How to develop a successful advertising campaign?
Are you wondering how to create an advertising campaign on social media targeting potential customers located on the island of Oléron, in Charente-Maritime, throughout France, or even internationally? First and foremost, you’ll need to work on your strategy based on several factors such as your target market, your ideal customer, your positioning, and clearly define your objective. Advertising will allow you to enhance your brand awareness, image, sales, and customer loyalty. Therefore, this communication tool is essential for promoting your brand, services, or products. The initial goal of an advertising campaign is to grab the attention of internet users towards your offers.
In this article, we will explain how to develop a successful advertising campaign and present the key important steps for creating a campaign.
Understanding your company's positioning
First and foremost, it’s important to know and understand your company’s positioning. This will enable you to approach the next steps effectively. To establish your positioning, we recommend using a SWOT matrix.
Key information
To start, key information can encompass figures, competitor analysis, company values, product lifecycle duration, and more. These types of information will be valuable in accurately shaping your communication strategy.
The SWOT matrix
The matrix is a visual tool that helps to synthesize a large amount of information. SWOT is divided into two parts: the company and the market. First and foremost, you need to list the strengths and weaknesses of your establishment. Strengths can include advantages of your company, values that differentiate you from competitors, innovative products, or unique work methods. Weaknesses can be disadvantages, resource limitations, or areas where you lack.
Regarding the market, you need to identify opportunities and threats. Opportunities can be found in the environment, strong product demand, or limited competition. On the other hand, threats may include intense competition, a shrinking market, or increasing costs of raw materials.
In summary, the SWOT matrix helps you understand your positioning, anticipate threats, and identify opportunities to expand in the market.
The goals of an advertising campaign:
Clearly defining the objectives of your campaign is crucial as the strategies employed will differ based on those objectives. To achieve this, it is essential to have a thorough understanding of the consumer and the potential obstacles they may face when making a purchase. This enables you to customize your message in a way that resonates with them.
The different advertising goals:
There are three main objectives to consider: cognitive, affective, and conative. Each of them has a distinct impact on consumers. Therefore, when planning a campaign, it is important to select one of these objectives. Cognitive objectives revolve around brand awareness and the goal of increasing it to gain recognition. Affective objectives aim to foster consumer love for the brand by developing a strong brand image and appealing to their emotions. Finally, conative objectives focus on promoting products by emphasizing the brand’s quality and addressing any consumer concerns, ultimately encouraging them to make a purchase.
Analyzing the target audience
Defining the target audience is crucial for creating a successful campaign. You need to answer two important questions: Who do we want to reach with our message? And, considering our objectives, who can we effectively target? To help you find the “ideal target,” it’s recommended to create what’s called a Persona. This represents the typical person who is likely to use or buy the product or service you offer. It’s important to consider their socio-demographic, psychological, and behavioral characteristics. You can even have multiple Personas.
Identifying the Persona will enable you to understand their needs, behaviors, and expectations, which ultimately influence their purchasing decisions. It’s crucial to avoid relying on stereotypes or personal assumptions when defining this “typical person.” To overcome this, we suggest gathering insights and perspectives from your colleagues, clients, and friends.
Choosing the right message and advertising channels
As you probably know, there are various advertising platforms to choose from. It’s important to select the one that effectively reaches your potential customers among the following options: television, radio, print, cinema, outdoor billboards, and digital platforms. Each of these channels has its own unique characteristics and audience demographics. Therefore, it’s crucial to identify where your target audience is most likely to be found in order to select the appropriate advertising channel. Additionally, consider your budget for the advertising campaign and, if feasible, you can opt for multiple channels.
The message you convey in your campaign plays a vital role. It should be relevant, original, creative, and impactful. The message needs to resonate with your target audience and ignite their curiosity. In other words, the message should address their needs, desires, or questions in order to capture their interest effectively.
Setting up the advertising campaign
How do you go about setting up an advertising campaign?
Developing a timeline is crucial for successfully executing your campaign. Time management can be divided into three stages:
First, the reflection stage. This is where you brainstorm ideas, anticipate challenges, and avoid rushing into action.
- Next, the creation stage. Taking the time to create and develop creative elements is key to achieving success. You may need to revise your script multiple times before finalizing it.
- Lastly, the distribution stage. It’s important to plan ahead for this stage by considering the availability of advertising platforms and resources.
Effective project management and coordination are vital during each stage. It’s crucial to allocate enough time and resources for each phase, ensuring a seamless execution from start to finish.
Budget
Defining the budget is an essential step. To guide you, you can use one of the following four methods:
The available resources method involves investing what you have at your disposal.
- The average cost calculation is determined by the number of people you want to reach. Each individual represents a cost, and thus a budget allocation.
- The share of voice calculation is based on your competition. For example, if your investment is higher than that of your competitors, your share of voice increases.
- The percentage of sales method is determined based on the expected potential revenue. These methods can help you determine a suitable budget for your advertising campaign. Consider your financial capabilities, marketing objectives, and industry competition when making budget decisions.
Engaging an Agency
When creating your advertising campaign, you may also choose to reach out to a communication agency. The advertising agency will bring strategic thinking to the table. They will design the ad layouts and handle budget negotiations with different stakeholders. Your company will collaborate with the agency as a team.
The Agency Brief
In both cases, it’s important to create a copy strategy, also known as an advertising brief. This document helps you explain to the agency how the company wants its brand to be perceived. The brief includes several key pieces of information:
- Clearly stating why the company wants to run an advertising campaign.
- Explaining how consumers perceive the product.
- Detailing the specific communication objectives that need to be achieved.
- Defining the promise, also referred to as the “reason-why,” which explains the benefits consumers will gain from purchasing the product or service.
- Providing supporting evidence, known as the “reason to believe,” which includes arguments that justify the promise.
- Considering the tone and atmosphere of the campaign.
- Identifying the target audience for this campaign.
Additionally, a creative brief will be prepared to address your design expectations, provide information about the product or service, its specifications, the intended advertising platform, budget constraints, and the timeline for implementation.
The Importance of Monitoring an Advertising Campaign
Before setting performance metrics, it’s valuable to understand the AIDA model. This model identifies the four stages a consumer goes through before making a purchase:
- A = Attention: Grabbing the consumer’s attention for your product or service.
- I = Interest: Generating interest by highlighting the benefits and advantages.
- D = Desire: Creating a desire to obtain the product or service by reinforcing its appeal and value.
- A = Action: Encouraging the consumer to take the necessary steps to make a purchase.
Monitoring the progress of your advertising campaign is crucial. By tracking these stages, you can evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign. Utilizing appropriate performance indicators allows you to measure the impact on consumer perception, engagement, and purchasing behavior. This enables you to adjust your strategy and optimize your outcomes accordingly.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are essential for monitoring and measuring the success of your advertising campaign. These indicators should be defined before the start of your campaign. Depending on your objectives, the specific KPIs may vary:
- Consumer impact
- Message attribution to measure the effectiveness of the message
- Consumer understanding
- Competitive positioning with unique advertising
- Campaign adaptation and consistency
- Target audience reach
- Longevity and sustainability of the campaign
- Bounce rate
- Number of visitors
- Time spent per unique visitor
- Conversion rate…
Performance indicators allow you to measure the impact of your campaign and make necessary adjustments if needed.
Furthermore, to calculate your advertising performance, there are several methods to consider prior to your campaign:
- Cost per thousand impressions (CPM), cost per click (CPC), cost per lead (CPL), cost per acquisition (CPA), click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate…
These methods help you assess the effectiveness and efficiency of your advertising efforts.
The evaluation of a campaign
At the end of your campaign, an agency typically measures the Return on Investment (ROI) of your advertising campaign: (gain/cost) / cost.
With Sowebio Analytics, we collect information related to website traffic during a social media advertising campaign: number of unique visitors, number of visits, number of page views, average visit duration, average number of pages viewed per visit, most visited pages, bounce rate, conversion rate, and click-through rate.
Running an advertising campaign
In order to create a successful advertising campaign, here are the important steps to follow:
- Define the company’s positioning to have a better understanding of the campaign.
- Clearly define the objectives to tailor your message effectively to your target audience
- Choose the right media channels.
- Create the message and design of the communication.
- Measure if the objectives have been achieved.
In conclusion, for a successful advertising campaign, it is important to listen to your target audience and their needs. This includes staying updated on trends and technological advancements. The goal is to remain competitive in your industry.