Ongoing Strategy vs. Campaign

We know that an ongoing strategy of regular high quality blogging, consistent social media use, and thoughtful linkbuilding will lead to increased traffic at a website. We know this not only from our own experience with many websites, but also from experiments with our lab sites and research reported elsewhere. We can say this with confidence. It takes time to see the results you want, but those results also last.

But that’s not always the only thing you need. One of our clients is getting ready for an event and wants to get the word out quickly. Another wants to see a big jump in ecommerce sales now. Those are not long-term goals, so they don’t need a long-term strategy.

They need a campaign.

A campaign is a limited push with a specific goal in mind.

Here’s what you need for a campaign:

• A sales page where prospective customers can simply buy the thing you have to offer, whether it’s a free ticket to your trade show or a box of your new product. If lead generation rather than sales is your focus, this page might lead people to download a white paper or attend a webinar.
• Strong content that links to your sales page. This can be your blog, articles, videos, podcasts, or any owned content that offers valuable information or entertainment to your prospective clients or customers.
• Promotion for the content that leads to the sales page in the form of social media, email, and .
• Ads to the sales page or to the content leading to the sales page.

Because you’ve been doing the regular, slow work of building your audience, you will have people to send your emails to, people who visit your blog, and people to talk to on social media. Without that regular ongoing strategy, you are back to the old advertising method of shouting at strangers with ads. It can work, but it will cost you a lot more than if you leverage the power of the internet to build an audience of people who want to hear from you.

Those are the people who will be receptive to your campaigns. They’ll also help you spread the word to other people like them, who will probably also be open to your offers.

If you have been doing that ongoing strategic building for a while, consider a campaign to leverage what you’ve built. If you haven’t been doing that building and you don’t have time to wait, start with a campaign, expect it to cost you more, and start building for the future.

However you choose to go, don’t count on magic beans.