How Do You Run a Successful Marketing Campaign?

On the fourteenth of October 2012, the astronaut and parachutist Felix Baumgartner carried out one of the most daring and dangerous jumps in history when he climbed a balloon filled with light helium gas into the stratosphere and then jumped from a height of 39 kilometers and reached a speed of 1342.8 kilometers per hour, thus breaking the speed of sound. In the air, and while Felix achieved a historical record as the first person to break the sound barrier without using cars, electricity, or vehicles, Red Bull, which sponsored this huge scientific event, achieved overwhelming success in its marketing campaign accompanying Felix’s experiment, which it began working on with this The project since 2010.

Implemented by Felix, the Red Bull Stratos event was broadcast on nearly 80 television stations in 50 countries, the live webcast was distributed through 280 digital partners and the viewership reached 52 million views (8 million viewers on YouTube alone), making it the most watched live broadcast in the world. History, immediately after that Red Bull sold 5.2 billion cans worldwide, an increase of 13% over the previous year. In the United States sales jumped 17%, while markets as diverse as South Africa, Japan, Saudi Arabia, France, and Germany also experienced A significant increase in sales.

Whatever the goal of any marketing campaign is: increasing awareness of a new product, the brand itself, increasing sales, attracting new customers, etc., it ultimately aims to reach consumers through a set of consistent and integrated messages, to achieve your goal. Here are the most important steps to running a successful marketing campaign :

1. Marketing campaign planning

Developing a marketing plan must be consistent with the overall business plan that you had previously developed at the beginning of your project. Planning increases the efficiency of the marketing campaign and reduces the risks arising from the activities that you undertake, and it also helps in achieving goals more effectively.

Organizing a marketing plan starts with defining goals. It is unreasonable to think of organizing a marketing campaign without there being a specific reason or a goal that you intend to achieve, even though Red Bull confirmed that Red Bull Stratos is “a scientific project first and foremost.” However, the main unstated goal was to increase sales and outpace rivals Coca-Cola and Pepsi and it did so, more so that Red Bull Media House, the brand's global media company, was awarded a Sports Emmy Award, for providing a surprising approach to ( coverage of sporting events).

What are your goals for the marketing campaign? What are you trying to achieve: increasing sales, introducing your brand, promoting a new product that will hit the market, etc. The plan also includes determining who the audience will be targeting through your advertising campaign. Does your marketing campaign target existing customers, or do you intend to target new consumers?

The framework in which you will place your campaign is very important in the marketing plan; What media channels will you use to reach and influence your target audience?

Let's choose one of the goals mentioned above (increase sales) and turn it into a smart goal :

• Company: Red Bull.
• Specific target: to increase sales.
• Measurable: up 17% from the previous year.
• Realizable: by sponsoring a major scientific event.
• Time-bound: October 14, 2012.

So: (The aim of the marketing campaign is to increase sales by 17% by sponsoring a huge scientific event, which will be broadcast live on 80 international channels on October 14, 2012).

2. Determine the budget

Marketing budgets are a vital goal for any business, regardless of its size. The marketing budget is the estimated amount of cost needed to promote products or services. Failure to estimate the cost correctly can lead to various problems. Budget planning is an important part of the marketing process. However, some have mentioned Statistics that 85% of small to medium-sized businesses operate only on a budget without any specific marketing plan.

It is necessary to determine how to set a budget for marketing and where to invest your marketing money. The budget that you will set for your marketing campaign includes all promotional costs such as advertising, public relations, and other expenses listed for marketing. Most companies have difficulty predicting the number of budget costs, and the percentage method is usually used. For budget forecasting, meaning that the budget is set according to a percentage of sales or profit, the US Small Business Administration recommends that a minimum of 2%-10% of total sales be allocated to the marketing budget.

Many things must be taken into account when determining the budget, including the size of your brand, the goal of the campaign your business is good, or is the liquidity is limited and the marketing budget can be reduced, etc.

Check carefully the marketing strategies and tactics that achieve results to include them in the marketing budget, and make sure of the paid channels that you will use for your marketing campaign, whether it is in traditional media or digital media (newspapers, television, search engine marketing, paid advertising via social networks, marketing content, etc.).

Although Red Bull declined to say how much it spent on its Red Bull Stratos advertising campaign, one estimate stated that the campaign cost the company $30 million, a small fraction of the $300 million that Red Bull spends on sports marketing annually, in While the same estimates suggest that revenue was greater for the brand, which sold 4.2 billion cans of Red Bull worldwide to generate €4.3 billion, the company used live video marketing as well as satellite TV and social media marketing.

3. Implementation of the marketing campaign

Based on the plan and procedures that you developed and the timeline, start implementing your campaign, and prepare your efforts within a continuous series of operations designed to achieve success and the desired results. The marketing campaign implementation step includes four stages:

• Employing the right people, you are supposed to hire the right team to implement the plan and make sure that you communicate the marketing strategy and help them understand the objectives, and provide them with all the information and procedures described in your marketing plan, make sure that every member of the marketing team understands the role that will be assigned to him, and that he has the resources required to operate more efficiently.
• Building a detailed project timeline, which is essential. The marketing campaign plan should be divided into smaller tasks and deadlines so that you and your team can control the process. First set a general timeline for the campaign, then put the start date and end date of the campaign.
• Distribute marketing activities to the marketing channels you have chosen according to your staff and resources, and determine how often you can publish and promote your campaign content while creating a promotional calendar for each marketing channel.
• Review each time your marketing plan, timeline, and goals, to maintain organization and enthusiasm within the work team, and to review and correct errors.

4. Measurement process

It is important to set up appropriate tracking tools to measure your efforts and the success of your marketing campaign, by monitoring performance and results, so that you know if you are going according to the specific goals and plan that you set? Is your budget on track? Measuring the success of your campaign helps improve your marketing strategy. For example, if the data shows that 2% of sales come from the newspaper and radio marketing strategy, you may decide to remove it from your next campaign. The quality of performance can be monitored through several indicators, including:

• Sales figures: For example, if your total sales this year are higher than your total sales last year, you can conclude that your current marketing plan is having a positive impact.
• Customer feedback: Customer feedback in all its different forms can help you determine what kind of reaction your marketing campaign is creating. You can find out through customer comments on social networks, conversations in groups, or surveys.
• If you discover that you are expanding in the market, your marketing plan is likely working well, either through organic growth or customer recommendations.

By the end of your marketing campaign, you will return to the smart goal that you set in the beginning, and you will discover whether you have fully achieved it or not. When reviewing and analyzing the results, discover the reasons that may prevent you from achieving your marketing goals, and ask yourself what you learned and what can be applied in your next marketing campaign.