Alexis Kestler
Developing and executing marketing campaigns that capture audience attention and deliver results involves complex coordination. From ideation to activation to measurement, each campaign requires significant time and effort across teams. Investing in campaign management software has become critical to streamline processes, enable collaboration and derive actionable insights for continual optimization.
In this extensive guide, we will explore the value of campaign management tools, break down the leading options available and provide tips to select the right platform based on your business needs.
Why Do Businesses Need Dedicated Campaign Management Software?
Campaign management platforms alleviate several pain points in marketing operations:
1. Manual Task Overload
Planning campaigns involves managing many moving parts – budgets, signs offs, resources, timelines etc. Tracking tasks through email chains and spreadsheets is inefficient. Software centralizes work for transparency.
E.g. Software can reduce time spent on coordination by 30-40% as per a McKinsey study.
2. Content Creation Bottlenecks
Brainstorming ideas, writing copy, designing creatives – all these take time. Collaboration issues further slow down asset production.
Solutions with built-in productivity features streamline processes. Campaign development time can reduce by 2x with the right software as HubSpot found.
3. Data Consolidation Challenges
With campaigns running across social, email, landing pages etc – data gets siloed. Manual reporting builds delayed, skewed views.
Tools provide a unified dashboard for real-time holistic insights into campaign KPIs.
4. Limited Optimization Ability
Spotting what campaign elements work becomes difficult without data. Guessing the next best actions leads campaigns astray.
Software exhibits clear data trends to guide improvement decisions. Campaign performance can improve by over 25% through optimization as Snovio shared.
5. Inefficient Budget Utilization
Determining optimal budget split across tactics is tough without historical data. Sub-optimal allocation leaves opportunities untapped.
Tools benchmark metric costs to scientifically direct budgets for maximum impact.
Key Features and Capabilities
Campaign management platforms share some common features while also catering to specialized needs:
Workflow Management
Tools like Wrike provide a universal workspace to plan projects end-to-end – tasks, dependencies, GANTT charts etc. Others have dedicated campaign development workflows – from brief to activation.
Benefit: Structured processes reduce redundancies and breakdowns.
Asset Development
Solutions like HubSpot come equipped with pre-made templates, drag-and-drop builders, and creative services integrations to assist with campaign creation.
Benefit: Eliminates reliance on design software and speeds up ideation-to-activation.
Stakeholder Collaboration
Platforms like AirTable enable real-time information sharing and gathering feedback through customizable views and permissions.
Benefit: Enables alignment and prevents communication gaps between teams.
Integrations & APIs
Tools like Snovio allow connecting to existing stacks – social media platforms, analytics, support etc via integrations. Custom APIs automate data flows further.
Benefit: Achieves a unified view of efforts eliminating data silos.
Automation & Scheduling
Solutions like Mailchimp allow creating triggers that deploy repetitive campaigns like newsletters automatically based on parameters.
Benefit: Removes reliance on manual work; drives consistency at scale.
Reporting & Analytics
Robust platforms provide holistic and customizable reporting into all campaign metrics – costs, impressions, conversions etc for insights.
Benefit: Identifies optimization opportunities through hard data on tactic efficiency.
Image source: Campaign and project management software uses in marketing by Runrun.it
These capabilities showcase how dedicated solutions can overhaul complex manual marketing processes prone to errors and delays.
Now let‘s evaluate leading options:
Top Campaign Management Software Worth Investing In
1. Ainfluencer – For Influencer Campaign Management
Ainfluencer helps discover creators and activate them for branded partnerships through sophisticated campaign management capabilities.
Users particularly praise the platform‘s influencer discovery precision ensuring high campaign relevance. Its collaboration features also simplify relationship management and campaign brief creation.
Post-campaign, Ainfluencer‘s rich analytics offers clear estimates of customers reached, engagement rates and conversions to optimize ongoing efforts.
Pricing – Free
"Ainfluencer opened an all new affordable avenue for us to try influencer marketing. Their technology and support teams gave us the foundation to build fruitful partnerships with creators." – Lifestyle Startup Founder
2. HubSpot – For Cross-Channel Campaign Orchestration
HubSpot brings all inbound marketing activities from blogging to emails under one umbrella for unified campaign development and measurement.
Specifically, users highlight HubSpot‘s pre-made campaign templates that accelerate design. Drag-and-drop builders also empower creating optimized landing pages efficiently.
For activation, the workflow automation builder helps deploy multi-channel campaigns at scale through customized criteria triggering actions. Users also benefit from HubSpot‘s free CRM bringing together campaigns and sales.
Pricing – $45/month basic
"We went all-in on HubSpot since it gave us that consolidated view into the performance of our digital campaigns and tools to actually improve them." – HubSpot CMO Kieran Flanagan
3. Wrike – For Project Planning & Task Management
Where campaign management needs to tie deeply into enterprise work management, Wrike is the leading choice. Beyond campaign development, Wrike can model complex project plans for go-to-market launch strategies encompassing products, positioning and more.
Specifically, program managers praise Wrike‘s GANTT scheduling, workload balancing, what-if analysis and custom fields that lend well to adapting plans. Add-ons like Proofing and Citations also assist with asset reviewal and information sharing cycles.
Pricing – $9.8/month basic
"Wrike has been invaluable for us to optimize utilization of our large, distributed teams when coordinating campaigns spanning global markets." – Consumer Tech Program Director
4. Airtable – For Real-Time Information Sharing
Airtable strikes the right chord between usability and customization for collaborative campaign management. Its spreadsheet-database hybrid enables adapting existing frameworks or building new systems without coding.
Specifically, Airtable speeds up internal content development cycles through features like creator workload view, content calendar, asset hosting and more. Users also benefit from 200+ integrated app automations.
Pricing – $10/month basic
"Airtable opened up new levels of transparency between our global agency partners and regional stakeholder teams that was impossible through email and docs." – Airtable CPO Howie Liu
5. Mailchimp – For Email Campaign Automation
Mailchimp takes the complexity away from deploying perfectly timed, relevant email campaigns at scale. Its intuitive drag-and-drop designer, pre-populated templates and automation workflows make self-serve creation easy.
Users particularly benefit from MailChimp‘s deliverability optimization and real-time inbox placement reporting. Testing capabilities like A/B testing campaign variations further bolsters performance.
Pricing – $9.99/month
"Mailchimp has enabled us to take back control of one of our most vital customer touchpoints – email – and deliver 4x returns through optimization." Fashion Retail Marketing Director
6. Snovio
Snovio empowers running highly personalized outreach campaigns leveraging quick lead list building, templatized follow-ups and response analytics.
Specifically, Snovio‘s integrated LinkedIn extension delivers qualified lead contacts without manual searching. Its multi-flow capability then allows deploying targeted sequences at scale while still seeming 1:1.
Pricing – $30/month basic
"Prospect outreach is a numbers game but needs personalization. Snovio gave us both through automation without losing the human touch resulting in 70%+ open rates." – Business Coach
These solutions showcase the spectrum spanning inexpensive basic automation to full-stack enterprise orchestration in campaign management software. Evaluate their capabilities against your team‘s needs and gaps.
Key Considerations For Choosing Campaign Management Software
While exploring your options, focus on these aspects:
- Integrations: Coverage of required channels like email, social media, ecommerce etc
- Analytics: Custom reporting abilities vs out-of-the-box dashboards
- Collaboration: Approval cycles, asset hosting abilities etc
- Work Management: Project modeling complexities supported
- Automation Range: Pre-built triggers scope vs coding needs
- Development Flexibility: Can you add custom fields, views, design templates etc
- Learning Curve: Documentation quality and ease of onboarding
- Budget: Tiers aligning different team sizes and usage levels
Get clarity on must-have capabilities based on your existing martech stack and gaps. Shortlist tools that allow easy integration without major overhauls. Prioritize solutions that simplify exploring full functionality through free trials before purchase.
Best Practices For Managing Campaigns With Software
Complement your campaign management software purchase with optimizations in your processes:
Centralize Data
- Set up tracking across website, social media, CRM etc to feed campaign management systems
- Tag assets like links, UTM parameters for grouping engagement
Structure Workflows
- Analyze recurring collaborative tasks and standardize for consistency
- Set up SOPs guiding campaign development and post-launch review cycles
Nurture Talent
- Train internal teams hands-on with multi-channel orchestration skills
- Develop their strategic oversight through goal setting and metrics review
Plan Bottom-Up
- Set tangible objectives, audiences and channels first
- Reverse engineer measurement frameworks before ideation
Following these best practices will maximize the impact achievable through your campaign management software. Stay open to tweaking processes over time for improvements too!
Image source: Campaign Management Planning Process by MarketMuse
Key Takeaways
Campaign management entails significant heavy lifting – across teams, workstreams and tools. Software solutions offer:
- Structured workflows facilitating collaboration
- Automation removing dependence on manual work
- Consolidated data-driven insights for continual optimization
Leading the category are purpose-built platforms like Ainfluencer, HubSpot, Wrike etc that enterprises rely on. For small teams starting out, exploring economic tools like AirTable, Mailchimp etc works too.
Assemble a framework to audit your requirements, shortlist aligned solutions and implement best practices early on. This will setup your marketing campaigns for maximizing impact and achieving business growth tangibly through effective management.
Conclusion
I hope this comprehensive guide provides clarity on the value of investing in campaign management software and how to select the right fit. Do reach out with any other questions!
