Wednesday
Sep012010
The First Question: Are You Building a Program or Running a Campaign?
Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 07:10AM
Well the summer hiatus is over. I know when it comes to blogging the mantra is consistency and frequency of your posts. But with summer and the kids out of school – keeping updated posts fell by the wayside. Summer is so precious when you live in a cold place like Chicago!
People and companies blog for lots of reasons and one of the reasons for this blog is to share some of the insights and conversations we have with different clients. Just like people blog for lots of reasons, companies advertise for lots of reasons. When we talk to advertisers, the first (maybe second) question is usually “What are your objectives or goals for the campaign?” It seems like an obvious place to start so you can start designing a solution to meet their goals.
However, I find myself asking a new “first” question – “Are you building a Program or Running a Campaign?” The short answer difference is a program is continuous; a campaign has a start and end. Knowing the difference greatly influences your creative and media buying strategy.
If your goal is to build a program, that means you want to use banner advertising as a continual mix of your marketing and promotion system. To be effective with online banner advertising programs you should think more about your design system, your economic model, and your creative strategy. Your approach in the first 90 days should be about discovering what mix of creative and messages work best BEFORE you start spending big money on targeted or premium ad media. You should expect to pay a little “tuition” to learn what works and what does not. You are making an investment in a system to test and find the right formula for success to build your program. With a program, you put your learning and discovery at the front end of the process.
With a campaign, your view of the world is typically shorter. You have a start and end. The campaign can be centered around an event, a promotion, a season, a new product launch, etc. Your creative strategy will be based on your best guess and you will have less time to get “creative” with your media placement. You still have an objective to achieve, and you may reach it – you may not. But your analysis and assessment of why you got the results you did typically are done post-campaign. This is useful information to help inform your decisions for your next campaign – if there is one.
I know a lot of people actually mix both of these approaches and “test” before a campaign. And that is good too. Part of the program vs campaign thinking is about execution – but also about framing you decision making process to determine how to get the best results. This is just one of the ways that your process and approach can make you a more effective with banner advertising.
People and companies blog for lots of reasons and one of the reasons for this blog is to share some of the insights and conversations we have with different clients. Just like people blog for lots of reasons, companies advertise for lots of reasons. When we talk to advertisers, the first (maybe second) question is usually “What are your objectives or goals for the campaign?” It seems like an obvious place to start so you can start designing a solution to meet their goals.
However, I find myself asking a new “first” question – “Are you building a Program or Running a Campaign?” The short answer difference is a program is continuous; a campaign has a start and end. Knowing the difference greatly influences your creative and media buying strategy.
If your goal is to build a program, that means you want to use banner advertising as a continual mix of your marketing and promotion system. To be effective with online banner advertising programs you should think more about your design system, your economic model, and your creative strategy. Your approach in the first 90 days should be about discovering what mix of creative and messages work best BEFORE you start spending big money on targeted or premium ad media. You should expect to pay a little “tuition” to learn what works and what does not. You are making an investment in a system to test and find the right formula for success to build your program. With a program, you put your learning and discovery at the front end of the process.
With a campaign, your view of the world is typically shorter. You have a start and end. The campaign can be centered around an event, a promotion, a season, a new product launch, etc. Your creative strategy will be based on your best guess and you will have less time to get “creative” with your media placement. You still have an objective to achieve, and you may reach it – you may not. But your analysis and assessment of why you got the results you did typically are done post-campaign. This is useful information to help inform your decisions for your next campaign – if there is one.
I know a lot of people actually mix both of these approaches and “test” before a campaign. And that is good too. Part of the program vs campaign thinking is about execution – but also about framing you decision making process to determine how to get the best results. This is just one of the ways that your process and approach can make you a more effective with banner advertising.
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