- Knowing your brand and your customer are the first steps to a successful media campaign.
- Have a good mix of images, video, and text for the most success.
- Don’t forget your analytics!
So, you’ve done the work to start your business. You’ve probably dedicated your time, your life, and your finances to this endeavor. But… now what?
Now You Need A Media Campaign.
Back in the old days, this would have maybe looked like running an ad in the newspaper or putting out a commercial on your local stations.
Today, there are tons of options for your media campaign. But knowing how to use all these options and where to start can be overwhelming! Here are some tips and tricks for a successful media campaign, whether it’s your first or your zillionth.
Identify Your Brand
The first step, and one that is particularly important for newer businesses, is to identify your brand. You know the name of your company and you could brag about what you do for hours. However, building a brand involves more than just knowing what your business is.
To identify your brand and how to use it for your media campaign, think first about your customer. Get specific enough that you can imagine the person walking in your door right now. You need to know their age, their gender, their goals, their ideal weekend. If you know your customer well, you can know what they would want to see in a media campaign.
Identify The Purpose Of Your Campaign
Once you know your customer, you need to know what your purpose is for having a media campaign. Are you trying to sell certain products? A new line? A new service? What would be the ultimate goal of the campaign being a success?
Knowing what you want to get out of your campaign will help you to hone in on the content you produce. If you want to sell a new line of mask-friendly glasses or make up, you wouldn’t want to post something to Instagram featuring some cool shirts. If you have a new menu item you want to feature, you’d want to post images and descriptions of that item, not an already-popular dish.
Keep Your Budget In Mind
If you aren’t careful, your budget for a media campaign can skyrocket. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses should spend about 7-8% of their gross revenue on marketing and advertising. Of that budget, you should spend about 20-30% on content creation, including photography, videography, editing, and production.
So, start crunching numbers! If you choose to use a professional photographer, make sure you communicate to them your target budget. The same is true for any content writers, social media managers, etc. And don’t forget to leave some extra money in the budget for unexpected expenses.
Use Images For SEO Content And Social Media
Sure, you will need pictures for your Instagram posts and Facebook page. What about your blog content?
Yep! You need images there, too!
You will have so much more success with your content as you add images. Never post a simple text-only or text-heavy post. Break up the content with images that fall within your media campaign.
You should also take the time to use analytics and find which hashtags and keyword phrases will bring you the most traffic. You can attach these to video or photography posts for the ultimate way to generate traffic (and possibly sales).
Use The Right Platform For The Right Post
Like we said before, there are myriad social media channels to choose from. For pictures and live streams, consider Facebook and Instagram. TikTok is great for fun videos that are shorter in length and easily shareable. If you have a blog or regularly do how-to posts, check out Pinterest. Research which social media channels you want to use for your media campaign and how to best utilize their features.
Another part of using social media platforms and any online platform is making sure your content is mobile-friendly. Nothing will turn off your followers faster than a difficult, frustrating experience when viewing your content. This applies to visual media, as well as text content.
Encourage Participation From Your Followers
The most important part of your media campaign is encouraging participation from your audience. Luckily, there are tons of ways to do this, from asking your audience to respond to you directly to conducting a poll. Engaging your audience will bring them back time and time again, especially if they feel heard by you.
Use analytics software to see what types of posts are encouraging the most engagement. With the analytics, you can see correlations between hashtags you use, times you post, and platforms you post on with the level of engagement. Use that data to better plan out your media campaign.
The Take-Away
A media campaign is an exciting time for your company. If you can use the tools that you have available and interpret the data you have to your advantage, you can have an incredibly successful campaign every time