Healthcare marketing organizational tools for campaign planning
4 documents your agency should provide you before each campaign
When kicking off a new campaign with your agency, there can be a lot of moving parts: strategy, research, media, budgeting, scheduling, approvals and sometimes even doctor buy-in. If you have an agency who is on the same page as you from the get-go, you shouldn’t have to worry about how it all comes together. Given the right information, you’ll know everything you need to feel confident about your campaign launch. Here’s 4 organizational tools you should get from your agency before starting any campaign.
1. Clear research
Without research, how do you know that your campaign strategy is on target? Research should me a mixture of primary and secondary, qualitative and quantitative data—all of which should point to the campaign strategy laid out by your agency.
2. Gantt Chart
A Gantt chart is simply a laid out campaign schedule. It should tell you when your agency will have creative units to deliver, when your campaign components will be in production, and how long the campaign will run. A Gantt chart should also indicate when you should expect reporting, if that’s something you’ve requested from your agency.
3. Budget breakout
Your budget should identify where major buckets of money are being allocated. This document combined with a Gantt chart and media plan will demonstrate the strategy behind the breakdown of your spend.
4. Media plan
A media plan is where you can find details of the media you’re running for any given campaign. It should be informed by the research, Gantt chart and budget, as it combines some components of each into one spreadsheet. Additionally, it should spec out ad sizes, targeting, channel or station information and cost per medium.
If you’re not confident about the launch of your next campaign, it might be time to start asking your agency for more information. Task your Account Manager or Coordinator to build the above documents for you, and you should start to see the story of your campaign unfold before you even get to see the creative.