The Science of Campaign Planning

Today we are going to demonstrate how to capture the attention of customers and prospects with great marketing campaigns. Campaign budgets are limited and these campaigns need to generate revenue. The emerging best practice for planning campaigns requires a scientific approach to dial in the results. Today’s show provides the definitive guide to campaign planning from the first step through the entire campaign planning process. Leverage SBI’s How to Make Your Number in 2018  to access a revenue growth methodology to hit your number quarter after quarter, and year after year. 

Our guest is Michael Callahan the Chief Marketing Officer for Firemon, one of the hottest cyber security firms performing enterprise security management. Firemon helps organizations with complex IT environments keep the bad guys out by providing a single view of what’s going on in someone’s infrastructure. Today we are going to demonstrate how to capture the attention of customers and prospects.

Why this topic? Every market has a “sweet spot.” Campaigns (and their budgets) generate revenues when focused directly at this “sweet spot.” Campaigns that are not hyper-targeted do not. To generate a return on marketing campaign dollars requires a clear objective, timeline, budget, accurate lists, correct media mix, and compelling calls to action.

Executing successful campaigns to capture attention of your target prospects require a scientific approach to increase the probability of success. The emerging best practice is to document your campaign approach through a proven campaign planning process that delivers the right message, to the right audience, in the right format, at the right time.

In the first segment of the program, Michael will describe how to develop campaign objectives, timelines, budget and expected results for each campaign. The conversation extends to the approach for defining the addressable markets and how do you allocate campaign resources (i.e., people, money, and time) against the “sweet spot” in the addressable markets. 

Michael demonstrates how to ensure that marketing campaigns have clear value proposition and the process for reviewing creative. 

There are multiple program types that a marketing team can run in a campaign, and Michael breaks down the approach to the different types of campaigns including:  Awareness, Cross Sell, New Logo, Competitive Replacement, Renewals, Migration, and Nurture. The best practice is to focus on one.  Michael outlines the mix of activities and how to sequence them correctly, as well as how to create compelling offers to drive response. 

Michael describes how to assign enough content assets and map the assets to the buyers’ journey. The importance is described in this quote: 

“People simply don’t have time to figure things out. You may have rock-solid proof, logic-built message – and there’s no way that anybody could ever dispute any part of it. But it’s so complicated that no one knows what you’re talking about and they just move on, because they have a million things to do – furthermore, there’s other people in your space that are saying it more clearly. People have choices, you must give them a reason to choose you, and you can’t expect them to figure it out. You’ve got to be really clear.”

Finally, Michael describes how to create provocative campaigns that are differentiated and drive your campaign message.  This is a can’t miss podcast for every marketing leader to review and share with your team. 

Would you like help developing your campaign strategies with a proven framework of emerging best practices? Come see me in Dallas at The Studio, SBI’s multimillion dollar, one-of-a-kind, state-of-the-art, executive briefing center. A visit to The Studio typically results in getting three months of work done in three days. The immersive sessions accelerate everything, dramatically reducing the time it takes to diagnose a problem, develop a solution, and create an implementation plan.

Have expectations gone up and left you wondering if you can make your number? Here is a tool that will help you understand if you have a chance at success. Take the Revenue Growth Diagnostic test and rate yourself against SBI’s sales and marketing strategy to find out if:

• Your revenue goal is realistic
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