Marketing Campaign Proposal, Plan and Workflow

Posted on by Andrei

In previous articles on marketing campaign management we discussed campaign roles and responsibilities and typical phases of a campaign life-cycle. Today we will look at a campaign proposal template, a template campaign plan, and the workflow for preparing a campaign plan. As stated earlier, the purpose of having such templates is to have a process that works well for a small number of campaigns run by a small team but can also scale to support a larger team running many campaigns.

Campaign Proposal Template

The campaign proposal is prepared by the Campaign Owner and includes the following:

Campaign ID Leave blank; value will be assigned if the proposal is accepted
Campaign Name A short but memorable and self-explanatory name
Start and End Dates In the dd-mmm-yyy format (e.g. 12-Aug-2013)
Goals What we are trying to achieve: sell products? Get newsletter subscribers? Increase brand awareness? Reactivate dormant customers?
Measures of Success How will we measure goal achievement, e.g.: unit sales, revenue, gross margin converted, orders from dormant customers, etc. etc.
Expected Results An expected range for goal achievement expressed in Measures of Success stated above
Definition of ROI What formula will be used to measure the ROI for this campaign so that this campaign’s ROI can be meaningfully compared to other campaigns
Expected ROI An expected ROI range
External Expenses An estimate of external expenses
Internal Expenses How much time and from what teams do we need? Any other internal resources such as free product for samples, etc.?
Offer What is the offer / special deal? Are we using bundling, sweepstakes, referral rewards, etc.?
Financial Analysis If any discounting is involved, what are we gaining by doing it? What is the breakeven point?
Target Audience and Segmentation Who are trying to reach? What are the identifiable segments that we may need to treat differently? (for example, if it’s a worldwide Mother’s Day campaign, do we have different assets for the US vs UK vs. other countries?)
Messaging What are the key messages we are going to send?
Media Through what communication channels will we reach the audience and –if known – what media will we use (paid search, banner ads on specific sites, Facebook ads, Facebook etc. etc.)?
Risks & Mitigation What are the main risks and can we reduce their likelihood and/or impact to an acceptable level?
Impact on Other Teams What support from other teams will be needed? What other impact may happen, e.g. high increase in workload?
Assets At a high level, what banners, landing pages, other assets will we need? Will we use any specially developed mobile apps or micro-sites?
Legal issues What are the possible legal issues and do we need professional advice to deal with them (e.g. special Terms & Conditions for sweepstakes, etc.)

Campaign Plan

The campaign plan is prepared by the Campaign Manager (not Owner!) and includes the following:

  1. Approvals and signatures
  2. Key Info
    1. Campaign ID
    2. Campaign Name
    3. Start and End Dates
    4. Goals, Measures of Success, Expected Results
    5. Budget (external and internal expenses)
    6. Campaign space on the network / location of key documents and other files
  3. Team: R- Chart
  4. Offer, Target Audience, Messaging
  5. Media
    1. What communication channels will be used
    2. What we will need to buy
    3. How is the advertising spend to be allocated between channels
  6. Assets
  7. Tracking, testing and optimisation
    1. Mechanisms used (e.g. Google Experiments or separate landing pages)
    2. Naming conventions for campaign IDs, banner IDs, other tracking parameters
  8. IT Infrastructure
  9. Risks & Mitigation
  10. Impact on Other Teams, Training and/or Briefing Required
  11. Legal issues
  12. Development Phase schedule
  13. Execution Phase Activities
    1. Who and how will monitor results and tweak creative assets, campaign parameters and spend re-allocation between communication channels
    2. How the Campaign Owner will report results to stakeholders and the format of the report
  14. Close-out Phase Activities
    1. Format of the final campaign report
    2. BAU activities / follow-up for new customers

Note: The schedule is a simple table, for example:

Deliverable Start Work On Due By Who Does It Notes
Creative brief for banners and landing pages Campaign Owner
Develop the campaign theme Creative Lead
Develop banners and landing pages Copywriter, Graphic Designer

Workflow

The following steps are to be taken by the Campaign Manager to prepare the Campaign Plan:

  1. Review the Campaign Proposal and the experience from similar campaigns run in the past.
  2. Organise the Campaign Planning Meeting with relevant participants. At the very minimum, the Campaign Owner and the Marketing Manager / Head of Marketing need to be present. More often than not, other functional managers will also need to be present.
  3. During and after the Campaign Planning Meeting, get the missing information and do identification and selection of alternatives as required.
  4. Fill out sections 2 through 11.
  5. Prepare the schedule and fill out section 12.
  6. Fill out sections 13 and 14.
  7. Request and achieve feedback on the plan from the Campaign Owner and Marketing Manager (required) and other stakeholders (optional).
  8. Modify the plan as required.