Have you ever felt like your campaign had a wobbly start and a rudderless end?
It’s a common feeling. Maybe no one is quite sure of the budget, but everyone is eager to start getting their hands dirty. Timelines are tight, but the brief is a bit of a blur. You find yourself facing questions you don’t have the answers to, and suddenly, the whole campaign feels like you’re throwing darts at a board you can’t actually see.
At Cadence, our biggest learning this year has been a simple one: trust the process, specifically, the Strategic Marketing Process
Whether you’re running a seasonal appeal, an awareness campaign, or a re-engagement drive, we’ve found that committing to a structured loop is the secret to making campaigns the best they can possibly be.
The Model – and why it’s not just fluff
Our process isn’t something we just pulled out of thin air. It’s adapted from a model created by seasoned marketing strategist, Mark Ritson for commercial marketing. We’ve tweaked it for the fundraising space because, quite frankly, it works. It’s a tried-and-tested loop that helps you build momentum rather than starting from scratch every single quarter.
We break it down into four main stages: goal setting, strategy, execution, and analysis.
If you imagine a campaign running over four months, you’d spend the first month on goals and strategy, two months on execution, and the final month on analysis. Crucially, that analysis feeds directly back into the goals for your next cycle. It’s a positive feedback loop.
1. Setting goals – beyond just raising money
We all know the ultimate goal: hit the donation target. But to get there, we need to look at the smaller, specific goals that act as stepping stones.
Maybe you want to grow your donor base by 3% or build a new audience on Instagram. We like to sit down with our clients, look at their unique situation, and suggest goals that actually make sense for their budget. Before we even think about the creative, we need to know what we’re aiming for.
A good goal should be:
- Specific and clear
- Measurable
- Time-bound
- Mission-aligned
- Actionable & reviewable
2. The Power of Diagnosis and Research
It’s tempting to skip straight to the cool stuff (e.g. the tactics and the creative) especially when you’re rushed. But we prioritise diagnosing the problem before jumping to a solution.
Research means taking a step back to look at the landscape: your resources, the audience, and the specific gaps your brand can fill. This is why we often suggest engaging with us earlier than you think you need to. Even if a campaign is six months away, starting the diagnosis early is all gain and no loss.
3. Strategy: Your True North
Once the goals are nailed and the research is done, we write the plan. A strong strategy at Cadence always ticks these boxes:
- Audience-focused: the plan is all about targeting the right people.
- Message-led: we get crystal clear on what you want them to know.
- Channel-aware: we define exactly where we’re showing up.
- Flexible: we love structure, but we aren’t rigid. The strategy needs to be agile enough to pivot.
4. Creative and Execution
This is where the strategy comes to life. If we’re handling your creative, we’re designing the visuals (or as we like to call it “look & feel”), crafting the messaging, and rolling it out – based strictly on the strategy we’ve already built.
Sometimes clients want to do the creative first, but we really encourage doing the deep work of planning early. It actually ends up costing you less in the long run because the creative team knows exactly what they’re aiming for from day one and they often hit the bullseye earlier.
When it comes to the actual “doing” (the ads, the emails, the mailouts), we stay:
- Resource aware: We won’t recommend something your team hasn’t got the capacity to handle.
- Collaborative: We love weekly WIPs to keep aligned on what’s happening and work alongside you as the campaign roles out.
- Data-informed: We’re always watching the numbers and pivoting tactics as we go.
5. The Post-Mortem (the bit everyone skips)
Let’s be honest: once a campaign is over, everyone wants to look at the final total and then take a holiday. Getting everyone back in a room to look at the numbers is often a tough ask. But in our view, the analysis is the most crucial part of the loop because it sets up the discovery for your next campaign.
This is where you learn about your audience’s quirks, your team’s hidden strengths, and which tactics actually moved the needle. Plus, having these “proof points” and hard numbers is the best way to secure a positive budget for next year. Often our clients come away from these meetings feeling refreshed, excited about the next challenge, and very thankful they didn’t skip it.
So, what does this all mean for you?
- Book in early: Come to us at least three months before you want to go live. That gives us time to do your campaign really well.
- Bring your data: Show us the full board – your audience, your past campaigns. We want to see everything; the good, the bad, and the ugly.
- Collaborate: Come alongside us as we build the strategy together.
