effective strategy. Dont decide youre going to have a public meeting, protest outside the
town hall, have an event in Parliament or produce thousands of postcards, unless youve
worked out that is the most effective way of making the change in the world you want to
achieve.
Once you have understood the impact you want to create, the most important piece of a
campaign strategy, before deciding on tactics, is understanding your targets (the people
or institutions that your campaign is aiming at) - who they are and how they are most
likely to be influenced. If you havent asked yourself these questions, it is unlikely you will
know which tactics will help you win your campaign.

ADVERTISING APPROPRIATION AND BUDGETING

Small Business Advertising Budget - Deciding how much your advertising budget - just
how much should be invested in making sales grow - and how that amount should be
allocated is completely up to you, the business owner-manager.
Advertising costs are a completely controllable expense. Advertising budgets are the
means of determining and controlling this expense and dividing it wisely among
departments, lines, or services.
This Guide describes various methods (percentage of sales or profits, unit of sales,
objective and task) for intelligently establishing an advertising budgetand suggests ways
of applying budget amounts to get the effects you want
If you want to build sales, it's almost certain you'll need to advertise. How should you
allocate your advertising dollar? How can you be sure your advertising outlays aren't out
of line? The advertising budget helps you determine how much you have to spend and
helps establish the guidelines for how you're going to spend it.
What you'd like to invest in advertising and what you can afford are seldom the same.
Spending too much is obviously an extravagance, but spending too little can be just as
bad in terms of lost sales and diminished visibility. Costs must be tied to results. You must

be prepared to evaluate your goals and assess your capabilities - a budget will help you
do precisely this.
Your budget will help you choose and assess the amount of advertising and its timing. It
will also serve as the background for next year's plan.
Methods of Establishing an Advertising Budget
Each of the various ways in which to establish an advertising budget has its problems as
well as its benefits. No method is perfect for all types of businesses, nor for that matter is
any combination of methods.
Here concepts from several traditional methods of budgeting have been combined into
three basic methods:
(1) Percentage of sales or profits
(2) Unit of sales
(3) Objective and task
You'll need to use judgment and caution in settling on any method or methods.

Percentage of Sales or Profits

The most widely used method of establishing an advertising budget is to base it on a
percentage of sales. Advertising is as much a business expense as, say, the cost of labor
and, thus, should be related to the quantity of goods sold.
The percentage-of-sales method avoids some of the problems that result from using
profits as a base. For instance, if profits in a period are low, it might not be the fault of
sales or advertising. But if you stick with the same percentage figure, you'll automatically
reduce your advertising allotment. There's no way around it: 2% of $10,000 is less than
2% of $15,000. Such a cut in the advertising budget, if profits are down for other reason,
may very well lead to further losses in sales and profits. This in turn will lead to further
reductions in advertising investment, and so on.
In the short run a business owner might make small additions to profit by cutting
advertising expenses, but such a policy could lead to a long term deterioration of the
bottom line. By using the percentage-of-sales method, you keep your advertising in a
consistent relation to your sales volume - which is what your advertising should be
primarily affecting. Gross margin, especially over the long run, should also show an
increase, of course, if your advertising outlays are being properly applied.

What percentage?
You can guide your choice of a percentage-of-sales figure by finding out what other
businesses in your line are doing. These percentages are fairly consistent within a given
category of business.

It's fairly easy to find out this ratio of advertising expense to sales in your line. Check
trade magazines and association. You can also find these percentages in Census and
Internal Revenue Service reports and in reports published by financial institution such as
Dun & Bradstreet, the Robert Morris Associates, and the Accounting Corporation of
America.
Knowing what the ratio for your industry is will help to assure you that you will be
spending proportionately as much or more than your competitors; but remember, these
industry averages are not gospel. Your particular situation may dictate that you want to
advertise more than or less than your competition. Average may not be good enough for
you. You may want to out-advertise your competitors and be willing to cut into short term
profits to do so. Growth takes investment.
No business owner should let any method bind him or her. It's helpful to use the
percentage-of-sales method because it's quick and easy. It ensures that your advertising
budget isn't way out of proportion for your business. It's a sound method for stable
markets. But if you want to expand your market share, you'll probably need to use a
larger percentage of sales than the industry average.
Which Sales? (Business Advertising Budget)
Your advertising budget can be determined as a percentage of past sales, of estimated
future sales, or as a combination of the two:
1. Past Sales. Your base can be last year's sales or an average of a number of years in
the immediate past. Consider, though, that changes in economic conditions can make
your figure too high or too low.
2. Estimated future sales. You can calculate your advertising budget as a percentage of
your anticipated sales for next year. The most common pitfall of this method is an
optimistic assumption that your business will continue to grow. You must keep general
business trends always in mind, especially if there's the chance of a slump, and
hardheadedly assess the directions in your industry and your own operation.
3. Past sales and estimated future sales. The middle ground between an often
conservative appraisal based on last year's sales and a usually too optimistic assessment

of next year's is to combine both. It's a more realistic method during periods of changed
economic conditions. It allows you to analyze trends and results thoughtfully and to
predict with a little more assurance of accuracy.
Unit of Sales
In the unit-of-sale method you set aside a fixed sum for each unit of product to be sold,
based on your experience and trade knowledge of how much advertising it takes to sell
each unit. That is, if it takes two cents' worth of advertising to sell a case of canned
vegetables and you want to move 100,000 cases, you'll probably plan to spend $2,000 on
advertising them. Does it cost X dollars to sell a refrigerator? Then you'll probably have to
budget 1,000 time X if you plan to sell a thousand refrigerators. You're simply basing your
budget on unit of sale rather than dollar amounts of sales.
Some people consider this method just a variation of percentage-of-sales. Unit-of-sales
does, however, probably let you make a closer estimate of what you should plan to spend
for maximum effect, since it's based on what experience tells you it takes to sell an actual
unit, rather than an overall percentage of your gross sales estimate.
The unit-of-sales method is particularly useful in fields where the amount of product
available is limited by outside factors, such as the weather's effect on crops. If that's the
situation for your business, you first estimate how many units or cases will be available to
you. Then, you advertise only as much as experience tells you it takes to sell them. Thus,
if you have a pretty good idea ahead of time how many units will be available, you should
have minimal waste in your advertising costs.

This method is also suited for specialty goods, such as washing machines and
automobiles; however, it's difficult to apply when you have many different kinds of
products to advertise and must divide your advertising among these products. The unit-ofsales method is not very useful in sporadic or irregular markets or for style merchandise.
Objective and Task
The most difficult (and least used) method for determining an advertising budget is the
objective-and-task approach. Yet, it's the most accurate and best accomplishes what all
budgets should:
It relates the appropriation to the marketing task to be accomplished.
It relates the advertising appropriation under usual conditions and in the long run to the
volume of sales, so that profits and reserves will not be drained.

To establish your budget by this method, you need a coordinated marketing program with
specific objectives based on a thorough survey of your markets and their potential.
While the percentage-of-sales or profits method first determines how much you'll spend
without much consideration of what you want to accomplish, the task method establishes
what you must do in order to meet your objectives. Only then do you calculate its cost.
You should set specific objectives: not just "Increase sales," but, for example, "Sell 25%
more of product X or service Y by attracting the business of teenagers." Then determine
what media best reaches your target market and estimate how much it will cost to run the
number and types of advertisement you think it'll take to get that sales increase. You
repeat this process for each of your objectives. When you total these costs, you have
your projected budget.

Of course, you may find that you can't afford to advertise as you'd like to. It's a good idea,
therefore, to rank your objectives. As with the other methods, be prepared to change your
plan to reflect reality and to fit the resources you have available.
How to Allocate Your Advertising Budget
Once you have determined your advertising budget, you must decide how you'll allocate
your advertising dollars. First, you'll have to decide if you'll do any institutional advertising
or only promotional advertising.
After you set aside an amount to build your image (if that's your plans for the year), you
can then allocate your promotional advertising in a number of ways. Among the most
common breakdowns are by:
1) departmental budgets
2) total budget
3) calendar periods
4) media
5) sales areas
Departmental Budgets
The most common method of allocating advertising dollars is percent of sales. Those
departments or product categories with the greatest sales volume receive the biggest
share of the budget.

In a small business or when the merchandise range is limited, the same percentage can
be used throughout. Otherwise, a good rule is to use the average industry figure for each
product.
By breaking down the budget by departments or products those goods that require more
promotion to stimulate sales can get the required advertising dollars. Your budget can be
further divided into individual merchandise lines.
Total Budget
Your total budget may be the result of integrated departmental or product budgets. If your
business has set an upper limit for advertising expense percentage, then your
departmental budgets, which are based on different percentages of sales in each area,
might be pared down.
In smaller business the total budget may be the only one established. it too, should be
divided into merchandise classification for scheduling.
Calendar Periods
Most executives of small businesses usually plan their advertising on a monthly, even a
weekly, basis. Your budget, even if it's for a longer planning period, ought to be calculated
for these shorter periods. It will give you better control.
The percentage-of-sales methods is also useful here to determine how much money to
allocate by time periods. The standard practice is to match sales with advertising dollars.
Thus, if February accounts for 5% of your sales, you might give it 5% of your budget.
Sometimes you might want to adjust advertising allocations downward in some of your
heavier sales months, so you can boost the budget of some of your poorer periods. But
this should be done only if you have reason (as when your competition's sales trends
differ markedly from yours) to believe that a change in your advertising timing could
improve slow sales.
Media
The amount of advertising that you place in each advertising medium - such as direct
mail, newspapers, or radio - should be determined by past experience, industry practice,
and ideas from media specialists. Normally it's wise to use the same sort of media your
competitors use. That's where, most likely, your potential customers look and listen.
Sales areas
You can spend your advertising dollars where your customers already come from, or you
can use them to try to stimulate new sales areas. Just as in dividing your appropriation by

time periods, it's wise to continue to do the bulk of your advertising in familiar areas.
Usually it's more costly to develop new markets than to maintain established ones.
A Flexible Advertising Budget
Any combination of these methods may be employed in the formation and allocation of
your advertising budget. All of them - or simply one - may be needed to meet your
advertising objectives. However you decide to plan your budget, you must make it
flexible, capable of being adjusted to changes in the marketplace.

The duration of your planning and budgeting period depends upon the nature of your
business. If you can use short budgeting periods, you'll find that your advertising can be
more flexible and that you can change tactics to meet immediate trends.
To ensure advertising flexibility, you should have a contingency fund to deal with special
circumstances - such as the introduction of a new product, specials available in local
media, or unexpected competitive situations.
Beware of your competitor's activities at all times. Don't blindly copy your competitors, but
analyze how their actions may affect your business - and be prepared to act.
Getting Started
Your first budget will be the most difficult to develop - but it will be worth the effort. The
budget will help you analyze the results of your advertising. By your next business year
you'll have a more factual basis for budgeting than you did before. Your plans will become
more effective with each budget you develop.
THE MAKING OF A GOOD CAMPAIGN- ARE THERE ANY GROUND RULES?
Do you use social media campaigns to engage with your customers?
Do you need tips on how to create more effective campaigns?
Whether you want to build better campaigns or are ready to try your first one, there are
certain pitfalls you should avoid.
In this article Ill share five tips for building and running successful social media
campaigns.

#1: Choose and Build the Right Campaign

Social media campaigns offer a wide array of options, from voting contests to newsletter
signups to interactive quizzesand everything in between.
Different campaigns deliver different results, so before you begin, have a clear idea of
what you hope to accomplish. With your goals in mind, research and choose the type of
campaign that works for you, and then decide how youre going to build it.
tips for successful social media campaigns
Find tips for running a successful social media campaign.
Dozens of companies offer campaign-building software. As you look around, youll find
some that are free and others that cost thousands of dollars a month. Obviously, using a
platform thats low-cost or free reduces your risk if your campaign doesnt deliver the
results youre after.
Campaigns that look great on mobile arent a luxury anymoretheyre a requirement.
Increasing numbers of people are accessing the Internet exclusively (or nearly so) from
mobile devices, so look for a service that builds campaigns that are responsive, look good
and function smoothly on smartphones and tablets (in addition to looking good on
desktops, of course).
Look for a service that allows you to install campaigns anywhere. Many third-party
campaign builders only work on Facebook. If you want to host on a platform other than (or
in addition to) Facebook, do your homework.
#2: Try Action-Gating
Facebook is one of the most popular places to run campaigns. On August 7, 2014,
Facebook announced that it no longer allows like-gating. This change upset a lot of
marketers because like-gating has been a common practice for several years and its
helped a lot of businesses grow their fan count quickly and consistently.
You have another option, though: action-gating. Action-gating is when you ask users to do
something (e.g., vote or share their email address) to get something from your brand
(e.g., an extra entry into a giveaway or access to a promotion).
An example of action-gating that asks entrants to provide their email address and answer
a question.
Whether youre hosting a promotion, giveaway or event, action-gating allows you to
gather and track the precise return on your brands efforts. It also makes promotions and
offers available to everyone.

Its an attractive alternative to like-gating and provides quite a bit of value, and it works
anywhere youd like to run a campaign.
#3: Get the Word Out
Seventy-five percent of campaign success is due to promotion. And there are lots of ways
to promote a campaignmost of which dont cost much because theyre existing
resources like your website or social profiles.
Promote your campaign on other existing resources to ensure youre reaching your
audience everywhere.
Design your campaign with sharing features built in and incentivize people to share by
rewarding them with extra chances to win. Just because youre running a campaign
primarily from Facebook, for example, doesnt mean you dont want people on Google+ or
Twitter to know about it. Make it easy for people to tell their friends!
Broaden your reach by telling your website audience about the campaign (in case they
didnt happen to see it on Facebook). And use a tool like Hello Bar that helps you easily
create and install header notifications.
#4: Offer the Right Prize
One of the mistakes lots of companies made in the early days of social media campaigns
was giving away expensive prizes (like iPads) that werent necessarily aligned with their
brand. While an iPad or other valuable prize is sure to catch peoples attention, the
majority of those people are probably not your targeted customers or leads.
Youll have better luck if you offer a prize that showcases your own products, services or
expertise. For example, if you work in the travel or hospitality industries, give away stays
in one of your hotels or a gift card to your restaurant.
savor the coast facebook promotion prize
Offer your own service or productor something closely relatedas the grand prize.
The prize you offer doesnt need to break the bank, but its value should match the level of
effort it takes to enter. If youre offering a 25% off coupon, ask participants to fill out a
form. If youre giving away an international vacation, you can make entry a little tougher
by requiring people to submit photos and videos for a voting contest.

#5: Curb Required Form Fields

Basic forms are the go-to entry method for many campaigns because theyre a fairly low
barrier to entry. Most people are willing to share a little information to gain access to
something (giveaway entry, coupon, etc.).
When you create an entry form, you can ask for just about anything: email address,
mailing address, telephone number, birthday, gender, marital status, etc. You may be
tempted to go for as much information as you can get, but hold back.
habitat home & garden facebook promotion entry form
Use a short form and require limited information to get more participation.
The more you ask for, the less people want to give. With each form field you require, the
opt-in rate drops by about 10%.
Instead of making every form field a requirement, only require the information that is most
valuable to future marketing efforts. You can make the other fields optionalpeople may
go ahead and fill them in anyway.
Wrapping Up
Social media campaigns are fun, easy ways to gather demographic information and
feedback from your audience, build email lists, enlist user-generated content, promote a
specific product or service and more. Whatever your goal is, you can build a campaign to
match it.
For best results, promote the campaign across your existing sites and profiles (and invite
entrants to do the same), and be sure people can access the campaign via mobile.
FUTURE OF ADVERTISEMENT
Unless you are petting fluffy bunny in the forest and didnt get the memo, it is no secret
that the world of marketing, PR and advertising is changing at lightning speed.
It used to be that things were neatly divided into pretty categories:
An advertising agency created ads (and if they did media placement, they placed the
ads). Some of course were better than others.
A marketing agency could do a variety of things depending on their specialty ranging from
brand identity (design, slogan, etc.), perhaps creating your website, some paid advertising
(overlaps a bit with an advertising firm), maybe helped with events and other ways to get
the word out (such as digital fun things like search engine optimization or more traditional
like direct mail). Some of course were better than others.

A public relations agency focuses on media attention. This used to be limited to pitching
traditional media for articles, placement, etc. Some firms helped you put on events. Some
of course were better than others.
And in each category of course, there are consultants that help clients DIT: Do It
Themselves.
And then the social and creative web started to become mainstream and the game has
completely changed. Things are smarter, faster, cheaper as opposed to dumber, slower,
expensive.
The happy divide between marketing, advertising and public relations has crumbled.
Now there amazing do-it-yourself tools that entrepreneurs, big brands and all clients can
use if they so choose.
Many companies (big and small) can handle all their marketing, public relations and
advertising themselves (this wasnt true even just ten years ago).
However, There will always be a market though for those that need some help. They just
might not need help from a bloated agency using old-school tactics (that was said nicely
wasnt it)?
Now, many firms, consultants, etc. are re-branding. Perhaps they are now
communications companies, or social media marketing companies (yikes), digital
marketing agencies, we-make-you-money-hahaha companies, buzzword-of-the-day firms
or whatever. Evolution is good for those that understand how to maximize the new (and
ridiculously changing world). Evolution is bad for the ones sitting there yearning for the
days of yesterday.
Plus, client expectation and education levels have changed. Folks have become (and
continue to be) much more educated on things like social media, blogs, search engine
optimization and creating online content.
Which leads to this question: What is the future of marketing, PR and advertising
agencies going to look like?
While I dont have a crystal ball (or do I? muhahaha) based on thousands of
conversations with entrepreneurs, big brands, consultants and agencies, and through
content consulting here are some thoughts:
1. Jacks Of One Trade: Specialized Experts
The days of Mad Men are long gone. Bloated agencies are screwed. Why? For one thing:
MASSIVE overhead. Big buildings, segways for employees, whatever.

This model ends up driving up expense and instead of a well oiled machine, creates an
environment that often isnt cutting edge, but slow-moving. Slow to make decisions. Slow
to take action. I know Id rather work with a lean agency with a specific specialization than
a jack of all trades that costs me my first born.
Sure, it is nice to have everyone under one roof for control purposes, but now there is
this Internet thing and more ways to do work virtually. A team of freelancers can be
assembled in a jiffy. Or a consultant. Does it take more work on the agency end to do
this? Absolutely. But why hire a bunch of experts as opposed to bring them in on a per
project basis or set up a referral network?
Id bet the future will be more about partnerships between highly specialized experts as
opposed to the big box model.
2. Help With Content
It used to be that if you had a budget, you could just hand over all of your marketing,
advertising or public relations and sit back and watch and approve the magic. The
problem with this, and where we are going in the future, is that smarter, faster, cheaper
promotion and advertising requires participation from the client.
Because smarter, faster, cheaper is all about the client becoming a trusted resource as
opposed to a product pusher. The go-to person. Online and off.
New marketing isnt about banner ads or a firm Tweeting and interacting online on behalf
of you, it is about content. Lets pretend your client is Joes Delicious Dog Food.
Perhaps you help Joe create The Dog Hour an online show or podcast. Or a doggy gettogether where people bring out their pets. Or Doginars where Joe helps teach old dogs
new tricks (couldnt resist).
Joe is the thought leader. He knows the content. You dont. But, you can help if you have
a knowledge of what kind of content spreads, how to create it, market it, measure it and
monetize it.
There is a huge value to help clients with this and agencies of the future are going to
have to hop onto the content train. Toot.
3. Agencies Become Educators
Teaching will be another model that will continue to take shape. More specifically,
teaching people and companies. Not keeping the secret sauce secret. This means
educating and enabling as opposed to controlling (practice what you preach, right?).

This means agencies/consultants, etc. will continue to create their own content online and
off.
Perhaps it is monthly events in your home town where you invite out business owners
and marketers.
And in many ways, this content can be monetized directly. Perhaps instead of clients, you
have subscribers and create a community. A membership site or a mentoring program.
The end result is part publisher and part agency.
4. Not Outsourcing Relationships
Lets talk about social media for a second. A lot of agencies and consultants are offering
social media services for their clients. Great.
But, what exactly is being offered and what should be offered?
Can an agency assist with content creation? Can an agency find relevant articles/other
content in your niche to share on Twitter, Facebook, etc.? Can an agency suggest people
to follow? Can an agency set up a Facebook page and Twitter account for you? Can an
agency suggest tweeting topics? Can an agency post content to your Twitter and
Facebook accounts? Suggest blogs and forums you should be participating in/on? I
would say YES to all of the above with millage varying.
But can an agency be you and act like you online? Form relationships with people?
Small talk and make it look like it is coming from the CEO? The answer here is a
resounding NO.
If a goal is to build relationships and trust, you cant outsource it. The client HAS to
participate. This doesnt mean sitting behind the computer all day, but it does mean
dedicating some time to interacting which is social aspect of social media.
The problem we all see over and over is an agency doing all of the above in the YES
category and ignoring the NO category or trying to it themselves. This is sure recipe for
disaster and either results in a broadcast stream (aka a bullhorn with no interaction) or
fake interaction done by the agency as opposed to the person (the human) that needs to
be doing it. Yuck.
As with everything, time to evolve.

5. Respect the Blogger And New Media Sources

Im not suggesting that traditional media is dead. It isnt. Im not saying traditional
advertising is dead. It isnt. But, there are some incredible opportunities online to generate
buzz, sales, trust and more that many agencies arent educated on.
There are blogs and new media sources with incredible sponsorship and advertising
opportunities that go beyond print ads, 30-second ads and the dreaded banner ad (more
on this in an upcoming post). Not only are they cost-efficient, but they laser cut the
demographic you are looking for.
In our example, Joes Delicious Dog Food in the past might be pitched by an agency to
the local paper. 93% of the readers couldnt care less about dogs (probably more). Or
perhaps the agency places one of Joes commercials on Animal Planet. Good choice, but
still not a guarantee that people watching a lion eat a duck (or something) own a dog.
Plus, I bet that ad is super expensive.
As opposed to pitching the local paper, why not start building relationships with bloggers
and new sources in your clients niches? Keyword here is relationships (In many cases
traditional and new media are different animals. Different etiquette. Different wants and
needs. Trust me.)
Why not help Joe form a relationship with 20 dog bloggers? Perhaps Joe can guest post
on their sites and Joe can put up their blogs on his website. Or he can give them some
dog food to try and ask for an honest review.
Or on the paid side, why not sponsor a doggy web show or podcast? I bet it will cost a
FRACTION of a TV ad, reach dog owners and allow more bang for the buck. Perhaps Joe
goes on the dog show to talk about nutrition for animals. Or the trusted show hosts plugs
the food. Or Joe sponsors a series called Getting Doggy With It where the show host
records doggy karaoke. OK, Im getting nutty here, but you get the idea.
Traditional media in many cases is like a one night stand. It is hot, sexy and then it is
over. Online media (content sponsorships, guest posts on blogs, blurbs, etc.) is more like
a long-term relationship. Online content is spreadable and can increase in value over time
since is stays up.
Agencies of the future will have to learn a little more respect for the blogger and new
media source.
Wrapping It Up:
All in all, these are VERY exciting times for both agencies, consultants, business owners,
entrepreneurs, marketers looking to evolve and maximize the newest era of business.

CONCLUSION
In this chapter, we looked at the planning aspect of campaigning and role of strategy how
the success of an advertisement campaign depends on effective strategy. We define the
advertising objective in terms of product, sales, price, client, availability of resources etc.
we looked at the element of marketing plan. To develop a winning strategy, the first step is
specify the key fact- a single-minded statement from the consumers point of view that
identifies why he/she will not by the brand. We then examined the planning process in
advertising campaign and the planning cycle. The we looked at the area of budgetary
decision making and have a look at the future of advertising. This is how we can
successfully lead our campaign.