Most marketing departments today are highly focused on tightening up their processes, planning and executing more efficiently, driving leads faster and ultimately driving higher revenue. This can be overwhelming to do all of this at once. Below are ten campaign best practices that will help you accelerate your path to a Revenue Marketing Department.

Rule #1: Plan from your target’s perspective. Start by segmenting your audience, then figure out the set of marketing activities that will move them through the funnel. Don’t plan around your product suite or business units.

Rule #2: Campaigns should never stand alone. They should always work together to build knowledge of your products and services, move targets through the funnel and move targets to a different solution set if the first one isn’t right.

Rule #3: Find a recipe that works. Don’t reinvent the wheel every time – figure out the right set of activities that drive action. Then just change up the messaging and content and keep reusing that flow.

Rule #4: All campaigns are not created equal. Never run a campaign that doesn’t look profitable on paper. Always run the numbers first to see if it will work based on your known conversion rates, target list size, and average deal size. If you won’t more than cover your margins – don’t do it.

Rule #5: All targets are not created equal. Buying behavior may change by industry, title, role, etc. Even if it doesn’t, you should still segment so you can personalize the messages.

Rule #6: I will always pay more attention when I hear my own name. The more personalization you can work into your messaging, the better.

Rule #7: People have short attention spans. So make your messages short. And never include more than one major call-to-action in an email or direct mail campaign.

Rule #8: You have to walk before you can run, but you can still walk pretty fast. Put into place things like A/B testing, lead nurturing, and lead scoring immediately to start seeing an immediate impact.

Rule #9: People will lie to avoid the sales call. So don’t ask them if they have a budget for this project or if they are going to purchase in the next three months. Instead, ask other more innocuous questions that will get you to the same answer.

Rule #10: Don’t create campaigns in a vacuum. Involve your sales team – they are closer to the clients and prospects and have valuable input. And they are more likely to follow-up if they have some skin in the game.