If you’re continually creating email campaigns, ads, posts, social stories, etc. then you probably get overwhelmed about all the different ‘best practices’ for each platform. I’m going to give you a few tips on how to tackle and approach each campaign; as well as things to consider. 

Set Parameters

The first thing you need to do is set clear parameters to stay within. These should be high-level and relevant to the entire campaign. Each time you begin, here are some questions you can ask yourself, or your team. These can vary from platform-to-platform, but generally address the same ideas.

• What is the purpose of the piece?
• Who is the intended audience or end user?
• What channels will this project be used on?
• If someone sees this as their first interaction with us, is it a good first impression?
• What are the need-to-haves for the piece?
• These can be different platform-to-platform

Quick Case Study

Sometimes looking at who’s doing it well in another market/industry can give great inspiration. Think of your favorite brand or a company you are a frequent customer of. Look up their marketing campaigns and take a few moments to think over these things:

• Are their ads consistent or coordinating?
• How does their marketing and messaging vary across platforms?
• Would their marketing sway your purchasing decisions?

Set Specific Goals Across Platforms and Devices 

Every platform, app, device, etc. is going to act and respond differently, so it’s good to set goals or guidelines that are specific to that platform or device to measure success. 

• Static or Dynamic Content

  - Should the campaign have movement to better perform?

  - Would a few coordinating images get more engagement?

• Reason for Promotion - Engagement, Entertainment, Education

  - A good online presence will have a healthy mix of campaigns with purposes varying between entertaining your audience, showcasing the product or service, teaching something valuable, etc. Knowing which one you’re creating for will help you make decisions.  

• Desktop vs. Mobile

  - Device Agnosticism: Building a campaign to scale across different devices. Think about someone on a laptop viewing the same campaign as someone using a tablet. Will their experience or visuals be the same?

• Discovery vs. Action Focused

  - This relates back to your reason for promotion but consider if the purpose of the campaign for a new customer to just simply discover you and learn more, or take action and purchase/subscribe/sign up, etc.

Set Visual Goals/Guidelines For The Campaign

Now that you’ve worked through the behind-the-scenes of your campaigns, think through the visual side of it. In other words, ‘making it pretty’. A few quick tips to help achieve this:

• Remove unnecessary elements, or detail, on smaller screens

• Think through how someone will navigate or click through the piece

  - Does the platform help you communicate or will your visuals need to do that?

  captions, links, etc.

• How much time of attention do you have from the viewer?
• Will I have different viewing audiences based on the platform I’m using?