Sports Marketing Examples: 12 Campaigns That Scored Big
A precise understanding of how to roll out campaigns that stick in consumers' minds fuels the success of brands like Nike, Apple, and Coca-Cola.
These companies have generated billions in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by shifting their attention from broad-brush advertising to impactful and appealing campaigns. According to Statista, Nike invested about $3.11 billion in advertising and promotion in 2022. In the same year, the company's global revenue surpassed $46 billion.
Impressive, isn’t it? But how do you create successful marketing campaigns for your brand?
In this post, we'll walk you through a step-by-step process and share proven marketing campaign examples and templates to help you create campaigns that drive results.
Let's get right to it.
A marketing campaign is a specific set of promotional initiatives developed to accomplish a specific business goal. It's a strategy for getting the word out to current and potential buyers at various stages of the buyer's journey.
Email, print ads, TV/radio spots, pay-per-click, and social media are just some of the mediums of communication that can be used in these campaigns.
To effectively nail your marketing campaign, you need to have a solid marketing plan. It helps you figure out how you’re going to reach and make your customers fall in love with your brand.
This presentation theme below is ideal for introducing a new marketing campaign to your company's staff in an exciting and captivating way. You can easily share and publish your presentations and collaborate with your team.
A marketing campaign is more holistic and long-term in its approach. Marketing campaigns are targeted marketing efforts to increase brand awareness, sales, or customer loyalty through consistent messaging over time.
An advertising campaign could be a subset of a more comprehensive marketing campaign approach. Advertising campaigns are more focused on a specific message or product launch period. They tend to be shorter-term than marketing campaigns, and their primary goal is to increase brand awareness and drive sales during that period.
Consider Apple's marketing for a new product launch. The advertising campaign would only be an aspect of their marketing approach. The entire marketing campaign may include paid search, social media, and email newsletters.
A lot goes into creating an effective advertising strategy. To increase your chances of success, here are a few key components to consider when planning your next advertising campaign.
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Clarifying your marketing campaign's end goal will help you evaluate the success of your campaign once it has been launched. It provides clear direction and keeps your team on the same page.
A research by Inc. indicated that 70% of organizations viewed “communicating company goals” as an effective strategy to have high-performing staff members.
Answering the following question might help you clarify your marketing campaign goal:
When you know what you're shooting for with your campaign, you can use the SMART framework to evaluate its adequacy.
Setting SMART goals is the most efficient way to reach your goals. SMART goals are those that are "specific," "measurable," "attainable," "realistic," and "time-bound."
For example, let’s say you have this campaign's goal: To generate 200 qualified leads for our new product line in December by implementing a targeted PPC campaign with a click-through rate (CTR) of 5%.
This goal is specific (qualified leads), measurable (200), attainable (a CTR of 5%), relevant (new product line), and timely (December).
Learn more about creating SMART goals in this article, and use the template below to develop a SMART goal for your next marketing campaign.
Your target audience should inform every step of your advertising strategy. You need to understand your target audience and how to connect with them.
Investing in a marketing effort that fails to connect with your intended audience can result in wasted resources. That’s because you won’t know what tactics to deploy, channels to use or messages to share with them.
Start by understanding the demographics of your target audience. Get familiar with their lifestyle, habits, and preferences for your marketing efforts to be successful.
How do you research or understand your target audience? Use a buyer persona template to create a fictionalized profile of your ideal customer. A study by ITSMA revealed that 90% of businesses that employ buyer personas have a deeper understanding of their clients than their competitors.
Creating a client persona has never been easier with these templates from Visme. If you want to learn more about developing a persona, watch this video below.
It's important that you determine which channels will be most effective in delivering the right message at the right time.
Finding out where your target audience already spends their time online will help you zero in on the best social media platform for your company. Do they hang out on Facebook or Instagram, Linkedin, or Twitter?
For instance, if your product is aimed at baby boomers but the product release is announced on Snapchat, you're probably making the wrong choice.
Your campaign's return on investment may be low because only 9% of boomers use Snapchat. So, it's crucial that you use the appropriate channels for advertising.
To ensure you don’t miss out on any opportunities to reach your audience, we recommend deploying an omnichannel marketing strategy. It helps you engage customers across different touchpoints and create a consistent brand experience across multiple platforms.
We've included an infographic format to help you make the best social media platform decision for your business.
Read this article to discover 13 effective marketing channels for your business.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are often the backbone of a well-grounded, effective marketing campaign strategy. They serve as your definition of success and should be actionable and measurable.
The KPIs you track will look different depending on the type of marketing campaign you're running and your ultimate goals. However, in terms of the goals, these are some of the most important KPIs to track.
You can break down the performance of your marketing KPIs using the report template below:
It can be motivating to try to live up to the lofty goals of some campaigns. However, without a budget, you can easily use up all of your company's available resources without achieving tangible ROI. A financial plan can help you manage your resources and achieve your goals without breaking the bank.
According to the Small Business Administration, brands spend between 2% and 20% of their annual sales forecast on marketing campaigns. However, your budget will depend on the cost of promotion, the size of your business, the nature of your industry, and the development stage at which your company is currently operating.
How do you set a budget for your marketing campaign? Review the marketing goals you set earlier, as well as the marketing channels. Next, determine whether or not funding is available for your campaign. Then create a monthly, quarterly and annual spending plan based on the available resources.
As you execute your marketing campaign, continue to gauge your success. Then gradually tweak your strategy and budget to achieve a positive campaign ROI.
This customizable budget report template is a perfect resource for creating a marketing budget.
Conducting a competitive analysis or audit reveals your competitors' strategies, tactics, strengths and weaknesses. This way, you can spy on methods other businesses are using to achieve their marketing goals.
Follow these steps to review your competitors:
The answers to these questions can serve as a road map for your marketing campaign and may even spark some ideas for content.
You can also conduct research or an market analysis to understand gaps in the market that you can take advantage of.
By addressing these shortcomings, you'll give yourself an edge over the competition.
As you go about researching, record your findings in a SWOT analysis template like this one:
Excellent creative materials should be used to support your campaign effort. Make sure the design of your campaign marketing material is polished and appropriate, whether it's a sleek website, a catchy image, or a video ad.
In this article, we’ve rounded up 20+ types of marketing collateral to drive your marketing campaigns.
You've done your research, created a list of target markets, and set goals for your campaign. Now it's time to execute.
Determine what you'll use to fuel the campaign and start making that content. It's not unusual for a marketing effort to have content in more than one format. Video advertisements, press releases, and guest blog posts are all examples of what could be included in a campaign.
Then, create a detailed marketing plan that includes all the tasks that need to be completed and who will be responsible for each one.
From there, set marketing timelines for each task and track progress. This way, if any hiccups occur along the way or something disrupts your original plans, you'll be prepared with an action plan on how best to proceed.
When a company wants to launch a new product (or add new features to an existing product), they launch a product marketing campaign. It's a way to let potential buyers know your products' features, benefits and value.
A great marketing campaign example that focuses on the product is Apple's iPhone ad campaign in 2007. The campaign kicked off with Steve Jobs's keynote speech. In the presentation, he marketed the iPhone as "an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator." Jobs called it "the finest of all worlds," a seamless combination of these features.
There was so much interest in this ad that customers camped out overnight at Apple stores to get their hands on one.
Here are 10 of the most important product marketing KPIs to track:
Whether launching a new product or rebranding an existing one, Visme has a wide variety of templates to use for your product marketing campaigns.
Brand development campaigns are marketing tactics used to increase brand awareness, boost brand recognition and build a loyal customer base. It is geared toward boosting product sales and improving the public's opinion of the brand.
Here are some key KPIs to track:
Here's an example of a brand guidelines template you can use for your campaign.
Ready to boost your brand strength? Visme’s Brand Design Tool helps you build and project a solid brand identity using the power of AI. You can use Brand Wizard to create stunning branded content ( logos, fonts, colors) and ready-to-use templates for your business in minutes.
An email marketing campaign is a series of coordinated marketing efforts that target subscribers at optimal times and provide them with valuable content and compelling offers. With a solid email marketing strategy, you can connect with customers on a personal level and earn their trust.
This is a list of KPIs to monitor your email campaign’s efficiency.
Create a quick guide for your email marketing projects with this creative brief template.
A content marketing campaign is a marketing approach that relies on creating and distributing interesting, useful, consistent, and high-quality content. It establishes expertise, boosts brand awareness and keeps your brand top of mind.
Here are some important KPIs to measure in content marketing campaigns:
You can organize your content marketing strategy in no time with this engaging and neat plan template.
A UGC campaign encourages your audience to share their content on social media about your business. These contents may include text, images, testimonials and videos, which can help increase brand awareness and exposure.
A public relations campaign is a planned and organized effort to manage the public's perception of your brand. It involves a range of tactics and strategies—from traditional advertising to social media campaigns—all focused on increasing positive visibility for your brand.
Here are some metrics to measure the impact of a PR campaign;
We’ve shared 28 press release templates you can use for your next promotion. Simply choose a template and customize it according to your needs using Visme's professional document creator.
A direct mail campaign is a marketing strategy that involves sending letters, brochures, or other promotional materials via the postal service to a specific group of people.
Here are some metrics to track success:
An affiliate marketing campaign is a marketing effort that relies on the efforts of third parties to promote a brand.
A social media campaign is an organized effort to increase awareness of a brand, product, or event on social media. Social media campaigns can include advertising, customer service, and customer engagement.
Ready to kickstart your social media campaigns? Here's a creative brief template to keep your team on track.
Engage effectively with your investors and other stakeholders using the social media marketing proposal template below.
Acquisition marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on attracting new customers. It can be used to attract new customers to your business or customers from other businesses.
Check out some of these top metrics for acquisition marketing:
A paid marketing campaign is the practice of purchasing advertising space to promote a product or service. It includes campaigns like banner ads on websites, sponsored posts on social media and even television commercials.
Supercharge your paid marketing campaign with these video ad templates from Visme's library.
Now you’ve executed your marketing. Great job, but the job isn’t done yet. You’ll need to review your campaigns, learn from your wins and losses, and create a report.
Quickly round up the performance of your marketing campaigns using this daily report template.
The last step is reviewing your campaign once it's finished. Here are some important questions you should answer.
Asking yourself these questions will help identify gaps and improve your next marketing campaign.
Create a marketing campaign report that includes a tactical list of steps to take. This way, you can discuss and prioritize steps to take with your team.
Aim to be concise as you create this marketing campaign report. If you create a wordy report, your audience will zone off.
Instead, create a document that summarizes your findings and includes charts, graphs, maps, widgets, and other data visualization tools. That way, more people will read and appreciate your hard work.
Here’s the good news. Visme makes it uber-simple to create easy-to-read graphs, charts and other visual aids. You can use these visual aids to communicate your message clearly and effectively. You can also use Dynamic Fields to easily update information throughout your projects from a single source.
Before your next marketing campaign, examine the process and tools you’re using with the knowledge above. Then give some thought to whether your tooling and processes are set up to maximize your success.
With Visme, marketing campaigns are smoother and directly result in a more measurable impact on the bottom line. Our user-friendly content creation tool will help your team generate branded, original content that will intrigue your audience.
Sign up for Visme's all-in-one marketing campaign design tool to get started with your next marketing campaign.
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