When I talk to clients about planning for their upcoming marketing campaigns, I often find myself asking them how they can “squeeze every last drop” out of the opportunity. Small businesses tend to think in a very limited way about the campaigns and events that they run, bouncing between a volume of campaigns but not necessarily maximizing any one of them. As I currently plan my own keynote speaking campaign around National Donut Day, I wanted to demonstrate just how much you can do to maximize your own marketing campaigns.
Think of a marketing campaign like a backdrop that allows you numerous creative chances to reach out multiple times to all of your different stakeholders, everyone who is already in your sphere, and new contacts that would have a logical connection to the particular campaign you are running. For your campaign, you might be launching a product or service, hosting a one-day event, running a week-long or month-long promotion, or some other scenario. Whatever your campaign is, can you stretch your communications about it for months?
Whatever your campaign is, can you stretch your communications about it for months? #marketing #campaign #business #biztips #smallbusiness #smallbiz #nationaldonutday #nationaldoughnutday #donut #doughnut #TaketheDoughnut
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In addition to the marketing support I provide, there is also another side of my business: Motivational keynote speaking. My theme is called “Take the Doughnut” which is my version of “carpe diem.” Not only do I have fun with the doughnut theme in my talks, but the doughnut theme is also a great opportunity from a marketing standpoint, too.
National Donut Day is an official holiday in the US, held the first Friday of June each year. I sat down earlier this year and asked myself what I could do to lean into a national holiday built around my theme, and the plan began to form. I am pulling back the curtain for you, so you can see what “squeezing every last drop” out of the campaign looks like for me to this point.
- Step 1 – Deciding what the campaign is. I decided that I would run a free, public version of my keynote as a webinar on the first Friday this year in June. I also decided that I didn’t want to do this alone, so I would create a cross-marketing campaign in partnership with independent donut shops around the US in the hopes that they will shout me out as well.
- Step 2 – Researching the doughnut shops. I spent weeks – starting in February – researching doughnut shops throughout the US. I knew that I wanted to support non-franchise small businesses in every state and avoid shops in the same city so that they wouldn’t be worried about competition.
- Step 3 – I spent the entire month of March reaching out to hundreds of doughnut shops, answering their questions, and getting commitments. I ended up with a list of 34 shops in 28 states that wanted to participate, and we all agreed to share this National Donut Day campaign on social media and to our email lists.
- Step 4 – I reached out to various influencers and bloggers who also have a donut theme, inviting them to join me and the 34 other businesses in this cross-marketing campaign. The pitch was strength in numbers, and the collective force of all of our businesses banding together even got the attention of a big donut influencer like Donutbragger.
- Step 5 – In early April, I emailed all the confirmed partners with graphics and drafted copy for both newsletters and social media. I wanted to make it easy for them to share the details about the event, but they were invited to create their own materials as well. I also sent them a list of all participating shops and their handles in addition to the hashtags to use in social media posts.
- Step 6 – I created public events on Facebook, Eventbrite, Shindig, and anywhere else I could think of!
- Step 7 – I began doing my own promotions for the event – including a first mention announcement to my email list and posts on social media – at the end of April. I continue to share news about this weekly (and, from 36 days out, began a daily countdown). My team is creating fancier graphics and carousels as well as engaging with the partners’ content on social media.
- Step 8 – I reached out to food magazines and tourism offices in each city and state of the participating partners. I encouraged them to add this event to their calendars or mention it on social media, leveraging the fact that this is a national campaign that has local representation.
- Step 9 – As we get closer to the event, I will begin emailing the registrants with reminders about the event to get them excited and drop news about a special contest (with a new prize) that I will host for those who show up on the day of the event.
- Step 10 – I will deliver the talk on June 2.
- Step 11 – I have already drafted follow-up emails to go out to all involved, including the registrants. This includes an email to registrants about the partner shops and one about my own offerings. This group can also be added to my monthly newsletter for my keynotes so they get regular inspiration.
I continue to find more ways to talk about this event to different groups, including this very Tip of the Week! With the best campaigns, you exhaust all the options within your means in the time you have, and these are just some of the ways that I am utilizing the tools available to me. Over a period of months, I am doing all that I can to make the most of this campaign, fostering both new and old relationships.
So, what do you have coming up for your business? Is there a marketing campaign you want to plan? May this tip inspire you to maximize it just like I am doing with National Donut Day! I challenge you to start mapping out for yourself how you can squeeze every last drop out of your campaign, too.
The post The Anatomy of a Marketing Campaign – National Donut Day Case Study appeared first on Melissa Forziat.