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Generating Marketing Campaign Ideas

Marketing Campaign IdeasYour marketing calendar calls for three new campaigns to launch in the next 90 days. Business goals are outlined, but you’re under the gun to come up with something fresh … and effective. You’ve met with your creative team, but your marketing campaign ideas are all tired, or not very good.

If you’re a B2C marketer using an agency or dedicated creative team, give your team some examples of campaigns that you like, and ask them to use those concepts as guidance during their brainstorming.

If you’re B2B and have previously focused on pragmatic, value-driven marketing campaigns, take a look at some consumer campaigns for inspiration. The days of boring feature/benefit messages are over; B2B marketers are now leveraging the same types of creative ideas as consumer-oriented marketers in their campaigns.

A Dating Story … to Sell Software

For an example of how a B2B company used a creative B2C campaign theme, take a look at the case study for Central Desktop’s “The Breakup” campaign, courtesy of MarketingSherpa.

Central Desktop is a B2B software company with a cloud-based collaboration and project management platform. The Breakup campaign highlights a few interesting points:

    • The use of a dating story, delivered cartoon-style, to emphasize visual appeal to its target audience. The microsite is here.
    • A simple, hand-written “breakup-note” direct mailpiece.
    • Humorous, simple yet edgy email follow-up continuing the story.

This example shows that creativity, a long-time staple of B2C marketers, can be effective in B2B. This campaign yielded positive metrics as well as characters and a theme to use in future campaigns, displaying the burgeoning trend of B2C and B2B marketing convergence.

Award-Winning Marketing Campaigns

To get your creative juices flowing, here are more examples of past successful campaigns:

Brainstorming for Campaign Ideas

As you’re reviewing campaign examples, also think about campaigns you’ve run in the past. Which ones worked well? Can you modify the creative to extend their life? Can you use a similar theme?

What about your competitors? What campaigns have they run in the past that you liked?

Also think about other industries, even B2C if you’re B2B and vice versa. Then, list your marketing campaign creative ideas. Here you’re just focusing on the creative aspect.

As you’re considering your campaign concepts, think about making emotional connections with your audience, instead of making promises or filling your campaigns with product/service information or features/benefits.

Try something new … you might be surprised with the results! If you’ve been running the same old tired campaigns for years, your market might appreciate a fresh approach.

Good luck!

If you’d like additional help, we have a guided, interactive marketing campaign planning template in our marketing planning and management app. Feel free to create a free preview account to give it a try.

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Who’s doing a great job with direct mail? Google.

Last week I received a piece of unsolicited direct mail from an unlikely source.

Are you ready for this? It came from Google!

The familiar saying Google has never advertised is no longer true. I guess that even some of the world’s best brands resort to marketing in a down economy.

But the good news is that they sent something really valuable. The mail piece is a blue 8″ by 6″ booklet called Top Tactics for Tough Times. The ten scan-friendly pages deliver great tips on how to improve AdWords results.

The tips use short text and side-by-side graphics to display each tip and show how it can impact results. Here’s an example:

1. Focus your ads on low prices and savings.

Consumers care about prices more than ever, especially on day-to-day purchases. When someone searches on a particular product, you know they’re interested; by using your ad to tell them that you’ve got the highest quality and the best price, you’re more likely to earn their click. Update your ad text to focus on low prices, good values, and timely promotions.

To draw the attention of price-conscious shoppers, these ads use savings-related terms.

Footers in the booklet cite URLs where the message is continued on the web. Click on the graphic to check it out.

Good Direct Mail Stands Out

We’ve used AdWords for more than three years, so we’re used to getting email from Google.  But lately, after a long day of exchanging email with my team, customers and prospects, I find I have less and less interest in turning my attention to unsolicited email messages. The delete key is my friend!

I enjoyed the direct mail piece because it provided a break from using the computer or the phone to obtain information.   It was nice to step away from my desk, relax in a comfortable chair, and thumb through a colorful, nice-looking booklet printed on weighted cardstock that contained information I could actually use. It makes me long for the days when a person could leisurely peruse a printed (gasp!) newspaper.

I wonder if I would have read Top Tactics for Tough Times if Google had sent it via email instead.

No.

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Focus on the details of marketing execution to get great results.

Download a plan for it ... in our marketing management app.