There’s value in a lofty goal. For example, “Climb K2” is probably more inspiring than “Go to the gym.” A statement like “Build a $100 million company” stirs more passion than “Post to Facebook to increase sales.”
While ambitious targets motivate, short-term goals are critical because they allow you to develop an action plan and track progress. Just as “Go to the gym” is more enticing if you consider it a first step toward a successful K2 ascent, climbing K2 seems more attainable if it starts with 20 minutes on a stair machine.
Marketing campaign planning works the same way. It involves developing a practical action plan with attainable goals that you can use to track progress toward broader business objectives. Here’s more on campaign planning, what to include in your plan, and how to get started.
What is marketing campaign planning?
Marketing campaign planning is the process of outlining and organizing a defined period of marketing activities. The outcome of marketing campaign planning is a marketing campaign plan that contains everything your team needs to execute the campaign, including goals, timelines, tactics, publication channels, and required resources.
Think of marketing campaign planning as a tactical extension of your business’s overall marketing strategy. Your broader marketing strategy focuses on long-term strategic goals, while your marketing campaign strategiestarget smaller short-term goals that support your larger objectives. Creating these discrete, focused marketing plans can help you track progress, understand how specific marketing efforts support your larger business goals, and ensure team members are on the same page.
Elements of a campaign plan
- Goals and metrics
- Target audiences
- Budget
- Channels and tactics
- Key messages and assets needed
- Timeline
- Roles and responsibilities
An effective marketing campaign plan contains everything your marketing team needs to execute a specific set of marketing activities. Here are seven elements to include:
Goals and metrics
Identify specific campaign goals that align with your larger business objectives and how you’ll measure success.
For example, if one of your marketing goals is increasing brand awareness, you might set a campaign-specific goal of increasing your social media following by 15% and increasing your average post reach by 25%. These goals can help you determine which channels and tactics to use in your campaign.
For each goal, identify a key performance indicator (KPI), the metric you’ll measure to track your campaign’s impact. Common KPIs include sales, engagements, click-through rate (CTR), email newsletter signups, and total number of website visitors.
Target audiences
Planning a marketing campaign gives your business the chance to identify specific target audiences. If you’re planning a campaign to promote the launch of a new product designed to support recovery in endurance sports athletes, you might target triathletes and design a campaign strategy to reach this group.
Budget
Include information about your total budget in your campaign plan. As you build out your ideas, you can allocate micro-budgets across channels and tactics.
Channels and tactics
Once you’ve defined your goals and target audiences, select marketing tactics and identify the media channels where you’ll engage audiences. For example, if you’re trying to boost sales by attracting new customers and encouraging repeat purchases, you might include the following channels and tactics:
- Social media marketing. A social media marketing strategy might include TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter).
- Email marketing. Encourage signups to your monthly email marketing newsletter or send email blasts.
- Digital advertising. Google Ads (retargeting ads, banner ads, search ads), Instagram, and Facebook are popular options.
- Content marketing. Your company blog could bring in organic traffic with SEO content.
- Influencer marketing. Find influencers to partner with on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube.
Key messages and assets needed
Marketing campaign plans outline key messaging details. For example, if you’re designing a campaign to encourage sign-ups for a lunch-and-learn event, you might highlight networking with industry experts and acquiring knowledge as its key value propositions and create marketing messages around those two points.
Include information about the assets you’ll need to develop. Include specifications for ad creative, social media graphics and text, blogs, email content, landing pages, and other creative elements.
Timeline
Include due dates for specific deliverables, the campaign launch and end dates, and key publication deadlines by channel. You can also include performance review dates and scheduled times to pull KPIs and track progress toward your goals.
Roles and responsibilities
Include information about who on your marketing team is responsible for what. Consider responsibilities like creating marketing collateral, approving creative, managing vendor relationships, publishing content, and reporting on results.
Tips for campaign planning
Here are four tips to help you make the most out of your planning process:
1. Leave time to plan
The campaign planning process begins with the big picture and ends in the nitty-gritty. You’ll start by identifying goals and audiences and finish with a list of specific asset needs, deadlines, dates, and responsibilities.
This means that while the campaign planning process will end before your marketing campaign starts, the plan represents a significant portion of the campaign’s workload. Leaving yourself time to develop a quality plan can pay off in the long run.
The time required to develop a plan depends on the scope and scale of your campaign. You might be able to develop a quarterly social media plan in a few days, but a six-month brand awareness campaign involving multiple channels and tactics might need several weeks.
Once you’ve developed a few plans, you can increase efficiency using a previous outline as your custom campaign planning template.
2. Delegate effectively
Marketing team leaders don’t need to set every deadline or review all marketing materials. Instead, use your plan to delegate authority for specific tactics or channels to your team members.
This can empower the group, expedite the planning process, and streamline campaign development and implementation. For example, you might ask a media planner to identify ad vendors and create a paid media plan, a copywriter to develop marketing messages, and a coordinator to manage campaign workflows, monitor deadlines, and assign tasks during the implementation phase.
3. Set realistic timelines
Use project management software to visualize workflows, look for bottlenecks, and ensure your team members have enough time to complete their work.
Set hard deadlines for tasks such as submitting creative assets to vendors. Then, add launch dates, such as blog publication dates or the start of specific influencer partnerships.
Once your deadlines and launch dates are in place, work backward to build out approval deadlines and submission dates for first drafts and revisions.
4. Plan for campaign tracking
In addition to identifying which KPIs will help you evaluate your success, determine when to review campaign metrics, how you’ll gather them for each tactic and channel, and who is responsible for gathering and compiling data.
For example, you might review social media engagement metrics weekly, assign the data collection task to your social media manager, and have your marketing analyst compile and report on the data monthly.
You can also schedule time in your campaign to review performance metrics and adjust the strategy as needed.
Campaign planning FAQ
When should you use a marketing campaign plan?
Marketers use marketing campaign plans to organize specific, time-bound marketing initiatives that support a business’s larger objectives. They’re particularly good for helping marketing teams achieve focused short-term objectives.
What are the main elements of campaign planning?
Campaign planning includes the following seven elements:
- Setting campaign goals
- Identifying audiences
- Allocating budgets
- Identifying tactics and channels
- Developing creative assets
- Setting a timeline
- Determining roles and responsibilities
What makes a good campaign?
Good marketing campaigns are relevant to your business’s target audiences, cost-effective, goal-oriented, and trackable.
