Marketing Campaign Planning

Is THIS the best ad campaign ever? In 2015, Sport England challenged ad agency FCB Global to close the 2 million strong gender gap by getting women more active. The agency used the insight that women often feel 'fear of judgement' in exercise, to create the campaign 'This Girl Can'. The campaign is a rallying cry to women to get active in THEIR own way by replacing fear with a 'don't give a damn' attitude. This is shown with bold copywriting, relatable casting, REAL moments (the make-up smudged under the eyes, normal jiggling bodies, menopausal sweat, period cramps, tampon string hanging out your pants) and a true sense of female camaraderie. Since it's launch: - 3 million women were inspired to exercise as a direct result of seeing the campaign - 1000+ social media mentions each day - 37m views across social media - 500,000 active members in the This Girl Can community - Cannes Lions award The campaign is evidence that advertising can make great impact and drive change in many little corners of the world. THIS is the result of a clear brief, unifying insight and - in this case - a dedicated female creative team who truly 'understand' their audience. But more than that, it's the result of a LONG-TERM campaign that has been running for almost decade, and continues to re-engage the audience in various different ways, globally. I think there is such a short-term mindset in advertising nowadays. Mainly due to the fast-paced nature of social media, the need to 'go viral' and the economic need for performance marketing tactics to generate cashflow. But without the longer-term brand campaigns, we are missing the ability to build strong narratives and make REAL change in the world. And with that, stronger brand salience, brand love and LEGACY. This is an element of advertising that I fell in love with years ago. And an element that I see really defining which brands stand the test of time, an which fall apart years down the line.

One of the surprising and counter-cultural truths about modern-day marketing, which I suspect drives many efficiency-minded people practically insane, is that physical direct mail continues to work really, really well. It makes no sense purely from an efficiency standpoint because it's a very expensive way of reaching a single person. But from an effectiveness standpoint, direct mail is often cited as one of the most successful forms of acquisition whenever I speak to a business. I think we ought to ask ourselves why. One reason is simply that it's much rarer than it was. My own children, who are in their 20s, find receiving a piece of direct mail wildly exciting. It's not like the late 90s, which was probably the high point of direct mail volume, where in the run-up to Christmas you found it difficult to open your front door. Quite the opposite, in fact. One of the reasons I always recommend to clients that they test direct mail is that, because it's so counter-cultural, most of their competitors will be reluctant to copy them. But what is it that makes direct mail so uniquely effective? In his book How to Become an Advertising Man, James Webb Young lists seven functions of advertising, one of which is how to overcome inertia. I think about it in a slightly different way. A great sales message doesn't just answer the question, "Why should you buy it?" but also answers a secondary question, "Why should you buy it now?" I believe direct mail creates a decisive moment through its perceived scarcity and costly signalling – something other, more indiscriminate media simply don’t achieve. How can we test if I’m right? Answers on a postcard, please. Ogilvy UK | #Advertising #creativity #behaviouralccience  

I just deleted 147 cold emails without reading them. Here’s what they all got wrong: Every morning, my inbox looks the same. A flood of pitches from people trying to sell me something. Most days, I just mass delete them. But this morning, I decided to actually read through them first. Within 5 minutes, I spotted a pattern. Everyone was making the exact same mistake. They were all trying to close the deal. ALL IN THE FIRST MESSAGE 🥵 Let me show you what I mean (with two small examples): APPROACH A: "The Wall of Text" Send 100 cold emails with full pitch, calendar link, and case studies. • 3 people open • 0 responses • 0 intros This looks exactly like the 147 emails I just deleted "Hi [Name], I noticed your company is scaling fast! We help companies like yours optimize their marketing stack through our proprietary AI technology. Our clients see 300% ROI within 90 days. Here's my Calendly link to book a 15-min chat: [LINK]. Looking forward to connecting! Best, [Name]" BORING!!! APPROACH B: "Micro Conversations" Same 100 prospects, broken down into micro-convo's. Email 1: "Do you know [mutual connection]?" • Send 100 • ~40 open • ~20 respond Email 2: "They mentioned you're scaling your marketing team. I'd love to connect about [specific thing]." • Send to 20 who responded • ~15 continue engaging Email 3: "Would you mind if they made an intro?" • Ask 15 engaged prospects • ~10 intros Final score: • Approach A: No intros • Approach B: 10 intros How to Apply These Lessons (Tactical Summary): 1. Focus on Micro-Conversations: Break your cold outreach into smaller, manageable steps. Build rapport before making any asks. 2. Personalize Everything: Reference mutual connections, specific company milestones, or shared interests in every message. 3. Play the Long Game: Aim for replies in the first message.. not conversions. If you’ve been struggling with cold outreach, you might just need a new approach. Give this one a try and lmk how it goes.

Founder: "We need deals NOOOOW" B2B Marketer: *activates panic-led marketing mode*: - Spend $10K on lead magnet ads - Spam the mailbox of signups with 'value' - Call the prospects after 4 days "-20% promotion" - 4th email says "introduce me to the person in charge" Total duration of the marketing sequence: 15 days. That's 2 weeks from the first touch point to the last email saying "you seem busy, we will not disturb you anymore". But on their side, the buyer needs a minimum of 4 months to purchase. Let's call it the biggest misalignment in B2B Marketing: → The seller is in a hurry to sell (15-day sequence) → The buyer wants to take their time (4 months) And the problem goes beyond misalignment. The panic-led marketing mode leads to 3 more problems: 1. You lose deals → You get flagged as spammy by prospects 2. You create marketing debt → Wrong actions compound negatively 3. You burn the brand → Your business seems needy and not healthy Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying emailing is bad. I'm saying the 15-day panic-led email sequence is a problem. Because it doesn't let enough time for the buyer to do what they need: ☐ Do their own research on the problem ☐ List potential solutions and alternatives ☐ Create a buying checklist ☐ Find 3-4 potential providers ☐ Read and watch providers' content ☐ Seek advice from industry peers It's the seller's duty to understand the buying process and adapt to it. And it's the role of marketers to advocate for this market reality. So here are 4 tactics to adapt to the 'self-serve buying trend': 1. A solid content strategy covering the whole buying journey 2. Account-based marketing for high ACV ($30K or more) 3. Social selling and communities to be close to the prospects 4. A healthy paid ads ecosystem across multiple channels PS: I'm sharing a list of resources about these 4 tactics in the comment, have a look.

Your sales emails suck. And guess what? I know because I get 30 of them a day. I see the same mistakes over and over...the boring intros, the endless rambling, and the generic pitches that make my inbox feel like a nightmare. Want to know why? Because your email has 3 seconds to make an impression. THREE. Seconds. That's how long you have before I hit "delete" So if you’re not cutting through the noise, you’re just part of the problem. Here’s why your outreach isn’t working: 🚫 Cut the fluff, now – “Hope you’re doing well” or “Just checking in” is a one-way ticket to the trash. No one has time for that. If you don’t get to the point within the first 5 words, you’re done. ✂️ Get to the point fast – Lengthy emails are a killer. Research shows emails under 50 words see 83% more replies. That means if you're writing a novel, you’re already losing. 📚 Personalize (like actually personalize) – "I see you're in [insert job title here]”—that's not personalization, it’s lazy. Do your homework and show that you understand my specific challenges and goals. If you don’t, I’m clicking delete before you even finish your sentence. 🎯 Relevance matters more than anything – If your email isn’t directly tied to what I’m trying to accomplish, it’s not going to get a reply. I don’t need a generic pitch; I need to know how you can help me solve my problems today. 🔥 Stop the lazy copy-paste – If I can tell you’re sending the same message to 100 people, I’m out. Your outreach should feel like you’re speaking to me, not to the entire world. Personalization isn’t just a buzzword. You’ve got 3 seconds to grab attention and show value. If you’re still using the same tired tactics, you’re wasting your time...and mine. 🎤 🫳 ALSO MASSIVE SHOUTOUT to the folks using video to prospect, can say that personalized video messages get a response from me every time. I LOVE them.

The sales stack that runs our $4.4M+ agency: CONTEXT We run outbound campaigns for > 70 B2B organisations. We need to be flexible because our clients are: - in different niches - targeting various personas - at different stages (enterprise, scaleups, SMBs) Some platforms overlap, since we adapt to clients' existing software stack. TOOLS 1/ Data "The list is the strategy" The first step in a successful outbound campaign is to build an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) list. We can do this in several ways: - exporting data from b2b databases - scraping websites to find custom data - leveraging ai agents to research data at scale - uncovering buying intent by using monitoring signals Depending on the use case, we'll leverage: - AI Agents: Relevance AI, Claygent - Enrichment Platforms: Prospeo.io, FullEnrich, Icypeas, LeadMagic - Intent Data: Common Room, Trigify.io, LoneScale, Unify, Vector 👻 - Data Scrapers: Instant Data Scraper, PhantomBuster, ZenRows, Serper - Data Sources: Openmart (local data) DiscoLike (ai lookalikes) TheirStack (technology data) LinkedIn, Apollo, Ocean (b2b databases) To validate this data, we use 1 out of Instantly.ai, BounceBan, LeadMagic or NeverBounce. 2/ Outreach "The right message, in front of the right person, at the right time" The right message is easier to write when you have the right person. That said, you can get some extra help with platforms like Octave for ICP research, Twain for copywriting or Grammarly for spelling. To send these "right" messages, we use Instantly.ai (best at email outreach) & lemlist (best at multichannel outreach) Depending on projects, other platforms we'll use include: - Woodpecker.co, Unify, Smartlead (for email sending). - HeyReach.io (for LinkedIn outreach) - Salesfinity (for cold calling) 3/ Workflow Orchestration To bridge the gap between outreach & data, we use workflow builders that let us add conditions around how data should interact with sales engagement platforms. In practice, that means that platforms like Relevance AI, Default, Clay or n8n allow you to automate: - receiving enriched contact data - creating conditions for whether someone shall be contacted - routing leads to the appropriate campaign - reaching out The best way to think about 'workflow orchestration' is to imagine what you'd do manually if you had all the time in the world. Then, replicate these manual steps using workflow builders. 4/ Deal Closing We use OutboundSync to synchronise leads generated through outbound efforts with our clients' CRM. Plus, we use: - Attio as our CRM. - Breakcold for social selling. - Attention for meeting recording. - Qwilr to send proposals after our prospects' meetings. That's it. Once again... we use way more tools than necessary because we switch from one to another depending on our clients. If you're running outbound for your company... Pick 1 platform max per category. And you'll do just fine. That said... anything you'd add to this stack?

11 Cold Email Tactics to Trash 1. Using hype-y and therefore unbelievable copy: “We have the best leads,” “We 5X your sales,” “6-minute abs.” 2. Buzzwords like “End-to-end,” “optimization,” “value-added,” “360 view,” “synergy,” “breakthrough.” 3. Tricking people into opening emails with misleading subject lines like “re: contract.” 4. Rambling: Not this - “The reason I’m reaching out is that I noticed.” This - “Looks like…” 5. Self-centered copy: Your “I” to “You” ratio is 5:1. Flip it. 6. Generic copy like “More sales” and “Increase productivity.” Be crisp or specific: “Do you spend 10+ minutes sitting in the back of a truck rigging a simple double drop nymph setup?” 7. Fake nice: like “Love your podcast,” or “Your post was amazing.” Saying something nice just to cash it in later is called manipulation. 8. Not knowing what specifically sucks about how your prospect is getting the job done today. 10. Bump emails like, “Just seeing if you got my email.” 11. Cramming too many ideas into one email. Isolate the problems you solve. One problem per email. Don't make all your chess moves as once. Make one move at a time. Did I miss any?

Revenue leaders are getting the Outreach/Google announcement wrong. It doesn't mean the death of cold email. In fact, cold email is about to become even MORE POWERFUL, but the playbook looks very different... 👇 Here's the breakdown: The Old “Predictable Revenue” Cold Email Playbook (2011-2023): - Download a target list of accounts and contacts from ZoomInfo/Apollo based on firmographic data, title, and relevant tech - Have young, untrained, North American BDRs stick them into Outreach, which will send a generic, un-personalized flow, and have zero regard for negative engagement metrics (like the 3/1000 SPAM limit that Gmail will start imposing soon) - Send a daily Salesforce report of engagers to your BDRs so that your reps can attack people who made the mistake of opening or clicking an email - Get frustrated when none of this works because inboxes are ruined - Yell at your team that they aren’t working hard enough, keep increasing activity metrics - Either you let go of the BDR leader or they quit, hire a new leader, only to repeat the exact same process, step-by-step, oblivious to the fact that 2023 broke this busted playbook… The New “Inbound-Led-Outbound” Cold Email Playbook (2023-????): - Build an audience before you even have a product with Linkedin, Podcasts, Virtual/Live events, etc - Invest in community WAY TOO EARLY, by answering every comment on Linkedin, leading weekly work-in-public workshops, and cultivating a group of brand ambassadors - Download that same target list of accounts from ZoomInfo/Apollo, but cross-reference it with your community of engagers on social media and events, and start there - Create 20 inboxes in Outlook (not Gmail) across 10 “look-alike” domains and make sure the DNS, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and redirects are all set up correctly. Use Instantly to warm up the inboxes. - Systematically send friendly, open-ended messages through Instantly to PEOPLE WHO ALREADY KNOW YOU through your content, and land in the primary folder because of how diligent you were setting up the infrastructure - Get absurdly high reply rates because of the relationship you have previously established with these prospects, the fact that you aren’t a BDR half their age who understands nothing about them, and your email is a friendly, inviting, non-sale. - Use a Person-Level website identity tool to see who has hit your website, and based on the users pageviews, do ever-more targeted outreach, automated and manual, nudging them down the funnel. - Watch yourself close MORE deals FASTER with ABSURD efficiency because your trust-building and education process has taken place over months if not years of steady content creation. - Stay bootstrapped longer than anyone previously thought possible because you are trading a small amount of predictability for a HUGE amount of capital efficiency It’s a Push vs. Pull model. In 2024, Pull wins.

Generic, boring recruiting emails aren't cutting it anymore. Here's the reality: While 76.6% of outreach gets opened, only 22.6% get replies, and of those, around 50% are “thanks, but no thanks”—which means they’re not interested. So, we analyzed over 4 million outreach sequences sent through Gem to uncover what actually drives engagement. 💡 Here are 8 factors that move the needle: 1. Strategic timing The best send times are… - 8 am (68.0% open rate) - 4 pm (67.3% open rate) - 10 am (67.0% open rate) 2. Weekend advantage Few recruiters send weekend outreach, but these messages perform exceptionally well (≥66% open rates). 3. Message length Keep initial messages between 101 to 150 words. You can deliver the essentials in fewer than 10 sentences. 4. Deep personalization Highly personalized messages see a 73% engagement rate. Using tokens like first name or company name can increase open rates by up to 5%. 5. Subject line optimization The sweet spot is between 3 to 9 words… …though some subject lines as lengthy as 11 words still see good open rates if they’re catchy. Pro tip: Include company names and job titles for higher open rates. 6. The 5-stage sequence When you follow up strategically with 5 messages, you'll see 2x more replies and achieve nearly 68% higher "interested" rates than one-off emails. After stage 5, engagement flattens completely. 7. Leadership involvement Having your hiring manager or executive send one of the follow-ups improves reply rates by over 50% (yet only 22% of recruiters are using this tactic!). 8. Role-specific timing For technical roles, 3 out of the top 4 send times fall on weekends. For non-tech roles, stick to typical business hours. Want to see more best practices from top TA teams like Robinhood, Yext, Anthropic, Zapier, and Roblox? Download our full guide here: https://lnkd.in/gRDfiamg

An ecommerce company recently approached my team to do an email audit as they were facing challenges with low open and click-through rates. After analyzing their email account, here are our main recommendations to revive their email marketing channel: 1. Strategic Email Segmentation: Currently, your emails lack personal relevance due to a one-size-fits-all approach. This is a crucial area to address. Action Plan: Implement segmentation based on purchase history, engagement levels, browsing behavior, and demographic information. 2. Personalized Content Creation: Generic content won't cut it. Your audience needs to feel that each email is crafted for them. Action Plan: Develop emails specifically tailored to the different segments. This includes curated product recommendations, personalized offers, and content that aligns with their interests. 3. Subject Line A/B Testing: Your current subject lines aren't doing their job. You need to be implementing ongoing A/B subject line tests, as this is low-hanging fruit to improve your open rates. Action Plan: Regularly test different subject line styles and formats to identify what resonates best with each segment. Keep track of the metrics to inform future campaigns. 4. Mobile Optimization: A significant portion of your audience reads emails on mobile devices. Neglecting this is causing a decrease in your email engagement rates. Action Plan: Ensure all emails are responsive and visually appealing on various screen sizes. Test your emails on multiple devices before sending them out. Additional Campaign Strategies We Recommend: - Launch a Monthly Newsletter: This should include new arrivals, style guides, and user-generated content. It’s an excellent way to keep your brand in the minds of your customers. - Seasonal Campaign Integration: Tailor your campaigns to align with holidays and seasons. This approach can significantly boost engagement and sales during key periods. - Re-Engagement Campaigns: Specifically target subscribers who haven't interacted with your brand recently. Offer them unique incentives to rekindle their interest. Next steps: 1. If you found this helpful, please leave a comment and let me know. 2. If you own/run/work at an Ecommerce company doing at least $1 million in annual revenue, message me so my team can audit your email channel to see if there's a good fit for working together.