The Power of Micromarketing: Thinking Small for a New Era

Did that massive campaign you were planning go up in smoke when COVID-19 hit?

If so, you’re not alone. We’re seeing this happen more and more, and it’s no wonder why:

Decreased demand during the pandemic has led to significant lost revenue in many industries.

As revenue has dropped, marketing budgets have tightened.

There’s ongoing uncertainty about what will be in demand once COVID-19 passes and we reach a new normal … especially with fear over a second wave.

Collectively, this is forcing hard decisions about marketing on many teams, and some larger, macromarketing initiatives are looking less palatable. But how can you focus on smaller, micromarketing campaigns and still be effective? 

Micromarketing with “little bets”

In the new marketing reality, rapid experimentation and acquisition of new data will be key to always having your finger on the pulse of your customers’ needs. Here, you can take a cue from the field of creative innovation, and bestselling author Peter Sims’ book, Little Bets. The gist? Use educated guesses to determine your best next steps, then learn from them. This approach is perfect for micromarketing in the new era.

5 steps for effective micromarketing

1. Hit the pixels

Even with an uncertain future, it’s important to know where you’ve been. Review the data from your past campaigns to determine what’s worked in the past. Then, read the latest industry reports on consumer or B2B demand to determine the bets that are likely the safest. Combine these two forms of research to isolate the areas of your product or service lines and customer targets that are most likely to have the highest return on investment in the current climate.

2. Quickly develop several smaller campaigns

Each of these should be highly targeted, focusing only on one type of customer and a specific call to action that can be measured. Also consider adding an X-factor campaign. In his book, Sims discusses the importance of trying “imperfect ideas.” Translated to a micromarketing sense, this could mean testing the waters with a small campaign to a new audience.

3. Compress the timeline

To keep the budget down and get answers quickly, only run these smaller campaigns for a maximum of 90 days. This will give you enough time to begin to build awareness, while getting a large enough results sample to analyze.

4. Test, measure and retest

When developing your campaign, create several options to test within your compressed micromarketing period. For something like Google PPC ads, this split A/B testing is an inherent part of the process. But you can adapt this same approach for any other type of marketing.

For example, for Facebook social media, you can test the effectiveness of different thumbnail images and headlines in boosted video posts. You can also test the effectiveness of posting the exact same ad on your timeline and as a dark post – which doesn’t show up on your feed, but will appear on the feeds of your target audience. Dark posts can be particularly important in a micromarketing campaign, given that it allows you to post frequently without overloading your timeline with ads that are too similar.

In any case, the goal here is to get as much performance data in as many areas as possible within the short campaign window. In addition, you can use these metrics to inform any mid-campaign changes, such as shifting to the most successful CTA after the first half of the campaign.

5. Re-evaluate and plan

While you may make these types of changes midstream, it’s also important to take a step back after the campaign is over and do a deep dive into the metrics. If it failed, re-evaluate each component and isolate the cause. If it was a success, determine if it’s worth running the same campaign again, or a variation of it.

Is there still a place for macromarketing?

Absolutely. While COVID-19 is forcing a sea change in many ways, this doesn’t mean that large marketing and branding campaigns are going away. In fact, you shouldn’t do these “little bets” campaigns at the expense of your regular, ongoing campaigns. Your brand will suffer if you’re using these micromarketing campaigns completely in place of your brand positioning.

However, by breaking off a chunk of budget to test certain products and services in a smaller way, you’ll gain more insights into possible opportunities for your brand in the future. Think how much more effective (and timely) all of your larger initiatives could be if they’re built on the foundations of your most successful micromarketing campaigns? 

In future posts, we’ll discuss tactics for getting the most out of your marketing campaigns (micro and macro), including how to prioritize your initiatives, streamline content development and repurpose anything that you produce. 

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Vaccine Creative is a hybrid agency that has worked with some of the biggest (and smallest) brands. We specialize in developing thoughtful, effective campaigns that don’t bust the budget. If you’re looking for more guidance on how to plan and implement strategic micromarketing campaigns, contact us.

About Jim

Jim TerMarsch is Founder and Creative Director of Vaccine Creative. He has 24 years of advertising experience both as copywriter and creative director. He has won numerous industry awards including 20 Emmys for his TV series that’s been seen by over 30 million viewers. His experience spans brand campaigns for companies both huge and not-so-huge, immersive consumer installations for the 50th anniversary of the Mustang and others, branded television, customer-experience training and social media.