Must Haves in Your Campaign Pre-Launch Checklist
Your campaign is ready to go. You’ve crafted your content to meet the desires of your target audience, you’ve aligned your messages with the proof points of your brand…but hold on. There are still a few more things to do before you press GO and launch your campaign.
Here’s your pre-launch checklist:
- Is your Call To Action (CTA) consistent across all media channels? This is important if you’re using a multi-platform, multi-channel approach. You can’t afford to confuse your customer.
- This may seem obvious, but is everything spelled correctly? Triple check your spelling, grammar and punctuation. These little mishaps may seem small but can seriously impact your brand’s credibility.
- Consider whether there are alternative interpretations for words and messages used in the campaign that could harm your brand. Gender, sexuality and race are all hot button topics. What’s happening in the news or in the political landscape can also cause a message to backfire on you. As much as the campaign idea was fun or impactful when it was originally created, if it clashes with the current mood of the audience, you’re in trouble. It’s better to delay the campaign and run the right message than to launch anyway and potentially have a mess to clean up.
- Think of the worst case scenario. Case in point—the Kendall Jenner Pepsi protest commercial. This was launched at the absolute worst time and resulted in mockery, vilification, embarrassment and a huge corporate apology.
- Are you linking to the appropriate landing pages? If so, does your landing page work across all screens: mobile, tablet, desktop? Also, make sure that the content on the landing page relates to the reason they clicked.
- Are you using tracking? If so, make sure your UTM codes (or whatever you are using to track success) are set up properly and links are firing correctly. There’s no point running a campaign if you can’t measure whether or not it worked. Take the time to have everything in order that is needed to report on and measure success. You don’t want to realize in the middle of the campaign that you’ve missed the mark and not know where things faltered.
- Have a plan for optimizing the campaign once it’s live. Create a schedule to review and assess the effectiveness and update the campaign content. Have new content prepared and ready to launch. Ensure that your buy is placed so you have the flexibility to change your messages and channels for maximum effectiveness.
- Monitor your social media accounts closely while the campaign is active. If people start talking—good or bad—you’ll want to know about it. You’ll need to figure out how to respond accordingly to use it to your advantage or put out the fire. Plan ahead to develop responses to potential crises and establish a chain of command for who will address these problems. This will help avoid confusion internally and allow the proper representative to relay your pre-developed messages to the public.
- How will you be tracking any earned media coverage generated by the campaign? Whether it’s Google alerts or a sophisticated paid tracking service, be sure to get all of your systems in place for monitoring in advance of the launch. This will keep you informed of your campaign’s performance as it happens and will also help you avoid the headache of compiling all of your coverage at the conclusion of the campaign.
- Are your A/B testing parameters locked? The ability to clearly see which elements a customer engaged with more will help determine if the strategy needs to be altered to create more appealing content to reel in target customers.
Remember, you’re not “go for launch” until you’ve checked all the boxes. Innovative can help you design and build a campaign that’s launch-ready and aimed for success.
Lena Liller
Chief Operating Officer / Director of Account Leadership