After you’ve determined what the creative/messaging will be for your campaign (see Creative Concepts for details), the next step is to take all of the available marketing tactics you have at your disposal, determine which are appropriate for your audience and the product or service you’re marketing, and map out a calendar that indicates exactly what drop dates for each tactic will yield the maximum return to you in terms of lead generation and brand awareness.
Potential tactics are nearly limitless for anyone with imagination (and many also involve aspects of PR, communications, and/or analyst relations), but some of the most typical include websites and micro-sites, email, direct mail/redemption, promotions, fulfillment, tradeshow/conference events, booth and banner large format material production, webcasts/podcasts, directory listings, print and/or banner advertising, and so on.
One of the easiest and most effective methods of organizing, prioritizing, and scheduling execution dates for the various tactics you’re employing is to map them around a date-driven event that’s not likely to change. Work using the ‘cast-in-stone’ event date as the first item on the calendar and then work backwards to order the tactics you want to use — then back out preparation/execution times (including buffers) and put them all on a calendar and (if you use it) some type of project management software like Microsoft project that allows you to clearly see critical paths and how to recover the campaign if an element slips in time. The graphic to the right depicts a simplified version of the campaign integration concept that includes only a few of the tactics that might most commonly be used.
