Previously I wrote about a simple marketer’s pre-campaign checklist for a new marketing campaign.  To refresh your memory, that short checklist goes a little something like this:

• Protect your core strategies – If something is working well, don’t mess with it.
• DO SOMETHING – Don’t get caught up in trying to make the campaign so perfect that you become distracted from actually executing.
• Determine measurable objectives of the new campaign.
• Determine appropriate communication techniques.
• Ensure communication tactics are integrated with clear, consistent messaging.
• Obtain buy-in from sales.
• Achieve consensus with sales on how all those leads will be handled.
• Measure.
• Alter/augment based on the measurements – This last step might be the 1st in a checklist for the “during” phase of the marketing campaign.

It is well past time to look at the next piece of this checklist puzzle:  the in-campaign checklist.  Now that your campaign is well underway, that doesn’t mean you can kick back with your feet on your desk or curl up under it for a nice Costanza-esque nap.  No, sirs & ma’ams.  So, here’s a short checklist for during the marketing campaign:

• Execute.  I said it above and I’ll say it again here, put execution on the checklist.  If not, you may run the risk that your campaign doesn’t get off the ground.
• Measure (OK, after looking at the pre-campaign checklist above I realized that the Measure bullet really belongs here.)
• Get feedback from sales.  This is also a measurement, but qualitative rather than quantitative.
• Get feedback from customers and prospects.  (Novel concept, I know.)
• Augment based on all those measurements and feedback.
• Make a decision.  Will you basically keep on as planned with minor tweaks based on the measurements and feedback, or is a major change needed?

That’s really it for during the campaign.  If you planned carefully and dutifully adhered to the pre-campaign checklist, then the bulk of the in-campaign checklist is execution, measurement, and (hopefully) tweaking as necessary.

What are your thoughts on checklists for marketing projects?  Please let me know with a comment.

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