6 High Impact Marketing Campaign Best Practices

Highlights

More leads are the number 1 request by the salesforce and marketing campaigns the number 1 method to acquire more leads.
Marketing campaign best practices and research findings show how subtle differences in planning, performance and follow-through can deliver double digit increases in lead volume and lead quality.
Marketing campaign best practices share lessons that save time, reduce risk and improve results. They show which actions deliver results and which don't. That helps prioritize what to do and is equally helpful in determining what not to do.

Marketing Campaign Best Practices

There is no one way to create high-performance campaigns. But there are marketing campaign best practices that share valuable lessons on what works, what doesn't and how to maximize your results. Here are six of those lessons.

Start with Strategy

Many marketers struggle to see the forest from the trees when they get consumed in lead generation tactics. They create a list of campaign types and channels, and then invest in landing page design and conversion optimization techniques only to later experience subpar results.

What they failed to realize is that optimizing uninspiring messaging and undifferentiated content doesn't get you very far. The root of this problem is focusing on channels more than customers. To do better, you need to start with strategic messaging directly aimed at customer problems that matter.

Campaign artifacts must speak to a common theme, be directed to your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and built upon your company's Unique Value Proposition (UVP) or competitive advantages. Replacing off topic or random offers with content built on buyer insights and defined messaging will improve customer engagement and offer conversions.

Target Audience Specificity

Customers are not homogenous. Sending the same offer to all customers will disappoint most. The integration of strategic messaging and customer segments delivers a combination that increases conversion results.

When you start with a rich customer profile or persona you can set more precise goals, create more personalized messaging, develop more relevant or value-based offers, and select the most trafficked channels. Increased customer intelligence becomes even more powerful when selling to multiple stakeholders who each have different objectives and concerns.

Look-Alike Modeling Works

Customer segments can be dynamically created in most marketing campaign software applications. These segments can then use customer profitability or customer lifetime value to categorize customers by value to the company. Further analysis can reveal customers that share attributes or behaviors of your best customers but are not yet in that top tier. These customers are candidates for look-alike modeling promotions.

Look-alike campaigns deliver two big benefits. First, they tend to have the shortest sales cycles. And second, they increase customer share and customer retention for your most profitable customers.

Closed Loop Reporting

Lead generation programs no longer consist of singular events such as an outbound email distribution. Instead, marketers increase engagement and achieve much higher conversions by implementing nurture, omni-channel, integrated marketing campaigns or similar types which consist of multiple flights delivered over multiple channels.

However, that creates a big challenge in understanding which flights and channels advanced the lead to the next sales stage and which did nothing.

According to DemandGen, 58 percent of B2B marketers said their ability to analyze campaign performance "needs improvement" and 48 percent say their biggest challenge is the "inability to measure activity between specific buyer stages."

A marketing campaign lead attribution model is needed to designate which flights and channels contributed to lead conversions and which didn't. Without this information, marketers have no way to rid ineffective promotions and reallocate the budget toward those channels that deliver results. With the right lead attribution model, lead conversions and sales results are tied back to the flight and channel that earned the revenue.

Revenue Engineering

This one goes by a few names. Revenue Performance Management (RPM), predictive revenue analytics, or just revenue engineering is a best practice that shifts campaign management from hindsight to foresight.

Revenue engineering models and visualizes the lead to revenue process with a funnel diagram. It shows the funnel stages and calculates the lead conversions at each stage.

It improves performance and spend by allowing pro forma 'what if' modeling. This analysis shows how the manipulation of any existing or future campaign will impact customer acquisitions and top line revenues.

It effectively allows management to manipulate the conversion levers, see the cascading effects and select the optimal marketing mix for any given point in time.

Once you know your lead-to-revenue conversion rate and velocity, you can reverse the model. Then you can start with a target revenue amount and see exactly how many leads need to go into the top of the funnel to realize that revenue result by a specified date.

Once you have calibrated your lead-to-revenue funnel, you have the data to make revenue performance predictable.

Campaign Battlecard

Even demand generation programs that exceed their conversion goals disappoint when acquired leads are not correctly followed through. Campaign battlecards facilitate consistent sales follow-through and ensure leads advance through the sales funnel.

A battlecard is a sales enablement tool that helps sales reps prepare for prospect calls. It provides guidance, talking points and recommended actions during those calls.

Some are competitor focused. They provide an overview of the competitive landscape and advise how to sell against specific competitors. Others are much broader and designed to inform sales reps what marketing content prospects have received and have discussion content at the ready.

These internal documents should be short (usually one page), highlight key soundbites, written in conversational language and easy to scan during prospect conversations. The best battlecards are developed by persona.

They should also be easily accessible and tracked for usage which is why hardcopy documents don't work. A better approach is to display or integrate the battlecard at the Lead record or the lead qualification script in your CRM system.