Creating Feedback Loops for Better, Smarter, More Effective Creative

Client Overview

A multinational organization offered a professional accreditation for individuals with training in the impacts of building construction, design, and operation on human health and well-being. While the organization had advertised the offering in the past, its previous efforts had been in one-off communications, rather than in a strategic, tactical marketing campaign.

The Challenge

Now, the client had the will and the budget to support a fresh campaign promoting the credential. Eager to leave their un-strategic past behind, the client wanted regularly reported, quantifiable key performance indicators (KPIs). This worked perfectly, because, as I well know, you can't effectively build on what you don't understand. A testing-and-reporting-led strategy would generate the information the client wanted, while providing the insights I and my team needed to drive continual improvement in the campaign.

Approach

With the proverbial keys to the client's marketing apparatus in hand, I moved to do the exact opposite of the prior one-off approach: a thoughtful, unified, tactically adaptive campaign. Beyond a messaging framework, I created a campaign framework that explicitly laid out plans for testing and reporting individual creative’s success. This enabled us to continually test new opportunities while clearly identifying what was working best and building on that. By employing this kind of testing and adaptation, we were able to turn the campaign into a conversation.

To execute, I set out to:

• identify and target audience segments,

• develop multiple approaches for each segment for testing and improvement, and

• create and deploy a unified visual language for continuity.

  
  

With that unified visual language in mind, we were able to create an evergreen framework for both design and asset creation, so spinning up new iterations for different channels and approaches — while maintaining clear, consistent branding — was simple. Social posts, nurture emails, and landing pages could all be iterated and improved upon, making a nimble, intelligent campaign possible.

However, to make the most of being nimble and intelligent requires insight. Namely, information about who’s viewing the content, where they’re viewing it, and how they’re reacting to it. I made collecting, analyzing, and acting on this information a priority. We wanted to make reaching people and helping them down-funnel as natural as possible. To help with this, automated processes were put in place to trigger nurture emails as the users progressed through the buyer’s journey, with clear points of purchase offered in each communication.

As the campaign progressed, we were able to hone in on what worked and what could be improved upon. From adjusting discounts based on user feedback, to refining the cadence of nurture emails based on opens and click-through rates, the campaign grew stronger and more effective with each iteration.

From adjusting discounts based on user feedback, to refining the cadence of nurture emails based on opens and click-through rates, the campaign grew stronger and more effective with each iteration.

Results

Under my campaign, the client saw its rate of user-to-lead-acquisition double. The repurposable frameworks and iterative approach proved not only more effective, but more efficient, as well, demonstrating a 35% plunge in cost-per-impression. Thanks to the added effort of an adaptive campaign, the organization's landing pages drove traffic 1.8 times more cost-effectively than industry benchmarks.