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Create a Marketing Plan & Grow Your Standout Business

Lesson 30 of 35

Example of Campaign Creation


Create a Marketing Plan & Grow Your Standout Business

Lesson 30 of 35

Example of Campaign Creation


Lesson Info

Example of Campaign Creation

My name is Christine Herrin. I make physical products. Oh, great. Yeah. The name of my company is It's a line of paper products centered around getting people excited about documenting in creative and meaningful ways. So, if Leanette had her digital scrapbooking, mine is a step behind, where it's talking to non-scrapbookers and saying, this is why it's fun to document. And simplifying the message of scrapbooking into something that is easier to understand for them, people who are not familiar with all the tools of scrapbooking, like journals. So right now I have a line of journals, and I want to kind of come up with new products, but it's a line of journals. I love it. Sounds like there might be some strategic partnership opportunities there. Make sure you guys talk at some point. (laughter) Alright, cool. So the line of journals is what you're building a campaign around? OK, cool. So, memory keeping journals. And are these journals already available for s...

ale, or is this a line that you're launching. Um, I have some on sale but I'm redesigning them, so it's gonna be completely new. So you're relaunching them. Beautiful. Based on a lot of feedback that I've gotten from the initial ones, I'm redoing it. OK, cool. So, we know, for instance, that on day zero, you're going to relaunch the campaign. Or relaunch the collection. So that's where we would start building the schedule. Do you have a date for that in mind yet? I have to design it still. September, maybe? That's totally fine. We will just play with the numbers instead of dates. That's totally fine. So, we're gonna relaunch the collection. What's your plan for lead generation for this? That's where I'm kind of, like, do I target people who already love to journal, or tell people why they should be journaling? So, what do you think? So, I've been thinking of, so my problem with physical products is, this is how I used to do it. I would design it, take forever, launch it, and then think of marketing it. And so people have been telling me... So did all of these people, too. (laughter) So I should be creating some sort of hype and then creating a wait list or a pre-order for it. Yes. OK, so pre-order. Pre-order, great. Because that'll also help me gauge if people are actually interested in it, if I should even be producing it. Yeah, actually. So let's make this pre-order. And then we're going to put your wait list up here. So how long do you think you're gonna need to build that wait list? OK, question. How is the wait list different from the pre-order? So it's like a wait list to know about the launch, and then when it launches, you pre-order it? Well, so that's what, yeah. So I might just take this away. I mean, the pre-order is different from a wait list because you're asking for money here. And so what you could do with the wait list is say, this is an exclusive opportunity to buy before everyone else. Maybe add some bonus. Yeah. Yep. There could be a discount, there could be a bonus, yeah. I mean, I love value-add bonuses as opposed to discounts, so that's great. You could do a free shipping thing, there's all sorts of fun stuff you could do to incentivize people getting on the wait list. But, yeah, this sounds really good. So, the reason. Basically, you could almost do this kind of twice for this campaign that you're planning, so you have a wait list for the pre-order, and then you'd have another to actually re-launch the collection publicly. So you could build another wait-list for that. So you're going to sell to the wait list and the pre-order, and then some people who are on the wait list are not gonna buy in the pre-order but would still buy when you re-launch it for real. Because some people just, they don't like buying things before it's good. I'm like that online. I hate those green shoes that I had on the other day. They were completely out of stock in all the colors and styles that I wanted for weeks, and they gave you the option to buy before they got back in stock. I was like, I want them now! And I will still wait to buy them to get them shipped to me now, even though I have to wait. So I would say this wait list is going to actually serve you twice, and I would actually build that into your campaign schedule. So there's gonna be content in here that's probably gonna go out to your wait list. So this could be sneak-peeks, it could be journaling tips. So, what I would do. This is a great example, we're getting so juicy in here. Okay. So, for the wait list for the pre-order, I would focus on people who already love journaling. So that's what your content here is going to be. It's gonna be lots of journaling tips, it's gonna be, again, sneak peeks. It's gonna be largely the same, except that this content is gonna be focused on people who already love journaling, and you're gonna assume that most of the people who already love journaling are gonna buy in the pre-order stage. And then here, you can turn it into creating motivation, creating agitation around why journaling is so important. So this is going to be for the people who are less aware, less already invested. Maybe they just love your Instagram feed, they love your brand. There's the idea of it that feels really good, but they're motivated enough to buy, which is why they didn't buy in the pre-order unless they're like me and they need instant gratification. And so this is gonna be a chance to get those really product-aware, really most-aware people to purchase. Pre-order is great for that. And then you're gonna circle back to those same folks, plus you can fill your wait list up with more. There can be more content out here that is also going to rebuild that wait list and keep them interested until you get to that re-launch. Okay. Make sense? Yeah. Would I put solution-aware people here in the second part, after the pre-order, where it's gearing up for the public launch? Yes. So these people are going to be solution-aware, you're right, because a lot of them have already seen this pre-order offer. In fact, they're also product-aware. However, they lack sufficient motivation in the unaware and probable aware stage, so even though they know about the product, it's totally fine to take them back to the beginning. Didn't we talk about something similar with you yesterday on this? We take them back to the beginning and re-motivate them, re-agitate them around problems or itches that they already have. So, like, I'm thinking I would be perfect for your product. So I'm not someone who does scrapbooking. It sounds really interesting, but it's overwhelming. When I'm on the computer, I'm doing work. I don't do computer for fun anymore. I mean, I do, but, you know, this is my work time. This is my work tool. So I love the idea of something that's a little less intimidating, something that I could physically hold and do. But you would definitely have to sell me on that idea, you'd have to educate me on that idea, even if I already knew about the product. So just because someone's product-aware, and this has to do with your wedding photography example, too, where just because someone knows they need the product or they want the product or they need to solution or they want the solution, doesn't actually mean that they're motivated enough to buy it. And the reason they're not motivated enough is because they haven't had that itch scratched enough. Or they haven't really realized how big the problem actually is. So you have to redefine the problem for them. And also tackling the objections. For me that was huge. I was like, oh, yeah. I hear people say, this is so pretty, but I don't know what I'm gonna do with it because I'm not gonna use it. I have no time, I'm not creative. Yes. That is the answer to all of your marketing problems, by the way. This is so pretty but I don't know how to use it, or but I don't know how to make them, yeah. You need to show them how they can use it. A big part of content marketing for a product like yours, and really a lot of physical products, is actually educating people on how to use the product as a tool to get what they want. You have to put the focus on getting what they want. So what is it that your customer really, really wants? Um, kind of a creative outlet with a little mix. Cause I push it in a way that's, here's one way to be a little more mindful every day, because you take the time to document something or capture something from your day. So, yeah. It's be more creative, be a little more mindful. Slowing down a little bit. Yeah. Those are all really, really great messages. So that's what your customer wants. There's lots of people out there that want that. And what your job is in the content marketing and as your create your schedule, is to walk people through how they do that but then use your product as the tool for that being done. All products, all services, are tools. Some of you who have been around for a little bit longer remember me saying things like this in the past. Your customer has a job they want to accomplish. That was actually one of our building blocks, right? Is jobs they want to accomplish. Your product is the tool for getting those jobs done. People don't want to buy a hammer, they want the nail hammered in, right? Or they don't want a drill, they want a hole in the wall. Right? So we sell them the hole in the wall, but we give them the drill to get it done. So all of your content marketing is gonna tackle those objections by showing people how to actually use your product as a tool for what they want. So, if I were you, what I would actually do is work that out. How many different steps can you break that into? How many different ways can you present that problem? And then divide it up in here and kind of just schedule it out. So that it's just, again, it's a whole story that you're telling, it's a whole story that you're scheduling into different pieces of content that you're distributing among your blog and your Instagram and your Pinterest. But in the process, you're working people towards signing up for that wait list. And the thing about a wait list that's great is, unlike a webinar, I only like to promote those three days before the webinar, but a wait list you can promote for months. So all of those posts, all of those pieces of content, or a lot of them, anyway, are gonna have a call to action back to the wait list or this re-launched product. Okay? You're gonna start with a call to action around being an exclusive to buy before everyone else. Maybe there's scarcity here, too. Are you only getting a certain number of journals printed? So there's scarcity. Maybe the style that they want is gonna sell out. And so they want to be on the wait list to make sure they can get the style that they want. Maybe there's a style that you only print for the wait list. OK. I like that idea. So there might be exclusives that you can offer to that wait list, the bonus value-add. Love that. Maybe there's greeting cards that go with it, free stickers, everyone loves stickers. Make sure you all get your CoCommercial stickers after we're done, OK? So, yeah. That's how I would plan this out. So I know this does not look like a plan. It's totally a plan! But we kinda talked through how you're gonna walk people from start to finish through this offer. And, again, after you actually get to the re-launch, there's gonna be follow-up. And a huge piece of your follow-up, and we will, I promise, we are gonna talk about the specifics of follow-up, but a huge piece of your follow-up I think is actually going to be showing off the folks who get the pre-orders. So what I would do maybe even is deliver the pre-orders before the re-launch publicly, because then you can get photos of the journals in the wild. Ask people to share. Tell them, send a postcard with the journal that says, you are getting this first, before anyone else, and I would love to see how you use it. I'm so excited for you to have this, please post a photo of you journaling in the evening, in the morning, and tag it with this hashtag. And then share those images in your follow-up for that re-launch campaign. Okay. Good? Yeah. Such good ideas. Any questions? Would you recommend, for example, to get people on the wait list, how much of the product am I revealing? Oh, you don't have to reveal anything if you don't want to. I mean, people love mystery. We sign up for things we know nothing about all the time. Right? That's Apple's whole business model, is, we're not gonna tell you what we're selling, but just please line up for it at 7 a.m. on this certain day. Now, of course, Apple has brand clout that maybe you don't have. Yet! Just kidding. To get them on the wait list, you don't have to tell them a whole lot. I think probably, with the kind of brand that you have, I am assuming you do a lot with Instagram. I've mentioned that a ton already. So I think just visual sneak peeks are gonna be huge, and if you pair visual sneak peeks with some of this content that's meant to overcome objections, get people really excited about journaling, get people really excited about the re-launch, then that's going to be really effective for getting people on the wait list, okay? Yeah. Any questions, anything you see? Yeah. So I see that you've got this content that you're bringing to people that are on the wait list through. What about people who are on our lists that haven't opted for the wait list, but might be interested in buying the journal later? What amount of content do the non-wait list people see? Yeah. So, I would work on getting the big list onto the wait list here, and then essentially things sort of reset after this pre-order period. So I would re-work on getting people from the big list onto the wait list before the re-launch of the collection. And then maybe I do, like, a 24-hour special for the people on the wait list in the second part of the campaign, and then everybody sees the re-launch at the same time. So the whole list, plus the wait list, sees this email at the same time, but maybe there's a 24-hour promo, maybe there's free shipping for 24 hours for wait list people only, you could do all sorts of fun stuff like that. So the whole list isn't necessarily seeing all of the journal tips, and all of the sneak peek content that the wait list is? Oh, sorry. So that, I would probably send to the whole list in an effort to get them onto the wait list. Even if the wait list has no other meaning that just getting people to raise their hand and say, oh, I think I want that, it's important. So, again, you can kind of incentivize those wait list people to act quickly with some sort of fast-action bonus, or fast-action discount, but the real point of having a wait list, beyond knowing who to market to in some situations, is just getting people to say, yeah, I really want that. And maybe you segment things out so that everyone sees that announcement email, but the wait list is just the people who get the follow-ups. So that you're not bombarding the whole list with follow-ups, you're bombarding the wait list with follow-ups. And maybe recognizing that different people take different time periods to buy. And I want to also say there isn't a right way to do this or a wrong way to do this. It's thinking through, who do I want to be talking to at any period of time? How do I want to be motivating them to take action? What does it mean when someone takes a particular action, and how can I use that to my advantage? What does that tell me about what they want from me? So these are the kinds of questions, these are sort of the next-level questions. You can follow this plan without thinking through some of those things, but when you start getting into complicated things like this, and I love those kind of complicated questions, that's where we're going. Is, alright, people taking a particular action, what does that mean they want from me? Or people asked for a particular thing, or they clicked on a particular link, what does that mean they want? So every time you're getting people to take action, you're learning more about them and how to talk to them. And so throughout this whole entire schedule, let's see if I can bring that back up quick. Throughout this whole entire schedule, there's so many different opportunities to take action. It's not just the CTA for the webinar. It's not just the CTA for a wait list. Every link someone clicks, every post someone opens, every email someone clicks on, is an action that tells you more about what they want from you, what they're interested in, what they need. And you can make things as complicated and sophisticated as you'd like them to be, based on that knowledge. You don't have to, but you can. And the way to figure out, what do I do with this next, is just to simply say, what did that action mean to that person? Did it mean they were saying, yes, they had this problem. Did it mean, oh, I want more information on this other particular thing, and that sends them in a different direction. So any time you're marketing, action equals new information. Alright? So the more new information you have, the more you can do with it. You don't have to do something with that new information. You may come back in a later campaign and use that information then, which is why my ConvertKit account is just full of tags. Because I might as well capture that information when I can, I might use that later. You know? So anyone who clicked through my emails to Creative Live is tagged interested in Creative Live. That's not necessarily information that I'm gonna use right this moment, although it is, but, you know, if you're interested in Creative Live, it probably means you're interested in live video. So I may decide that in a campaign where I'm really focused on live video, like for our weekly live show podcast-y talk show thing, that I'm gonna come back to the Creative Live folks and say, hey, if you liked Creative Live, you're gonna love Help Yourself. You know? And so I'm constantly using that information as I go through these campaigns to build more and more sophisticated targeting. And again, then to go back to your other question, that allows me to shorten sale cycles, because when I'm presenting an offer to someone, I know what they know instead of guessing. Make sense? Cool. Thank you. Thanks. You don't have to sit up here for hours on end like everybody else did. (laughter) Okay. Any more questions? No? Oh, we have two questions online. Fantastic. Alright. Eva says, when I send email more than once a week, I get complaints. So how do I use this more frequent schedule? Ah. Everyone's panicking about this right now. You are in good company. Okay. So there's a couple of different ways to approach this. One way to approach this is thinking, that when you send email more frequently, if people don't want it, one, they should unsubscribe, and two, if they unsubscribe, they probably weren't going to buy from you in the first place. That's one way to tackle it. It's not the only way to tackle it. Some people don't like being emailed more often, and those people you could ask periodically, would you like to receive fewer emails from me? You know, you've got to have that unsubscribe link at the end of every email, but what if you also had a link at the end of every email that said, would you like to get less email from me? Would you like to get one email a month from me? And use that link to tag those people in your system, and maybe they just get that one special monthly newsletter from you. The thing to remember, though, that people who are getting one monthly newsletter from you, generally are not going to turn into customers. They want to stay connected to you, but they're probably not going to buy. It's up to you whether that's a relationship you want to continue to nurture or whether you want to focus on people who are more likely to convert. If you think about the newsletters, or the emails, I should say, that you enjoy getting from companies you actually buy from, there's a really good chance those companies are sending you three, five, seven, ten emails a week, right? Rothy's was sending me at least four emails a week about those shoes. Toms sends me emails, and I haven't even bought a pair of Toms in years now, sends me emails four times a week. I get emails from Brass, which I showed off as an example earlier, a few times a week. Sometimes I open them, sometimes I don't. I never mind getting them. But if you're getting complaints, you have to ask yourself, is that a customer? Is this person going to turn into a customer? And it's not that you only want to help people who are willing to give you money, but you have to really economize your time. How is your time best spent? Appeasing people who complain about hearing about valuable things from you? Or is your time best spent nurturing people who want to hear from you as often as you have something to say. The other thing to keep in mind here, too, is that I'm not necessarily suggesting you send all of this email, all of the time. During a campaign, I might send, or during the end part of a campaign, where energy is highest, like I said, I might send four emails in 24 hours. I don't do that very often, by the way. Please don't worry. But I might. You know, I might send out four emails in 24 hours. Or I might send out seven emails in seven days. That's just one week out of eight. And over those eight weeks, most of those weeks, maybe I'm sending out two emails a week. And so I will build up frequency as the energy of a campaign builds and builds and builds. The building frequency is one way you build energy into a campaign, where you create momentum toward the offer. The other thing to keep in mind there, too, is that the amount of people I'm sending emails to tends to go down as a campaign progresses. So, the funnel is very wide at the beginning, I'm trying to capture as many people as possible, and then, as I get closer to the lead generation stage, and in that stage of lead generation, when I'm moving them from they've taken action to I want to present a product to them, I'm only emailing the leads. And then, at some point in the conversion phase, in the follow-up phase, I'm actually only sending to people who have clicked on the sales page. Because if they haven't clicked on the sales page, they ain't gonna buy. So I might do the first half of the follow-up to all the leads, and then I'm gonna focus the second half of the follow-up just to people who have clicked on the sales page. Definitely the last chance people. Or at least the multiple last chance emails that I have started sending, which work very well. I'm gonna talk about that in just a minute. Oh, one more question over here. Luis says, how do you address the situation where most people won't discover the campaign on day one? What if they enter on day eight? Seems like most people will start at random points of the campaign. Yeah, don't overthink this. Don't overthink this. Where they discover the campaign tells you something about what they're actually aware of and interested in. And that's why you want to cast the net pretty wide at the beginning, where there's less at stake, and then you want to gradually educate those people throughout the campaign. If someone joins at day eight, right before the lead generation offer, what that tells you is probably, they're very problem-aware. They might be solution-aware. They didn't need all the other stuff you sent out before. So you don't need to worry about that. Not everyone starts in the unaware stage. Some of your best customers may start as solution-aware. Those are probably people who are gonna buy really, really quickly, and so they might join at day eight and buy on day ten. So that's something to really keep in mind. You don't have to overthink this. Not everyone needs to receive every piece of this journey to get what they need to buy. Where they start paying attention, where they opt in, where they take action tells you something about where they are and what they need to get next from you, which just really puts them in line with everyone else in the campaign. So, I'm not just boosting, let's say, my content, but I'm running an ad, I'm basically list building still on day eight. Should I not be doing that? Does that make sense? Um. Yes. Probably not. You probably should not be doing that. When you start a campaign, unless you're siloing some people off and putting them someplace else when you're list building, if your goal is to list build in the unaware phase so that you can then get people to opt in as leads later on, you're gonna do that for a period of time before you start your campaign. Then your ads need to line up with your campaign. Basically, you can work the same kind of schedule with ads, too. So that your ads are actually tracking with the rest of the content that you're putting out. Sometimes that means advertising the content, sometimes that means putting out a particular ad that has a particular message that compliments that, as well. So your ads are gonna track along with the rest of your campaign. Okay, great. And one other question. What should we be looking for in terms of open rates for emails? Um, yeah. (laughter) It depends. As we're getting into the part of the program where all of the answers are going to be it depends. So what is your normal, average open rate right now? I'm at 20 percent. Okay, great. So, through your campaign, as your narrow in on who you're speaking to, you're gonna see your open rate go up instead of going down. At a certain point in your campaign, where it becomes more and more obvious that all of your emails are going to be about the product that you're selling, your open rates are gonna start falling again. So what you want to make sure is happening is that you're maintaining or increasing engagement as you move toward pitching your product or pitching your service. So that means your open rates are going up. And there's a number of factors that are playing into that. But it's less about what you want to target in particular, and what kind of movement you want to create. So, again, as you're moving toward making your pitch, you want your engagement to increase, which means your open rate is likely going to increase. Your click-through rate is going to increase, to the point where you kind of reach fever pitch, no pun intended, around your pitch. And then you'll probably get a couple, a few emails of follow-up, where it's really high engagement, and then it's gonna start dropping off because people know what's going to be in those emails. But the people who are opening those emails are the ones who are most likely going to buy. So you don't want to stop. What you want to do is start focusing on the people who are opening, the people who are clicking, as the rest of that campaign goes on, because those are the people who are most likely to buy. Okay? Thank you.

Class Description

Marketing your small business can feel like throwing spaghetti at the proverbial wall.

You try all the things you’re “supposed" to do (blogging, making videos, posting to social media…) and you try to keep up with the “hot new trends” that promise to change the way customers find you.

You spend tons of time and energy—and probably some money too. And after all that…

You wonder whether it’s really paying off or not. Is your business really growing? Or is it just your workload…?

Marketing isn’t something you want to mess around with. You want confidence. You want to know it’s working. And, perhaps most importantly, you want to know exactly how you can accelerate your success once you get it right.

Most business owners lack 2 essential pieces of the marketing puzzle. These 2 missing pieces keep them from fully utilizing all the effort they’re already putting into marketing while also keeping them from discovering just how rewarding (and fun) marketing can be.

The first essential piece is a plan. That plan needs to help you be productive, efficient, and decisive. It can ever bring focus and clarity to the whole way your business operates. This class has that covered.

The second essential piece is a solid messaging foundation. The difference between your campaigns and the ones that really, truly pay off isn’t ad spend, hot new trends, or expertise—it’s a message that connects with exactly the right people. This class gives you a system for creating that message every single time.

Join bestselling Money & Life instructor and CoCommercial founder Tara Gentile for a 2-day class on creating the marketing foundation and plan you need to grow your standout business.


  • Build a year-long marketing calendar so you’re never caught off guard by your business’s marketing needs
  • Quickly and confidently prepare an effective marketing message for a product or service using a foundational set of building blocks that turn so-so campaigns into money-makers
  • Create a schedule and plan for your marketing campaign using multiple channels, such as email, social media, blogging, or video, so you know you’re getting your offers in front of the right people
  • Design a system for your marketing campaigns that can be optimized and automated so that you can spend less time on the hands-on work of marketing

Best of all, you’ll have a replicable system you can use for every campaign and every year to feel completely confident in your marketing.



Tara, the information you delivered in this class is invaluable. I am in the launching stage of my business, and I know I need to market my business and services and I know I need to write a plan, but I didn't know how to do it. Instagram, content upgrades, Facebook, email marketing, webinars, blogging, etc. etc., I know it all. But I just couldn't get my head around how to truly use marketing campaigns for my business, and especially for my services, to reach my ideal client, help my ideal client and to reach my ideal income. You explained the why behind marketing campaigns and you showed us how to create a marketing campaign from A to Z. The whole sha-bang! You gave me the knowledge and inspiration in how to market my services, how many people I ideally want to reach and above all, a framework I can use time and time again to create a marketing campaign. I purchased the class right after seeing the live broadcast so I can use this class for planning all my next marketing campaigns. You clarified a lot and I am much more confident (and so much more less stressed haha) in creating a marketing campaign plan that works for my business and services. I learned a lot! Thank you! P.S. Love the hot seats.

Susan Best Jones

Tara, I love your creative live events I always learn so much and this time was the same. Perfect timing on this info, it is exactly what I need right now and I feel confident that I can do it! I joined CoCommercial and am excited about that. Thank you, Tara.


This class is well worth the time! Tara does an excellent job of not only providing a step by step system for creating a marketing campaign, but she provides clear context and insights along the way. This is important so that you're not just going through the motions and crossing your fingers that your marketing will work. She helps you understand the strategy behind the scenes so you can get the most out of the work you put in. I highly recommend this course to anyone considering doing their own marketing, or people who are already doing their own marketing and want to feel more empowered and get better results.