An Executive View of Campaign Strategy & Planning
Joining us for today's show is Randolph Carter, the VP of Marketing in North America for Rentokil. Randolph answers questions out of SBI's 2018 Workbook to share his deep knowledge of campaign strategy and planning. To follow along flip to the Marketing Strategy section and turn to Phase 6, Campaign Planning found on pages 264-269.
Today we are going to demonstrate how to capture the attention of customers and prospects through campaign strategy and planning.
Why this topic? Every market has a "sweet spot." Campaigns and campaign budgets generate revenues when focused directly at this "sweet spot." Campaigns that are not hyper-targeted do not. To generate a return on marketing campaign dollars requires a clear objective, timeline, budget, accurate lists, correct media mix, and compelling calls to action.
Randolph brings a wealth of experience from his role, heading Rentokil's expanded marketing efforts across all of North America. Listen as Randolph demonstrates how to build a marketing campaign model that will drive revenue growth and help you make your number year after year.
In the first segment of the program, Randolph shares his own experiences and evolution in building marketing campaigns to demonstrate their significance in company expansion. We begin with discussing objectives and logistics for a new marketing campaign.
This dialogue delves into specifics on the ideal objectives, timeline, budget, and results of a marketing campaign. Randolph gives specific and detailed advice on managing every aspect of the campaign, with examples from his years of experience. He discusses the importance of sales enablement for the campaign budget, and the importance of working alongside the sales team. Randolph then delves into the topic of addressable markets and methods for targeting those markets. He discusses the importance of focusing in on and monitoring addressable side markets that have the size and potential for growth.
We're a company that's growing both organically and through acquisition but our key target, as I say, is growing organically. There are lots of ways of doing that and the marketing campaign is certainly one that's gaining in importance for us over the last couple of years. We do two to three campaigns a year, and they last three to four months each. The key is sitting down and working with the sales team, so that it goes in our plan and in their plan.
The budget we break down into marketing and sales enablement. On the marketing side, we're looking at pay per click. We build that budget overall and we say to the sales team, "Okay, what do you think you can achieve in order to get sales growth?" and then we measure the return on investment on that incremental sales growth.
We segment our markets by industry type, then we sit down and talk to the sales team. It's very much a process hand-in hand, but we look at which segments we've got a compelling offer from and where we think there's a sizable and big enough offer for us to go after. Once we've got that first segment identified, we think about the sub-segments or groups with in it. We focus in on an addressable side market that's got size, scope for growth and where we have a winning proposition.
The second segment of the show focuses on demonstrating how to capture the attention of customers and prospects from marketing campaigns. Randolph addresses the two market segments of his business and the ways in which he builds provocative and differentiated campaign messages.
If I think about the commercial side first when we're developing a campaign, the first thing we do is our research into the chosen sectors or segments and create what we call our "Segment Bible." Our Segment Bible is a really in-depth look at everything we can find, namely through desk research and contacts about that segment.
The residential side is more about understanding our customers and consumers and getting into the nitty gritty. The secret to the sauce is that final drop of detail. We've got people, who we train incredibly highly to do a great job, but they are using many of the same tools that our competitors have. So, differentiating your business is critical.
To build the campaigns, we look at the trends within the sectors or segments, the influencers and their motives. What are their needs? We'll look at where those people are shopping online, where they are doing their research, what forms are they looking at? From that, the marketing managers will work with our creative team to distill it and come up with the themes for the campaign around which we base all our communications, propositions, etc. and drive it through from there.
We end the show discussing the question, "How do you make sure that the campaigns have enough content at the right points of the buyer's journey?" Randolph provides guidance on how to select the right channels and the right content, and later convert inquiries into buyer interest.
Direct download: AP1752_Randolph_Carter-18863_MX.mp3
Category:Marketing Strategy -- posted at: 12:49pm EST