Moving from idea to action: The fundamentals of a successful plan

Last week, we talked about the gel point (when a campaign idea crystallizes into one sentence that everyone on the team says, “Yes. That’s it.”).

But what happens next? The gel point needs to harden into a consistent plan that you can build upon.

Here’s how to get there:

1. Translate your campaign focus into a shift.
​Successful campaigns drive change. So ask yourself: What’s the shift this campaign needs to make in someone’s mind or behavior? The righthand side of this exercise will help crystallize your goals.

• From “this topic is irrelevant to me” → “this is essential to my work”
• From “I’ve never heard of this brand” → “this brand is credible and innovative”

2. Take the shift outcomes and translate those into specific ways you’ll measure the shift.

If you’re looking for audience relevance, you may want to increase engagement by 20% in the next year, measured by the number of comments, likes, and shares on your social accounts. If you’re looking to build trust in your brand, you may be looking to increase trust and preference scores by a specific margin on your brand tracker survey. Regardless of what you’re looking to do, quantifying it is important.

3. Work backwards from the outcome you want.
​Have you tried to create a campaign that has soft outcomes in mind? It’s much harder than trying to reach really specific targets. Once you have those targets in mind, start generating what you need to do to meet the target:

• For more engagement, for example, you’ll need to consider your content strategy, content cadence, audience development plan, distribution and direct engagement strategy.

4. Break it into jobs and owners ​
Within each category, create a sequence of tasks that needs to happen, and who owns them across your team. This is a lot of work, and you should aim to be exhaustive. Eventually this will become your timeline and project plan.

5. Design a failure contingency plan.
​ What if no one watches or shares? What if the CMO’s only feedback is “Can’t we make this go viral?” You’ll sleep better at night if you design a “Plan B” – so you’ll want to consider:

• Have you created time and space to test your content and messages?
• Are you prioritizing distribution strategy as much as creation strategy?
• If the campaign isn’t resonating, what will be easy to change – CTA, distribution channel – that could help put it on the right track?

The gel point gives you a north star. But the plan turns it into a system that earns attention, proves value, and drives the shift you want to see.

KRYSTLE KOPACZ CEO, Revmade krystle@revmade.com

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P.S.: Next week we’ll talk about getting from the plan to a small win. Thank you for reading!