How to make inspirational marketing campaigns

Why do you do what you do? This simple question has been a game changer for quite some time and I hope this article helps you as much as it helped me, professionally and personally.

To get the most out of this post, I suggest you to watch this TED Talk by Simon Sinek – a marketing consultant and motivational speaker –  as it helped me answer the question I mentioned previously.

In this video, Simon talks about his Golden Circle theory to explain why some leaders have more success than others, even when they don’t have the optimal circumstances to reach their goals.

He explains with examples like Apple, the Wright Brothers and even Martin Luther King to show that the way you think when planning your objectives is the most important part.

In the end, he proves that the Why, is the most important thing when thinking about your project: Why do you want to do this? Why do you want to show this ad? Why do you want to create this project? After that, the How and What comes and then you will have a good way to plan. A way used by most of the great leaders and it’s not even a great secret.

Now that you know about the golden circle – the secret behind the success of companies and leaders – I can tell you more about how I use this concept in my personal life and in my work with Digital Marketing.

Why do I use Digital Marketing?

Have you asked yourself this question? I mean, REALLY asked? If your answer is something like getting more money or getting more clients, well, I’m sorry, but in my experience, these answers will get you nowhere. Maybe you get some – or a lot – of bucks, but you won’t grow as much as you’d like, your churn will certainly raise, and when you least expect, clients will not respond to your marketing strategies anymore.

More clients and money should not be your final objective, they must be consequences of the real one. The challenge is to find the right answer, after that, everything will come much easier! And you know what’s better? You will love what you do even more.

To help you understand how I think when planning marketing strategies here at Cheesecake Labs, I have to first explain our Why.

What is our company’s mission? In our About page, you can see this phrase:

Driven by the desire to improve life, achieve technological excellence, operate with the highest standards of integrity and employ a diverse workforce that values collaboration.

For me, the Why became:

I believe we work with the focus of improving the lives of our partners, clients, and co-workers, with ideas, good communication and a sense of community in the workplace.

After talking with the Cakers Alex Cordeiro and Victor Oliveira, I clearly see that they already work with the golden circle in mind, and what’s better, they hadn’t seen the video until I showed it to them. And that makes all the difference!

When I come up with ads or plan marketing strategies, I don’t focus on getting most of the leads and I don’t rub tons of screaming colored images in the reader’s face to get any kind of lead. No. I sincerely plan all strategies, so I can find companies and people that need help with a problem that I know Cheesecake can solve. In the end, a true partnership that lasts longer than the delivery of a product.

Our Why makes me choose to send an email and private messages, by Linkedin or Twitter, for example, thinking of them as people that I’d like to be a friend of or people that I know Cheesecake would be able to help with their actual problem.

Ok, but where are the examples, Leandro?

Ok, let’s get more technical and see how to create a Marketing Plan with the Golden Circle model. First, let’s see how I built the Cheesecake Golden Circle:

Why

There are unevenness and inequality in a crescent technology market. There are talented people that don’t have a job or have one that doesn’t give them a reason to get out of bed. We want to connect these people with the right companies so they can both achieve their dreams.

How

By caring about the product more than about the profit. We work with projects in which we believe we can make the difference. We do this with transparency, so we can show our real focus.

What

We develop digital products. We make part of the product’s lifecycle and always seek its continuous evolution.

Let’s create a simple campaign!

Objective: Get more clients for iOS mobile app projects.

With the Golden Circle in mind, let’s think about the strategies we can use.

Quora: For us, the best place to share content and create a good network (and even find good leads). Here we are literally helping people by answering their questions. I will put together keywords from the project (iOS development, mobile apps, etc) and find people with problems that we can help.

After that, I will ask a Caker with iOS background to answer the question, first writing a blog post and then really answering the questions we have traced, not only linking the post but truly giving the best solution and IF it makes sense sharing also the link to the blog post.

Even if the objective is to get more clients, the Why supersedes it, and we believe in helping first. We are a company that has a background in software development, so is in our core to help the community with an open source mindset.

On the other side, the Caker answering the question is being seen as not only as a specialist but someone you can count on. They will get new Twitter followers, Facebook friends, more people for upvoting their post on Reddit and other similar networks. These people will truly help and won’t just use copy and paste to express themselves.

For every action that has a link, prepare it with the Campaign URL Builder so you can track the best results and networks, to have a constant sense of evolution based on data and showing the Caker and other stakeholders how and what you get with such action.

Schedule on your calendar to check those results again, compare with new results next month and track down the new friends, this way you’re able to analyze the impact in long term. It’s important to understand what were the key contributions you’ve made t the campaign, so your help can be even more appreciated next time.

This is only an example. In a real campaign, you will need to have the same kind of strategic thinking to build a digital marketing campaign with your own objectives in mind – and always this way!

This is my first post here at Cheesecake Labs’ blog and I hope that I can help all of you –  advertisers, developers, CEOs – and anyone who likes to understand how to improve the approach with your leads and possible clients, creating business partners and even friends. Feel free to add me on Linkedin other social networks!

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”