by Liz Huff Second Street
Implementing a 3-2-1 strategy for planning, selling, and promotion will maximize engagement and amplify your revenue
Planning ahead is crucial to maximizing the effectiveness of your sales team and the success of your engagement campaigns. Laying out your calendar is only half the battle. There’s a ton of prep work that needs to happen during the months leading up to the launch of a single initiative to make it successful.
You’ll be in a much better place to drive revenue and increase engagement if you implement our recommended 3-2-1 Rule:
- Plan: Three Months Out
- Sell: Two Months Out
- Promote: One Month Out
When are you planning to launch your campaign? For example, say you want to run a Thanksgiveaway for two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Let’s put your Thanksgiveaway launch date as November 7th.
Plan: Three Months Out
If you’re planning on launching your Thanksgiveaway in November, that means you need to start making your plans by August. This is the time to lay your groundwork, review your stats from previous years, set revenue and database goals, develop your prospect lists, and build sponsorship packages that will maximize your revenue.
Sell: Two Months Out
Since you previously planned out your sponsorship packages, now’s the time to prepare your sales team with one-sheets, pitch decks, and any specific training they’ll need to land sponsorship deals. Not only will this take some of the stress off your sales team, but you’ll likely be reaching out to advertisers before your competition. Plus, the extra time to target advertisers provides an opportunity for even more sponsors to invest in your promotion or interactive content (meaning more revenue!)
Promote: One Month Out
Now that your campaign is put together and your advertisers are locked in, you have an entire month to prepare your promotion plan. Use this time to gather all the assets you need like advertiser logos and branding for the promotion as well as check inventory and schedule your on-air and in-print advertising.
Launch Your Campaign
The hard work isn’t over yet, but dedicating time to planning, selling, and creating your promotion plan will surely lay the groundwork for success at launch day. Now that your campaign is live, be sure to send out a dedicated email and kickoff the marketing of your campaign in earnest (through social, website ads, on-air, in-print, etc.) to really drive home a winner.
Liz Huff Second Street
Liz is the Senior Director of Customer Success and has an extensive background in media. She is a huge advocate of the power of promotions for every department within an organization, including sales, marketing, audience development, and editorial.
