Finding the good in a failed marketing campaign

We have been given a perspective that our marketing or PR campaigns are not allowed to fail. Here we share our perspective on why failing is necessary, in order to become better at marketing.

When you have achieved 80% of expected outcomes: “Your campaign results are not good enough!”

When your campaign brought in 50% of all the leads for the month: “These leads aren’t warm enough. We cannot convince them to do a trial or buy our product.”

When your messaging resonated with the 5 media that cover your industry and secured 3 articles: “How come we didn’t get coverage in all 5 titles?”

As marketing and PR teams, it is no wonder that we perceive a successful campaign to be all black and white. You either hit all the anticipated outcomes or the campaign was not good enough.

When the primary measurement is quantitative, it can be hard to see the forest for the trees and evaluate whether the qualitative metrics outweigh the numbers when it comes to impact and effectiveness.

A press release with no coverage, digital advertising that does not convert, an event with only some attendance are all negatives. The situation is compounded when peers presume the results are created by incompetence and bad preparation on the part of the marketing or PR team.

Marketing and PR is driven by a simple heuristic, “what you put in, you take out”. If you prioritise setting objectives, research and commit resources while expecting realistic outcomes, your campaign would probably do well, with no hitches.

However, it is wishful thinking to imagine running multiple campaigns and never encountering less than ideal results or failed campaigns

What happens though when your marketing or PR campaign fails? Here are some steps to consider from different perspectives.

1. From a stakeholder management perspective

· Own up to the failed campaign, and commit to the business leads to do a thorough review of the steps and look for learning

· Outline steps to rebuild momentum; answer the question about how the business can get back on track despite the results of the campaign. This is more about bringing solutions to the table instead of just sharing challenges.

· Determine whether you need help from other business units such as product or sales; and be clear about what type or form of support is needed. Make it a win-win, what can you do to help them in other areas?

2. From a marketing or PR team management perspective

· Reiterate your trust and commitment to your team. There definitely should not be any ‘throwing of team members under the bus’. This is practical because it is a team effort to run a campaign and to succeed in the next campaign, you need your team.

· Review the campaign data, process, and outcomes to see where you can help remove or transmute obstacles for the next campaign

· If you work with agencies or consultants, rope them in to the review and be transparent about the feedback from stakeholders and steps taken. This is not a ‘pressure cooker’ exercise to insist on ‘guaranteed’ future results. Instead, focus on the positives in the campaign, determine if these can be replicated or scaled to support future campaigns.

3. From a campaign perspective

· Start from the beginning. Examine the data, assumptions and hypotheses built to see if these were valid. Check on the sources and the interpretations.

· Review the campaign objectives. Were they pragmatic, or over-ambitious? Was the campaign built on previous outcomes or looking to achieve a first-time outcome for the brand? Was the campaign made too big, with too many overlapping goals?

· Determine whether the environment played any part in influencing the results. Did the launch take place in the middle of a crowded calendar or a pandemic landscape? Were the key messages adequately defended with regards to an external situation?

· Relook at whether the methodology and metrics are correct for the desired outcomes. Did the campaign adopt a test and learn approach with small experiments scaling into a larger programme? Were the results pre-determined vs. being iterated step-by-step?

To be fair, there is no failed campaign, because every campaign provides yet another data point for businesses to understand their customer, strengthen the persona and refine the key messages.

Customers take time to be cultivated.

Adopting a “if I build it, they will come” mindset coupled with an assumption of failure after one campaign or not achieving an outcome is short-sighted.

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We are Brand Utility is a business consultancy.

We offer strategy and tactics to support growth outcomes - revenue, scale, regional expansion and market entry – for our clients.

Areas of support include:

· Branding: Messaging, positioning, approach to market

· Marketing: Content, social media, email, community amplification

· Lead generation: Digital advertising, social media advertising, social commerce, e-commerce

· Integration of marketing with business operations: Secondment as a marketing or public relations function

Discover more about our services at our website or book an exploratory consultation through this link.

Photo by Ian Kim on Unsplash