Mapping the Creative Process: Marketing Campaign Strategy 101

Mapping the creative process isn’t easy; it took me a solid nine months to finally feel competent in my position. Of course, I bounced around a little before finding my forte in Project Coordination - I wrote blogs and website copy, scheduled social posts, and dabbled in keyterm research / Google AdWords.

Creative Use of Spreadsheets

My saving grace came in the form of spreadsheets - a tool I used roughly ~10 times during the course of my college career. In reality, these spreadsheets were allowing me to create and organize processes; step-by-step road maps for our agency work that happens every day.

Personally, I had an aversion to capturing several creative processes in a simple spreadsheet. It seems wrong to encapsulate the work my team does into a makeshift grocery list.

However, these processes have become an invaluable part of how our agency operates. They serve as a road map for several projects … But we’re mindful that our jobs need to remain flexible. It’s impossible to account for everything always, but processes guide us along the path of a project. They’re continually evolving.

Campaign Strategy

Cue change … Progress even! Incoming campaign strategy. Our agency introduced campaign strategy and it threw me for a loop. We had always created content around a strategy, but we had never mapped things out visually in such detail. It’s difficult to explain without showing you, so I will:

After glancing at this campaign strategy, you’re probably even more confused. No worries, I felt the same way. There are six important aspects of a good campaign strategy:

1. Persona & Social Targeting
2. The Buyer’s Journey
3. Content Planning & Repurposing
4. Cross Linking & CTA Strategy
5. Scheduling, Benchmarking, & Mapping
6. Goal Tracking & Setting

How This Pertains to You

It’s a legitimate question. Why should you care? Well, campaign strategy connects everything. Once agreed upon goals have been identified, a campaign will flesh out the common threads through every piece of content. A multitude of content contributing to one singular goal; it’s a beautiful thing.

This strategic type of thinking is what drives goals, makes a difference, and delivers ROI.