Create a marketing campaign: from one objective to measurable results, step by step

How to create a marketing campaign that earns back its cost

Most small-business campaigns start with a channel: a batch of social posts, an advert in the local paper, a discount week. Six weeks later the money is gone and nobody can say whether the marketing campaign worked, because nobody defined "worked". A campaign differs from everyday marketing. It runs for a fixed period, serves one objective, speaks to one audience with one message, and has a budget and an evaluation date agreed before the first euro goes out.

Campaigns usually do one of three jobs: make a defined group aware of you, bring in leads or sales, or change behaviour, such as getting lapsed customers to return. The steps below work for each. The worked example is in euros; the logic works in any currency.

The nine steps of a marketing campaign

1. 01

   Set one objective

   What should change, by how much and by when?

2. 02

   Analyse market and competitors

   What others offer and promise, and where the gap is.

3. 03

   Choose your KPIs

   The key performance indicators for progress and for the final result.

4. 04

   Segment and position

   The segment you target and what it should remember.

5. 05

   Describe the audience

   Situation, need, buying moment, information sources.

6. 06

   Write the message and offer

   One message, proof, a reason to act now, one call to action.

7. 07

   Pick channels and set the budget

   Where the audience already is, within a ceiling worked back from margin.

8. 08

   Plan and launch

   A timeline with one owner per task.

9. 09

   Monitor and optimise

   Weekly figures and stop or scale rules agreed beforehand.

Step 1: a campaign objective you can measure

Write the objective as one sentence with a number, a group and a date, for example the number of signed orders from new customers within ten weeks. The SMART test (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goes back to George Doran's article in Management Review in 1981 and still works as a quick check. Then link it to a business objective: awareness only helps if you know what it should lead to.

Steps 2 to 5: market, KPIs, position and audience

Market first: note what a handful of competitors offer, promise, charge and where they advertise. Look for what nobody promises, or what everybody promises and nobody proves. Copying a competitor's campaign means paying to remind your audience of them. A competitor analysis and a market and customer analysis give you the material.

KPIs as a chain: people reached, responses, leads, customers, gross margin. Early in the run only the first links move, so you steer on those; the last link decides whether the campaign paid. One indicator per link is enough.

Position and audience: positioning is the sentence you want the audience to finish for you: for this group with this need, we are the option that delivers this benefit, and here is the proof. Describe the audience by situation and need as well as by age and income. A couple who just bought an older house behaves differently from one replacing a worn kitchen. Find out where they look for information and how long they deliberate. The page on value proposition and jobs to be done helps you phrase the need.

Step 6: message, offer and call to action

One campaign, one core message. Support it with proof, such as a customer case, a demonstration or a guarantee, and give a reason to act now: a limited series, a seasonal date, a bonus for early booking. End every ad, post, email and flyer with the same single action.

Step 7: choosing channels and setting the budget

Choose channels by the job they do in the chain, not by habit.

• Reach: local media, paid social, events, sponsorship, partners' newsletters.
• Convince: cases, reviews, demonstrations, showroom visits.
• Convert: search ads, a dedicated landing page, email to warm contacts, fast follow-up.
• Retain: email to customers, after-sales contact, loyalty offers.

Two or three channels done well beat six done half; online channels and consent rules are covered in online marketing campaign.

Budgets are often set as a share of revenue or as what the business can afford. For a campaign, work back from the objective to what reaching it costs, and cap that by what a customer is worth to you.

Gross margin is revenue minus the direct cost of what you sell. If customers buy again, you may count margin over a longer period, if you are honest about how many return.

Steps 8 and 9: plan, launch, monitor and optimise

Plan four phases: preparation (materials, landing page, tracking, briefing staff), a soft launch with part of the budget, the full run, and an evaluation at the end and again later.

• Measure from day one: a separate landing page, campaign codes, tagged links, conversion tracking for the actions you choose, and the question "how did you hear about us?" at every enquiry.
• Review weekly: the same few figures, on the same day.
• Change one thing at a time: the offer, the audience or the creative.
• Stop and scale rules: pause a channel that stays far above plan after a fair test and move its money to one below plan.

Marketing campaign example: a kitchen showroom plans its spring

Imogen Hale runs Larkspur Kitchens, a showroom with its own fitting team. She wants enough spring orders to fill the summer installation slots, and sets one objective: 12 kitchen orders from new customers within ten weeks.

An average kitchen sells for €14,000 excluding VAT at a gross margin of 35%, or €4,900. She accepts spending 15% of that margin on winning an order, which is €735 per kitchen, so her budget ceiling is 12 x €735 = €8,820. Roughly one in three design consultations becomes an order, so she needs at least 36 consultations. She plans €8,400 across five channels. After four weeks the social ads bring brochure downloads but few consultations, so she moves €800 of their budget to search ads.

Fictitious Firmfocus example. Amounts exclude VAT. Gross margin is revenue minus cabinets, worktops, appliances and subcontracted work; Imogen's own fitting team is a fixed cost.

The campaign beat its objective: 15 orders against 12, at €560 per order, or 11.4% of the gross margin per kitchen.

• Email was the cheapest channel: €100 per order. Imogen now asks every visitor for permission to send news.
• Social ads stayed above the ceiling: €1,200 per order against €735 allowed. Two search-ad customers said they first saw a social ad, so she keeps a small reach budget rather than none.
• Partners are slow but sure: she asks them to refer all year, not just in spring.
• The count is not finished: 31 consultations have not ordered yet, so she evaluates again after three months.
• Capacity sets the limit: 15 kitchens fill her fitting slots until late summer; a bigger campaign would have created waiting lists.

Small campaign vs larger campaign

Pitfalls in marketing campaigns

• Several main objectives: a campaign that must build awareness, sell and recruit staff proves none of them.
• Steering on clicks: cheap clicks and many likes say little about orders or margin.
• No stop rule: a losing channel keeps running because nobody agreed when to end it.
• A promise you cannot deliver: the campaign works, then stock, staff or installation slots run out.
• Slow follow-up: a lead that waits a week for an answer has often bought elsewhere.

A campaign is the short, measurable part of your strategic marketing plan. For search, social, email and the consent rules that come with them, read online marketing campaign; for low-budget ideas, see ten promotion tips. More topics are collected under Marketing.