Marketing automation has opened up new vistas for small and medium-sized companies to achieve better marketing results. Before the rise of online business technology, radio and TV ads were costly, and were the exclusive domain of big brands. Getting your brand known nationwide was difficult – let alone across the globe.
Today, the emphasis has shifted from generic mass marketing to highly targeted micro-campaigns, and sophisticated marketing software that makes it all possible, and affordable.
If you’re advertising today, you’re not necessarily speaking to the masses, you’re speaking to a niche.
Even so, there is the mistaken assumption that marketing campaigns need to be larger than life, or titanic in scope to generate the best marketing results. In fact, the opposite is often true.
Micro-campaigns, or small, targeted segments of a campaign often yield better results – and require far less time and effort to create and maintain.
Moving customers through the complex journey from lead to close can involve multiple steps, and can take quite some time. This is especially true in the B2B environment – and even more so if you’re selling a complex product. It is a game of strategy, rather than speed, or quick numbers.
This is where it makes sense to break your campaign down into small sections – each one targeted at a specific pressure point, and each one focused on just one particular Call To Action at a time.
Great Marketing Results
The marketing gurus at McKinsey explain it this way:
“For some companies, new messaging is required to win in whatever part of the consumer journey offers the greatest revenue opportunity. A general message cutting across all stages may have to be replaced by one addressing weaknesses at a specific point, such as initial consideration or active evaluation.”
At each stage of the buying process a customer has different needs and different questions that need answers.
Also, customers are different – some enter the funnel much closer to the end goal than others. Some will already have researched the options before landing on your doorstep. It makes sense to tailor your messages accordingly to maximize marketing results.
Let’s break a typically complex campaign down into segments as an example:
- Awareness: This segment has one simple goal – getting as many of the right buyers as possible to become aware of your brand, what you do, and who you are. This is the widest part of the funnel, and should be created with the widest range of audience in mind.
- Fast-Track: Here a micro-campaign could be created to move qualified prospects along the funnel more quickly. This would apply to someone who had already gone through the ‘education’ phase, and compared your offer, and simply needed the final push. Your messages here would be concise, powerful, and to the point.
- Educate: This campaign segment would likewise be highly targeted, except here the focus is on the long-term education – those who are taking their time to make the decision. The message here would be quite different to the ‘fast-track’ message. This is all about building trust, and laying a foundation.
Of course, every business is different – your own segments might look completely different. Nevertheless, instead of aiming for one giant campaign that covers all options and eventualities, it makes good sense to break it down to achieve your marketing results goal.
In this case, smaller, and more targeted is definitely better. You can catch more bees with honey with smaller, more targeted campaigns.
