Last week, I was out with the team at Focus.com and enjoying "bourbon and proteins" with Craig Rosenberg (The Funnelholic) when the subject of campaigns came up from his point in a recent post to "forget campaigns, build a factory." We agreed completely that marketers that think in the world of "campaigns" are shortchanging their results.
Marketing programs need
- Consistency
- Momentum
- Staying power
- Adjustment
It may be that campaigns seem normal because our needs change, strategies are modified or budgets are handed out piecemeal, but the most successful clients both Craig and I work with all treat marketing programs as ongoing efforts.
- Budget for ongoing activity - Treat it like headcount. Would you hire good talent and then shut them off 60 days later?
- Remain committed to the effort - Most common example here is when a marketer gets gung-ho to start blogging to boost inbound marketing and then stops publishing regularly.
- Results take time - In the world of B2B, sales cycles can be long. Don't try to measure pipeline results in just months. Give it time and commitment.
- Measure what you can measure - If you can't wait a year to measure revenue impact, measure tangible results: Did the introductory meeting result in a second meeting? Did the email sent result in a clickthrough?
- React - Make that adjustment -- but adjust, don't start and stop. If you see something that needs a tweak, stay productive while you are tweaking or have your vendor/team work on something complementary to the project while you make that quick adjustment.
- Conserve Costs - Lastly, consider the cost impact of starting, stopping and switching gears. There always are considerable startup and adjustment efforts and ramp-up costs. Optimize your budget by creating programs with power.