Here is a summary of an article by Laura Lake, 7 Steps to Planning a Productve and Successful Promotional Campaign:
A promotional campaign generally consist of three desired outcomes.
- Outcome 1: Your promotional message reaches your intended and targeted audience.
- Outcome 2: Your message is understood by your audience.
- Outcome 3: Your message stimulates the recipients and they take action.
The question is how do you achieve these outcomes with your campaign? The process is easy, but it takes “planning” time. Here are seven steps that will get your campaign off to the right start.
Step 1: Assess Marketing Communication Opportunities – It’s important in this first step to examine and understand the needs of your target market. Who is your message going out to? Current users, influencers among individuals, deciders, groups, or the general public?
Step 2: What Communication Channels Will You Use? - Will you use personal communication channels such as face to face meeting, telephone contact, or perhaps a personal sales presentation? Or will the nonpersonal communication such as newspapers, magazines, or direct mail work better?
Step 3: Determine Your Objectives – Promotional objectives should be stated in terms of long or short-term behaviors by people who have been exposed to your promotional communication. These objectives must be clearly stated, measurable, and appropriate to the phase of market development.
Step 4: Determine Your Promotion Mix – This is where you will need to allocate resources among sales promotion, advertising, publicity, and of course personal selling. Don’t skimp on either of these areas. You must create an awareness among your buyers in order for your promotional campaign to succeed. A well rounded promotion will use all of these methods in some capacity.
Step 5: Develop Your Promotional Message – This is the time that you will need to sit down with your team and focus on the content, appeal, structure, format, and source of the message. Keep in mind in promotional campaigns appeal and execution always work together.
Step 6: Develop the Promotion Budget - This is the exciting part. You must now determine the total promotion budget. This involves determining cost breakdowns per territory and promotional mix elements.
Step 7: Determine Campaign Effectiveness – After marketing communications are assigned, the promotional plan must be formal defined in a written document. In this document you should include situation analysis, copy platform, timetables for effective integration of promotional elements with elements in your marketing mix. You will also need to determine how you will measure the effectiveness once it is implement.
