In order to implement a successful digital marketing strategy our methodology involves taking a linear journey past a series of milestones (listed below) which focus and define the campaign and its objectives. The linear nature of this methodology means that one can’t finish the process without completing each stage of the program, thus keeping it focused and on-brief. Below is a summary of our approach to digital marketing; this is followed by as more detailed rationale for each of these milestones.

Strategy Milestones:

Research & Planning
Creative Strategy
Execution
Assessment

NOTE: depending on the brief, these stages need not take vast amounts of time but each need to be completed to ensure best possible results.

Research & Planning

In order to implement a successful marketing communications campaign it is essential to understand what we are trying to achieve. By defining our goals we can find the most effective way of realising our agreed aims while also remaining cost-effective & minimising exposure to budgetary waste.

Furthermore, researching in this stage allows us to define the audience with whom we wish to communicate, where they are, what they do and any other prominent features that characterise the group and the individual segments. It also allows us to get a better understanding of your brand, its personality & aspirations.

Agreeing what we’re trying to achieve and who we’ll be talking to (based on our research & background analysis) will shape the creative strategy which is the next phase of our overall strategy within the framework of the brand personality.

Creative Strategy

In order to implement a successful marketing communications campaign it is essential to understand what we are trying to achieve. It is also of paramount importance to know the boundaries in which we must remain to preserve brand equity and messaging, i.e. a conservative brand should have conservative advertising etc.

Knowing the audience will also determine the creative strategy as our target audience will congregate in certain places on the Internet for specific reasons. Social media is a perfect example of this; you will find very different people and behaviours on LinkedIn than those you might find on Facebook or Twitter.

The campaign elements will come out of the research to which KPIs will be attributed in the next section. As previously mentioned, all digital marketing is accountable and we can define our key performance indicators from our research within the constraints of the media & creative choice to determine the success of the campaign in the final stage. However these KPIs must be agreed in the next stage based on media choice in order to shape the media plan.

Execution

This stage is the realisation of the first two stages of the process. Here is where the magic happens. After research and planning our campaign then defining our creative strategy from the first stage, we are ready to set he campaign live. However, it’s not as simple as flicking a switch. The smart way to maximise campaign performance is by following a media plan that has been defined by the KPIs set out in this section. This gives us continuous insight into how the campaign is performing in real time and allows us to see if we’re achieving all of our goals as set out in the plan.

The execution phase will also include media choice in an overall media mix to reach those people with the most effective messaging possible. Tone is also very important here as it will determine engagement levels. Generally people react to and engage with ideas, messages & products that speak their language. This has been defined in the planning & creative strategy stages and will be measured by the KPIs outlined in the previous section. It is through this relentless scrutiny of every aspect of the campaign that will ensure its success by using the transparent resources available as a means to evaluate performance.

Measrurable Returns

Bark is a performance-based advertising agency that prides itself on delivering cost-effective advertising campaigns to its clients through stringent evaluation of all activity. Using industry standard metrics, i.e. cost-per click (CPC), cost per mille (CPM) & cost per acquisition (CPA), we can determine the return on advertising spend (ROAS) which is the all-telling metric. ROAS will determine if an advertising campaign was successful based on our KPIs and goals outlined in the earlier phases.

Further down the line we can use historical performance data to shape future campaigns. These hard facts will help focus the budget and shape the planning and creative strategy phases to ensure the campaign gets off to the best possible start.

Bark is a performance based marketing agency. Our mission is to engage, involve and engage customers on behalf of our clients. We believe that all marketing, whatever the medium must make a return on investment. That’s our focus. That’s why we measure everything we do and are accountable for the results.
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