The secret is in what happens when the total system works together…
If you’re a consultant or copywriter, what I’m about to share has the potential to make your clients a whole lot more money. And you, too, assuming you do what I do and get at least some portion of your pay as a percentage of sales generated.
If you’re a business owner, simply paying attention to what I tell you will highlight what I’ll bet is a major weakness in your marketing strategy. And as a result, it will show you an easy to way to get more sales and profits out of ever major marketing campaign you run.
I know these are heady claims. But this is very important stuff.
For today’s Strategy Thursday, I’m going to break down the two steps to ANY marketing campaign.
The most successful marketers ALWAYS get both steps right. The most successful marketing campaigns have strategies in place to maximize success on both steps.
In fact, in looking back at my career, my biggest successes have come on campaigns where I’ve paid attention to both steps…
And my biggest failures, when I’ve under-devoted time, energy, and resources to Step 2. (With the exception of businesses that simply don’t market at all, #2 is the one that always gets missed.)
First, let me directly address the hanging question…
What are the two steps to any marketing campaign?
Hang with me here, because these are very simple “catch all” descriptions…
Step 1: Campaign creation
Step 2: Campaign support
What do I mean by each?
First, campaign creation…
This is the obvious one. If you’re going to market your business, you need to create some kind of marketing campaign. This may be a single ad, or a website. It may be a sales letter, or some other piece of marketing.
This is only the beginning. If this were a car, this step wouldn’t be 0 to 60. It would be 0 to 1. It’s a monumental step — going from inaction to action. However, you ain’t gonna get anywhere fast if this is all you do.
Sure, most businesses do a little more. They write a sales letter, then they send it out to their list. They create an ad, then they run it in a magazine. They put up a website, and they tell their friends and maybe some customers to visit it.
This is better than nothing. But if this is all you do, you’re not going to get anywhere fast.
And don’t think because you run a direct response business, or you’re working with direct response businesses, that you automatically are doing better than this.
I know of plenty of direct response businesses that still operate around running “the promotion.” They put together “the promotion.” They send out “the promotion.” The measure results of “the promotion.” If it works, they make a control out of “the promotion.” And they continue to use it again and again until something else wins a test and becomes “the promotion.”
Yes, this can work. In a big enough market, with a big enough list, you can generate some pretty serious numbers with this approach.
And yet, you’re leaving a ton of money on the table if you don’t get serious about what comes next…
Second, campaign support…
Here’s where things can get really interesting. And where you can generate some pretty huge numbers.
There’s a big difference between one-off promotions, and complete “campaigns.”
Now I break down campaigns into two different main types…
First is limited-time campaign.
Second, the evergreen acquisition campaign.
I’ll explain each, and go into what “support” you need to provide…
Limited-time campaigns…
A limited-time campaign is just what it says it is. A campaign scheduled to take place over a limited time. The Product Launch Formula is a good example of this. Also, a webinar or teleseminar campaign that will be broadcast on a certain day, with marketing built around it.
Here’s the secret to supporting these campaigns. To do them properly, there’s a ton of “before, during, and after” steps that have to work together to create a total customer experience. Your work is not done when you create the promotion. It’s only done after you’ve created everything required for that customer experience to fully support the sale.
What do you have to do before the promotion itself is even released to build excitement? How will the promotion be presented — in what format, and what media? What are you doing once the promo goes public to ensure maximum engagement? What are you going to present to non-buyers afterward to maintain urgency and a need to act now?
The focus is usually on the current customers who can be communicated with on a timely manner (they’re on your list). Or perhaps on joint venture partners’ customer lists, who can be reached as part of your limited-time campaign.
Your role in supporting these campaigns is ensuring all the pieces are in place to make everything a success.
This is really just scratching the surface, but that’s all we have room for here…
Evergreen acquisition campaigns…
Let me first define a few things… By evergreen, I mean a campaign that’s not tied to a specific date, that can be used for as long as it continues working (or at least for a very long time).
And by acquisition, I mean primarily a campaign designed to bring in a steady stream of new customers. This can be built around a specific traffic source, like AdWords or Facebook ads, or ad network traffic from Taboola or AdBlade. Or around repeatable campaigns that go to similar lists, that aren’t necessarily tied to a date or an event.
Support of these campaigns can be less obvious, and more complicated. But it can also be far more lucrative. Because it can generate thundering hoards of new traffic for your — or your client’s — business.
The key element is getting maximum qualified prospects to visit and engage with your promotion or marketing campaign.
For this, you have to think beyond creative. It’s not just the emails that need to be written, or the banners that need to be designed.
You have to think about where you can find qualified prospects that might respond to your promotion. You have to do the necessary work to test different approaches to these prospects. You have to put mechanisms in place to get permission to stay in contact with them — and systems in place to follow up if they don’t buy right away.
You have to think about the whole shebang. Not just throwing something out there and seeing if it will stick.
I’ve seen stellar campaigns fall flat, simply because nobody called the ball on following through with campaign support…
It doesn’t matter if you can generate an off-the-charts response rate if you only ever put your promotion in front of just a few people.
Once you have a winner, it’s far more important to do everything you can to “roll out” your existing winner, before even considering creating another promotion or campaign.
Yes, you’ll eventually need the next, and then the next, and then the next.
But right now, make sure you’re doing everything you can with what you’ve got.
It can make a huge difference.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
Editor, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets
