How to successfully run multiple performance marketing campaigns

How to successfully run multiple direct marketing campaigns originally published in Media Update.

The start of the retail and etail run-up to Christmas has begun and running multiple direct marketing campaigns simultaneously is essential for marketers.What though must be done to ensure that creating multiple campaigns is as successful as possible?

The first, and obvious, answer is to use the right platform for the task, one that enables users to effectively run such campaigns. Even with that in place, there are several guidelines for multiple campaigns that should be followed any time of the year.

Key considerations when running multiple direct marketing campaigns

Grant Fleming, CEO of Leadify, explains that the optimal number of campaigns that should be run is more dependent on the administration involved in managing each campaign. The second consideration is time. Fleming cautions against setting up so many campaigns that it takes too long to perform campaign analysis.

He notes that some customers are running in the region of 40 to 60 simultaneous multiple direct marketing campaigns per campaign manager. Clever dashboards give quick insight into campaigns and one can drill down quickly to get deep analysis like A/B testing of messaging templates or customer interaction timeframes. Additionally, campaign managers need to be cognisant of the size of their databases upfront, as massive databases take time to send one’s marketing messages to.

That being said, marketing automation service providers also need to be aware that large sends are going to take place to meet enterprise demands. Fleming adds that Leadify has had instances where they needed to rapidly deploy additional gateways to ensure that messaging goes out, as customers’ loads exceeded their initial planning. Also important to take into account is that there are limits to the capacity that SMS and email gateways can accommodate.

First steps to success

Most importantly, to successfully run multiple campaigns, it is essential that marketers are clear of what they are aiming to achieve, and why they are running multiple campaigns simultaneously in the first place.

One salient reason for this is that it enables marketers to exercise their targeting options and vary the segmentation of who they are aiming to reach. Fleming elaborates that one of the common direct/performance marketing mistakes organisations make is that they have a preconceived notion of the audience they want to approach. Usually, this is a very narrow demographic - females between the age of 25 and 35, for example.

However, if brands would challenge their assumptions and start with a broader campaign that reaches a wider audience and test their assumptions, they will often find themselves reaching a market they didn’t expect. For example, a campaign for children’s clothing that initially targeted mothers could actually find greater appeal with grandparents who are buying clothes for their grandchildren as gifts. Therefore Fleming encourages organisations to start by creating a campaign that reaches across various demographics. Having done this, multiple campaigns can then be catered to reach specific audiences, with personalised messages for each, to far better effect.

Know the benefits

Fleming warns that there are two circumstances when multiple direct marketing campaigns should not be run. These include having no real strategy and no coherent reason for creating the campaigns, and secondly, lacking understanding how to create and manage campaigns in general.

On the flip side, running multiple campaigns that are set up cleverly offers significant benefits. For savvy marketers, it offers further granularisation to their target audience. It also allows them to get closer to the groupings that they are targeting, especially when personalising their marketing messages.

Practicalities and final thoughts

Much of the secret to making multiple direct marketing campaigns succeed has to do with following the guidelines outlined above. As for the process of setting up multiple campaigns within Leadify, this is straightforward and intuitive. Fleming elaborates that the procedure for setting them up within the system is exactly the same as running a single campaign.

Even as there are personalisation differences, Leadify allows users to duplicate a campaign which carries over the core setup from one campaign to the next one. Then users can simply adjust for the optimisation and tweaking of each individual campaign within the platform.

Fleming reiterates that the primary keys to making multiple direct marketing campaigns work is having a clear reason for doing so from the outset, and having well defined strategies in place.  He stresses the importance of always testing one’s assumptions first and foremost. This enables marketers to use multiple campaigns as a viable tool to target particular audiences based on actual feedback they have received from the market, resulting in better conversions.