What is campaign management?
Campaign management is the process of planning, executing, tracking, and analyzing a marketing campaign from start to finish. This involves measuring and tracking all data, tasks, and content related to a marketing campaign.
Campaign management software often includes different digital marketing tools, including social campaigns, email, and website, and helps marketing professionals create, launch, and maintain marketing campaigns. All of this can be done within digital marketing services.
Campaign management can be used for any marketing initiative and is commonly used for events, product launches, and targeting new audiences. Campaigns are filled with audience touchpoints in the form of email, social media, surveys, physical materials, giveaways, and more. As long as they’re working toward the same goal under the same theme, the marketing tasks are considered part of the campaign.
Marketing campaigns are designed to get customers to think about how a brand can solve a problem, even if they didn’t know they had the problem before seeing its marketing campaign.
Digital marketing campaign types
Campaign management content, messaging, and tasks vary based on the type of campaign. Campaigns are divided into three broad categories:
- Acquisition campaigns: Tailored to acquire new prospects and customers
- Monetization campaigns: Designed to generate revenue from existing leads and customers
- Engagement campaigns: Create communities of brand advocates, promoters, and influencers
Campaigns can also be categorized according to a company’s marketing strategies. For example, marketers can create SEO campaigns, email marketing campaigns, influencer marketing campaigns, user-generated content campaigns, and so on.
Basic elements of campaign management
Successful campaign management starts with a successful marketing campaign. Here are the essential elements of a winning campaign:
- Target audience: A defined audience a company wants to reach with its marketing campaign. This should be a well-thought-out buyer persona directly benefiting from the campaign’s offer.
- Contact list: A list of contacts that fit the predetermined target audience. Companies should search for contacts within the organization (in sales lists, opt-in lists, and so on) and then let advertising tools do the rest of the heavy lifting.
- Value proposition: Every successful marketing campaign needs a good value proposition to drive the campaign’s messaging. Marketers should put themselves in the shoes of their target audience to understand exactly how the product or service can solve their problems. Next, clearly communicate this “how” throughout the campaign.
- Call-to-action (CTA): Part of the campaign where marketers reach out to potential customers requiring a little more attention before they convert. A CTA should provide potential customers a reason to ask for more information, which is most effective when it offers educational value while keeping them informed with new content (for example, freebies like webinars, whitepapers, case studies, videos, and more).
- Delivery: Campaigns need an action plan to deliver the promised message. This can be through emails, digital advertisements, or social media monitoring software.
- Follow-up: Prospects are busy, and campaigns fall flat without follow-ups that timely nudge them toward a conversion.
Campaign management benefits
Effective campaign management can result in significant benefits for the organization. These benefits expand further when companies use campaign management automation. Here are the main benefits to expect from effective campaign management:
- Lead time reduction: Campaign management structures and automates launching, scheduling, coordinating, and monitoring multi-channel marketing campaigns. Campaign management significantly speeds up the time it takes to create and launch campaigns. This reduces lead time.
- More effective campaigns: Managing campaigns on a tight leash opens the door for marketing strategies like A/B testing that help campaign managers identify the most effective marketing campaign elements, which improves future campaigns.
- Personalization: Marketing campaign automation offers personalization and customization tools that improve customer satisfaction and increase conversion rates. Sophisticated analytics give campaign managers the necessary insights to tailor emails, landing pages, and offers to convert target audiences better.
Campaign management best practices
Campaign management requires knowing what makes a good campaign and managing marketing processes to ensure the campaign is headed in the right direction. Here are a few helpful best practices for managing a successful campaign:
- Understand the audience. Knowing what problems the audience wants to solve, what they do on an average day, and what catches (or doesn’t catch) their attention is essential to managing a successful marketing campaign. By conducting an audience analysis, marketers can create, engage, and course-correct a campaign to boost conversions.
- Use the right tools. Campaign management software streamlines the management process, automating certain tasks and providing clear insights into what’s working and what isn’t. Companies should find a tool that is in-budget, easy to learn, offers multi-channel marketing automation, and has built-in analytics.
- Track results. Analyzing and tracking data from previous marketing campaigns informs future campaign management. Pay attention to what messaging resonates, what advertising methods get the best results, and how new customers find the company. This data can be found in marketing analytics software and used to better manage future marketing campaigns.
Martha Kendall Custard
Martha Kendall Custard is a former freelance writer for G2. She creates specialized, industry specific content for SaaS and software companies. When she isn't freelance writing for various organizations, she is working on her middle grade WIP or playing with her two kitties, Verbena and Baby Cat.
