Maximising marketing return in 2013

Welcome 2013, the cliched quote used at this time of the year is from Einstein "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results", but it is so true.

To get the year started on a good footing, here are some steps you can take to automate, measure and execute your marketing strategy in MPULL.

Set up your marketing objectives

If your marketing objectives have changed with the year-end, then you need to create the new objectives in MPULL. Marketing objectives should not change too often, so once these are set there is no need to change them for a while.

Every campaign, tactic or activation you do is linked to one or more marketing objective and you have the ability to generate reports showing everything that was done over a time period to achieve the particular objective.

To set your objectives, click on "Settings" in the top grey navigation, and then under "Activity Settings", select the "Objectives" option, and then simply click on "Add New Objective".

Remember to make your objectives SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.

Set up your ROI measures

An ROI measure is the way that you intend measuring the success of the campaign, tactic or activation, it works very similarly to objectives.

You may have an objective to increase brand equity by 10% by December 2013, you cannot measure if this was achieved at the end of every campaign you design to meet this objective, rather at the end of the year a brand study can be conducted which includes all the relevant campaigns. So, your ROI Measure would be "Annual Brand Survey".

When the time comes to conduct the brand survey, you can generate a report to show all the activities that have been run that need the brand survey conducted so that ROI can be calculated.

To set your ROI Measures, click on "Settings" in the top grey navigation, and then under "Activity Settings", select the "ROI Measures" option, and then simply click on "Add New Measure".

Set up your segments / target markets

Most new marketing strategies will commence at the beginning of a year, and during your planning, you may have uncovered new segments to target. If this is the case, you need to load these into MPULL so that your teams can select them when creating their campaigns.

Just as it is important to have objectives selected when creating a campaign so you know what you are trying to achieve, for the same reason you need to select the target markets. This ensures that every campaign that is run for your brand is aligned to your company goals.

To set your target markets, click on "Settings" in the top grey navigation, and then under "Activity Settings", select the "Target Market" option, and then simply click on "Add New Target Market".

Load all your activations and campaigns

Now that all the groundwork is done, you can create all your campaigns, activations and tactics in MPULL.

Divide these up by marketing discipline, so that if you have a through the line campaign, you will have separate MPULL activities for advertising, online, direct marketing, PR and so on.

Any good marketer should have all their campaigns mapped out for at least 6 months, put aside several hours now and load all of these into the system at once so that you can get a consolidated calendar view and can just focus on managing and executing them for the months ahead.

Activities can be created by the user primarily responsible for the campaign, or a manager can load activities on behalf of their team and assign them to the relevant team members. Simply select "Add New Activity" from the main Activities page.

Look for opportunities in your marketing calendar

Once your entire team has loaded all their activities, you can now go to the calendar view and browse exactly what marketing activations occur on each day across your organisation.

From this view, you can identify duplication, such as ads booked in the same publication or multiple teams running an identical event. You can also identify clashes, such as press briefings and media launches that occur too closely to each other.

But more importantly, you can identify opportunities from this view. You may, for example, see that one of your colleagues is planning a direct marketing campaign that coincides with the launch date of your new value proposition, and you can collaborate with them, saving your company money and saving yourself time.

Need Help?

If you need help loading your objectives, ROI Measures, Target Markets and Activities, or are unsure on how best to use the system, just contact the MPULL Managed Services team who will gladly assist you. Just send an email to support@mpull.com and someone in the MPULL team will get back to you soon.

Author: Daryn Smith