To uncover the secrets behind successful digital marketing campaigns, we asked 14 industry experts to share one key factor that contributed to their success. From diversifying your marketing approach to A/B testing email subject lines, these founders, CEOs, and marketing professionals reveal their top strategies for achieving digital marketing success. Here how to successfully launch your digital marketing campaign.
DEEPER DIVE: Forecasting 2023 PR and marketing trends
- Diversify Your Marketing Approach
- Utilize Data-Driven Insights
- Focus on Climbing the SERPs
- Build Strong Relationships and Network
- Provide Immediate Value to Customers
- Understand Audience Motivations
- Create Branding Continuity
- Automate Your Email Marketing
- Optimize Landing Pages
- Involve All Departments in the Campaign
- Personalize Your Marketing Materials
- Embrace Cross-Channel Synergy
- Be Open to Experimentation
- A/B Test Email Subject Lines
Diversify Your Marketing Approach
To get the best results, you need to diversify your approach. We helped a company called Theragun start ranking competitively for relevant keywords from scratch. Our main objective was to increase their relevant and total traffic, but in a way that utilized diversified channels and various overlaying strategies.
During a twelve-month campaign, we used SEO strategies in tandem with link-building and advertorials to deliver a 975,000% increase in traffic value and a 15,300% increase in ranked keywords. SEO needs to be gradually built, but once you’ve started, it can have dramatic results for your business.
There is no one-size-fits-all strategy; it just takes a handful of connecting methods that vary by industry and unique business.
Kevin Miller, Founder, kevinmiller.com
Utilize Data-Driven Insights
One key factor that contributed to the success of my digital marketing campaign was the strategic use of data-driven insights. By closely analyzing and interpreting the campaign data, we gained valuable insights into consumer behavior, preferences, and trends.
These insights helped us in refining our real-time campaign strategy, which eventually resulted in a 30% increase in click-through rates and a 20% boost in conversion rates.
Continually refining performance led to a 15% increase in return on ad spend (ROAS).
These insights allowed us to make informed decisions, optimize the campaign in real time, and target the right audience segments with precision.
This data-driven approach played a crucial role in maximizing the campaign’s effectiveness, increasing engagement, and driving favorable outcomes for the client.
Casey Preston, CRO and Founder, Stratosphere
Focus on Climbing the SERPs
One constant factor that leads to the success of the digital marketing campaigns I manage is having a clear and strong winning optimization strategy to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs), which increases the traffic of our channels like our website and blog.
We gain qualified leads by approaching our campaigns with both on-page and off-page strategies, with a dedicated creation of evergreen content, as well as technical search engine optimization (SEO). From keyword search to building links and website loading speed, I ensure the synergy of these to solidify our winning optimization strategy.
Tristan Harris, Demand Generation Senior Marketing Manager, Thrive Digital Marketing Agency
Build Strong Relationships and Network
As the founder of a radio and podcast advertising agency, one key factor that contributed to the success of our digital marketing campaigns was maintaining strong relationships and networks. We understood that it was not enough just to have a great product or service, but also had to create strong relationships with potential customers and influencers in order to maximize our reach.
This meant creating an online presence to leverage, connecting with relevant industry professionals on social media, attending networking events, and building trust over time. This allowed us to not only create a larger circle of influence, but to also maintain relationships with existing clients and collaborate on further campaigns as well.
Jeff Pollak, Partner, RadioActive Media Inc.
Provide Immediate Value to Customers
In the online education business, even when we know our courses and programs are of immense value to students, it isn’t easy to convince them. And since that’s what marketing is all about, we decided that a firsthand peek into our offering would be a better way to get students on board.
So our digital campaign was all about providing immediate value that students could get a taste of, and once they did, our marketing team realized it was a lot easier to convince them to sign up. Yes, lining up the right audience took a while, but this only made our efforts even more fruitful because we were not pitching to students with all the potential to be our customers.
Since then, we’ve applied this formula of providing immediate value, and every time we have, we’ve clocked a higher success ratio.
Ariav Cohen, VP of Marketing and Sales, Proprep
Understand Audience Motivations
Absolutely, I’d love to share my experience from a recent fitness challenge campaign I led. Now, you might think it’s all about the snazzy visuals or catchy hashtags—don’t get me wrong, those are important. But in my view, the real game-changer was understanding and utilizing my audience’s motivations.
Before starting the campaign, I conducted an online survey with my clients and social media followers. This helped me uncover that the main motivator wasn’t just weight loss, but fostering a sense of community and mutual support in fitness journeys.
Armed with this knowledge, I designed the “Fit Together Challenge,” emphasizing the community aspect. I encouraged participants to post their progress and cheer each other on. The response? Astounding! Our social media engagement rates skyrocketed and program sign-ups jumped by 45%.
So, there you have it. Digging deeper into your audience’s motivations can supercharge your digital marketing results.
Evander Nelson, NASM-certified Personal Trainer, evandernelson
Create Branding Continuity
One of the big mistakes that many marketers make is that they focus on a single facet of their campaign, but the key factor in the most successful digital campaign I experienced was due to our attempts to integrate every aspect. A digital campaign is not about running separate strategies on different platforms but rather finding ways to connect them to create branding continuity.
Creating cohesiveness in imagery and themes, merging content from social media posts with marketing emails, coordinating links and icons to reach desired landing pages, and most importantly, informing staff and making them part of the process, helped ensure the continuity of our messaging.
By concentrating on integrating all platforms to build a seamless branding effort, we were able to create our most successful digital campaign that positively impacted our business’s bottom line.
Alexandre Bocquet, Founder and CEO, Betterly
Automate Your Email Marketing
As the CEO of a marketing agency, my team and I work with B2B technology companies to accelerate their marketing. One such company wanted to run a campaign based on QA testing processes, Agile working methods, and testing automation.
Our goal was to generate warm leads for the sales team, and for us, that meant leads that engaged with multiple touchpoints on the site, such as visiting key pages and downloading multiple gated offers.
To get leads coming back to the site, we created automations in HubSpot to send follow-up emails to anyone who filled in a form as part of the campaign. These used personalization and included relevant content to the campaign, so the recipient would be more likely to engage. OnePath saw an increase of 1400 percent in leads over the last year as a result. A definite win!
Matthew Stibbe, CEO, Articulate Marketing
Optimize Landing Pages
Landing page optimization is one of the main key factors for a campaign’s success. It includes improving the design, content, and functionality of a landing page so that it can increase the likelihood of visitors taking a desired action. Its optimization can help increase the conversion rate of a campaign, meaning more leads, sales, or sign-ups for the business.
It can also help reduce the cost per acquisition and improve the return on investment. It is a mandatory factor for any digital marketing campaign that aims to generate conversions.
Ilan Nass, Chief Revenue Officer, Taktical
Involve All Departments in the Campaign
A digital marketing campaign can take weeks to yield results or to show what is or isn’t working.
But if you want to start on the right foot, there’s one strategy that can be missing: you have to get your team onboard along with other departments on what’s going on with said campaign.
This means where each and every potential lead is in the funnel. You have marketing, customer service, and your sales team involved throughout the whole process, so it’s important to have them involved in your campaign as well.
This means everyone has access to the same CRM, adds notes, and can read what type of interaction other people across the organization had with each lead. You really don’t want the same potential customer answering the same questions three different times because other departments don’t talk to each other.
Robert Burns, Marketing Director, Oxygen Plus
Personalize Your Marketing Materials
By deeply understanding our target audience and segmenting them based on their demographics, interests, and behaviors, we were able to craft highly relevant and personalized messages that resonated with them. We utilized data-driven insights and advanced targeting techniques to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time.
This approach allowed us to create meaningful connections with our target customers, enhance engagement, and drive conversions. By tailoring our messaging to address their pain points, highlight the benefits of our offerings, and provide tailored solutions, we were able to capture their attention and motivate them to take desired actions.
The success of this campaign showcased the power of personalized marketing in driving meaningful results and establishing a strong connection with the audience. It reinforced the importance of understanding our customers’ needs and preferences to create impactful campaigns that deliver value and drive growth.
Simon Brisk, Director, Click Intelligence Ltd
Embrace Cross-Channel Synergy
An important factor that propelled a digital marketing campaign I managed to success was the integration of marketing across multiple channels. We coordinated our efforts across all digital platforms, creating a seamless, unified message that amplified our reach and impact.
This cross-channel synergy not only reinforced our brand message but also provided a cohesive and satisfying user experience, contributing to the overall campaign’s success.
Aysu Erkan, Social Media Manager, Character Calculator
Be Open to Experimentation
A successful campaign I managed significantly benefited from comprehensive conversion rate optimization. We worked closely with the client, sharing our expertise and A/B testing many different elements of their site. This included the landing page layout, color schemes, call-to-action buttons, form designs, and accompanying copy.
The client was open to experimentation and was supportive of implementing changes based on the data derived from each test. Ultimately, our success was rooted in our mutual commitment to the campaign, clear communication, and willingness to learn from the data and adjust accordingly. This collaborative approach yielded tangible results for both parties.
Tom McCarron, Co-founder, Algebra Digital
A/B Test Email Subject Lines
I recently managed an email marketing campaign that saw a lot of success. I can attribute the majority of that success to one factor—A/B testing.
In previous campaigns, I was struggling with the open rate of the email. This was especially frustrating as I felt as though the copy within the email was really engaging (proven by the success of the A/B campaign).
After analyzing why exactly the open rate was so low, I decided to test a couple of subject lines to see if that was the reason. I discovered that almost 50% of unopens are due to the subject line being unenticing, and luckily the A/B campaign proved that my previous subject lines weren’t up to scratch.
The subject line that assisted with the success of the campaign was one that targeted a pain point of the audience, was specific to that audience, and had a time reference to it, e.g., ‘today’ or ‘this week’. I had also optimized the subject line to 9 words, rather than previously going for the shortest subject line possible.
Robin Francis, Digital Marketing Executive, Growthlabs
