“Excellence/Perfection is not a destination; it is a continuous journey that never ends.” - Brian Tracy, motivational public speaker and self-development author.

Goals : Understand what are the next steps after we end our marketing campaign

Congratulations! All those weeks of burning the midnight oil, raising our heart rates with cups and cups of caffeine and testing our patience with the constant requirements and changes of our clients have finally paid off. Our chief marketing officers (CMO) have stopped looking over our shoulders and barking at us (for now) and our multi-million dollar campaign has finally took flight. Do you feel the emptiness in your heart? Or a relief setting in?

Sadly, we do not have the liberty to take time off and go on a luxury cruise, sipping mimosas and tanning. We have a final but important step to our campaigning process regardless of whether our campaign was successful or not. We should not rest on our success nor should we wallow in our setbacks because despite everything, the sun will always shine tomorrow.

Here are the 5 things we should do when we are doing post-marketing campaign evaluation.

Step 1: Review our goals and outcomes to see if our brand met them

Remember all the goals and outcomes we predicted before we started our campaign? Now it is time to review those.

Have we met our goals? Did we achieve the outcome we envisioned? It sounds overwhelming and might be demotivating to know that the vision we dreamt of did not come true.

However, the best way to face our problems are always the head on way. Organize what we did well (when our campaign met our goals) and organize what we did not do well (when our campaign failed to meet our goals). List them down side by side with our goals and we can see which aspect of our vision met our goals.

Questions we need to ask ourselves:

  1. Did we meet the goal we envisioned before the marketing process began?
  2. Was our marketing strategy planned with our goals in mind?
  3. How far did we stray or how precise did we follow our goals?
  4. Were our goals too difficult? Were they unrealistic?
  5. Were our goals too simple? Did we underestimated ourselves?
  6. Were our goals align with the industry’s standard?

Step 2: Evaluate any feedback from outside stakeholders.

We are doing post campaigning right after our campaign closes so the campaign will still be fresh in the minds of the consumers. Our minds are always bias, of course it will be, that campaign right there is our baby that we poured our blood, sweat and tears into. Gathering consumers opinions will allow us to have a comprehension on how our targeted consumer market feels and thinks.

This is extremely important as our priority is to filter our consumers who have a positive opinion on our product down the purchase funnel until they become advocates. Even if the goal of our campaign was to raise awareness, the ultimate goal we wish to achieve is consumer sales. We should always aim high right? As a business, our aim is to get consumer conversion from positive feedback and awareness to sales.

However, we should never allow our existing customers to wander out the back door. Retaining 100% of our customers might be unrealistic but releasing more than 25% of our existing customers is foolish.

Cater for our existing clientele too, ask for their feedback and prioritize their needs and wants. After all, with them being familiar with our current styles, it will be easier to meet their needs than it is to wander into the territory of our new potential customers who might or might not generate sales. At least our existing customers have one foot in.

Questions you should ask:

  1. What do you think about the current campaign?
  2. What message do you think we are trying to deliver?
  3. How do you feel looking at the campaign?
  4. Did it change your perception of our company?
  5. Do you think you will purchase our company’s product?
  6. What do you like or not like about the campaign?

Step 3: Gather feedback from staff or other internal stakeholders

We all know the saying “people around you knows you the best”. That applies to the campaign too. People directly involved in the campaign, mainly your teammates will know the campaign like the back of their hands. This means that they will have the most constructive and insightful feedback on our campaign.

So take some time and talk to each individual internal stakeholders involved in this campaign; staff, brand ambassadors and other stakeholders. Always keep an open mind and remember that everyone is unique and entitled to their own thoughts and ideas so even if we do not use their ideas or approve of them, we should still ask them for their thoughts.

Keep things professional, our internal stakeholders will appreciate our initiative in asking for their opinions. When they are appreciative, they will feel valued be supportive when the next campaign rolls around. After all, a well oiled machine works at optimum.

Things we should ask insights on:

  1. Do they think this campaign was successful?
  2. What do they think we can improve in?
  3. What do they think we did well in?
  4. In what way can we optimize our resources?
  5. Is there any steps that we can remove or add on to create a better campaign the next time round?

Step 4: Report information to your superiors

Time to face the boss (CMO) and give the nerve wrecking report that summarizes our entire campaign. Be precise and direct, that would be the only way to engage our boss. This step is important as even former President Barack Obama had Valerie Jarrett to turn to when evaluating the success or failure of a presidential action. The most important thing that we need to report would be our return on engagement. Is the company already benefiting from the campaign? How will the company continue receiving benefits in the future?

Take initiative, report action items too. Give recommendations when presenting our report. Should we do more of these type of campaigning? Should we do less of these type of campaigning? Give suggestions on ways to improve advertising, social media and marketing efforts. Also remember to report the type of feedback we received, this can act as a backup to our suggestions. Be upfront and report our wrongdoings, or our inability to meet our goals and explain why. Our boss would appreciate the honesty and as long as it is an honest mistake that we do not repeat constantly, we will be fine.

This is also the step where we can ask for an increase in marketing budget or ask for an issue of request for proposal (RFP) for our new marketing idea. After all, if our current campaign is good, treat it as buttering up to our boss before asking for an increase in budget and RFP.

== Checklist of our report:==

  • Our achievement/ wrongdoings
  • A summary of the type of feedback we received
  • Our return on engagement
  • Constructive suggestions

Step 5: Create a plan to make future campaigns even better


Source

In the wise words of the late Johnny Cash, “You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.” Do not throw in the towel just because your current campaign is a bust nor should you feel like you conquered the world just because your current campaign is successful. Life is a learning journey and there are always room for improvement.

The reason why post campaign analysis is so important is because it is as easy to forget your mistakes as it is to repeat them.

Regardless of your current situation, at this step, you should be ready for war again and for the whole process to repeat itself. Strive to make your next campaign bigger, more effective, more fun and more insightful.

Things you should do

  1. Analyze your current campaign and compare it with industry campaigns
  2. Analyze your mistakes and ensure you do not repeat them
  3. Analyze your wins and take note on the way to repeat it