Planning and preparation are the main focus of a marketing campaign, but it all starts with a goal. No, not what you want your commercials to say. What your real goal is. What do you want your marketing to accomplish? You could have a wide array of goals, such as: increase walk in traffic, build name recognition, or increase web traffic. Your goal it could be as specific as wanting to sell 100 scarves by the next quarter. Your marketing campaign needs to start with that goal in mind.
Once you have your goal in mind you can then decide how to best achieve that goal. Knowing what end result you want helps you narrow down what type of customer will help you achieve that goal.
Say you are that company that wants to sell 100 scarves by next quarter. Things you have to think of are: who will buy that scarf, male or females? What age range will they be in? What type of income do they have? Do they own homes? What types of jobs do they have? You have to paint a specific picture of your customer so that you target the right people. If you target your marketing campaign to women aged 35-50 and the scarves are really popular with the 16-25 year olds, your campaign would not be as big of a success as you would have liked. After all, results are really what a marketing campaign is all about.
Be looking for Phase 2.