Digital Marketing step-by-step
In our consultations, we often see diagrams of complexly structured user journeys paired with Excel spreadsheets. What is usually missing is a methodical approach for planning, implementing, optimizing and documenting campaigns. Running campaigns almost always becomes complex and overcomplicated, even though we know from experience that it does not need to be.
With our modular campaign kit, we have developed a methodology and implementation measures for the life sciences and the pharmaceutical industry. We have implemented campaigns with CRMs such as Veeva, OCE and Ysura as well as the Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Practical and pragmatic, from simple to complex – no magic necessary.
Introduction
In the first whitepaper in this series, we presented the basic building blocks of our consulting model. We explained terms like “channel”, “touchpoint” and “interaction”, as well as the evaluation and automation of interaction chains with the help of a value for each interaction (“engagement value”). We also showed how such a system can be implemented.
In this white paper, we take the next step and introduce you to a methodology for planning campaigns in a simple way, while processing the complex interrelationships and requirements of all stakeholders in a consistent system.
Terms and concepts
Let's start by looking at the terms to make sure we mean the same things. What sounds like a truism is essential in our experience. All too often we have seen that, despite using the same language, collaboration between departments suffers because the words used have different meanings to them.
Marketing activity
The targeted use of channels and touchpoints is a “marketing activity”.
This always consists of:
Purpose and goal
➜ Clear and specific: What do I want to achieve and why?
Target group(s) and selector
➜ Who exactly do I want to address?
Key-Message(s)
➜ Which marketing messages do I want to send to my target group?
Channel(s)
➜ Through which channels do I reach the target group and how do I address them?
Touchpoint(s) + and interaction(s)
➜ Which interaction do I use to measure whether goal and target group are being reached?
Marketing measure and marketing campaign
A marketing measure is a sequence of marketing activities.
The user journey is the series of actions and interactions of a visitor takes through a marketing activity and simultaneously through a marketing measure.
A marketing campaign is an action plan: A coordinated series of marketing measures designed to achieve a defined goal.
Example goals of a marketing campaign can be the launch of a product, increasing awareness or sales. A minimal marketing campaign consists of a single marketing measure. Extensive campaigns consist of many coordinated and interconnected measures.
Campaign toolkit
To build a campaign, we break it down into marketing measures. In our campaign toolkit, we assemble entire campaigns from individual marketing measures. Marketing measures sohuld be understood as building blocks that can be reused in other campaigns. By consistently using the campaign toolkit, you create a library of reusable marketing measures over time. This allows you to reuse internal and external processes, setups and configurations with minimal effort.
Marketing measure planning
Our campaign toolkit is primarily a system for planning and implementing marketing measures, optimizing them to achieve the set goals and gaining valuable data in the process.
We start with the most important step: defining at least one measurable and verifiable goal. We write this down – for example in PowerPoint – in the following way:
In the second step, we use the next two components, selector and channel.
The selector determines who you are addressing. We do not use technical notation here, but you describe in your own words who you want to reach.
Select a channel and describe in your own words which marketing message is to be played out via the channel. This could look like this for an event invitation:
If HCPs do not react to the mail, you want your REPs to invite them personally. So, we add two elements to our marketing measure:
This is how we build a campaign from several marketing measures. Even at first glance, we can see that this simple representation already contains quite a lot:
- Goal setting
- Selectors
- Channels and content, the framework for the content plan
- KPIs
It is important that we ignore all technical and organizational hurdles for now. At the start of many consulting projects, we experienced situations where only typical “standard campaigns” consisting of banners, emails, simple eDetailings and landing pages were used. We often hear that going further was too complicated, or has been “in preparation” for a long time. We will deal with these obstacles later, as they only limit us in our initial campaign planning.
Touchpoints
We planned a campaign consisting of several marketing measures. Let's add another layer of complexity on top: touchpoints.
A key feature of closed-loop marketing is the consistent measurability across the entire marketing measure and campaign. As shown in the previous white paper, we can only obtain this data with touchpoints.
Touchpoints always belong to a channel. In other words, a particular channel provides particular touchpoints.
In our next white paper, we will show you how this model graphic can be converted into a fully functional campaign. We combine touchpoints with performance and early warning indicators and provide an insight into our systematic library of channel and touchpoint sheets.
Complex marketing measures
Not all marketing measures are as linear as our previous examples. Our notation also allows the representation of more complex processes, like a triggered campaign to identify HCPs and profile them from a website.
Here we have new elements: a sub-target and branches. Another new element is the building block under “website”. A landing page of a website can provide so many functions and touchpoints that we encapsulate them in a “building block” and then use this building block in our marketing measure.
Next steps
In this white paper, we introduced the second step of our consulting approach: The “campaign toolkit”, which you can use to plan targeted and measurable campaigns. A system to plan marketing measures and campaigns easily and methodically, while working with reusable elements. This approach gives you an action-based view of cross-channel campaigns, their components and how they connect.
This helps with both planning and implementation. Campaigns can be planned in a system-agnostic way without disregarding any stakeholders during implementation. All important parts in one central location, without being confusing or unnecessarily convoluted.
In the following whitepapers we will show:
Christian Rütgers // Technical Consultant
With almost three decades of expertise in sales automation and digital marketing, Christian has devised and successfully implemented a wide range of innovative projects. He knows how to solve difficult problems and develops solutions that are occasionally unconventional, but always the right fit.