Take a look at some of the most innovative B2B marketing strategies ever created and the professional advice you can glean from them.
Check my previous post components that form a great marketing campaign, and let's review some of the top B2B campaigns that have these components in place.
1. IBM’s Every Second Counts
The campaign's mixed media strategy, according to Lucas Robinson of Crediful, "helps to bring consumers to their landing page and also provides the customer someone more engaging to look at and connect with." The videos, which differed from the standard visual format, were extremely emotional for the campaign.
The lesson to be learned? Using more than just photos enables the audience to have a really engaging experience with a campaign, and social media is a fantastic method to advance material, as Robinson spells out for you.
2. Drift’s employee advocacy campaign
Focusing on specific individuals, according to Debtry's Ethan Taub, "makes the positions at the firm more personal and ensures customers view every individual role as a person who works there with a face and life, rather than just seeing the organization as one."
The lesson is straightforward: If you want to make your customers the core of your business, ensure that people are included in every aspect of your content, advises Taub. “If customers are the forefront of all campaigns, they know they will always be in mind.”
3. WeWork’s video campaign
Smallbizdaily's Thomas Glare praises WeWork's video marketing efforts. This creative company's most recent campaign serves as an excellent illustration of how to squeeze every last drop of value out of your video expenditure, according to Glare. A series of 30-second videos have been produced by this company to help small businesses promote their office space. The films may be shortened to 15 or even 6 seconds and still convey the intended message, demonstrating their usefulness in this marketing effort.
The lesson? According to Glare, "Videos are essential for any brand for B2B and B2C marketing efforts." Of course, it's crucial to convey your message as quickly as possible, just like WeWork's films do, even though they are only six seconds long.
4. Shopify’s Let’s Make You A Business Campaign
The goal of this campaign is to give everyone the confidence to start their own business. You may expand your business and succeed with the assistance of the company, says Daniel Foley. With the right platform, implementing the campaign "helps folks who have a business prove they can perform better without much work," continues Foley.
Mike Sadowski of Brand24 adds: "Shopify chose to spread its brand through a variety of platforms in an effort to reach new potential business owners. They made use of billboards, television, the internet, and other media.
They sought to maintain their advertising's visibility in all facets of daily life, says Sadowski. They wanted their message to stick in your head, whether you were walking, traveling in your car, watching TV with your family, or browsing the internet by yourself.
To sum up, Shopify's campaign is "one of the most unique B2B marketing initiatives I have seen previously," according to Aaron McWilliams of 1Dental.
By utilizing a variety of marketing channels to reach out to new and small business owners, Shopify built the concept that it is a place for entrepreneurs to bring their company ideas to life, says McWilliams.
The "Let's Make You A Business" campaign offers marketers a few nuggets of wisdom, such as the following:
"Positioning is the most crucial element of a campaign. A successful campaign will focus on setting yourself apart from the competition and highlighting the advantages you have over competing businesses. — Aaron Williams
"Relate to your customers and help them see how your company might help them succeed further. Put your consumer in the spotlight of the campaign and inspire them. Daniel Foley
"By promoting through a variety of channels, the likelihood that someone will select Shopify when they finally decide to open a business is increased. People would grasp onto what they already understood as a result of their presence. The lesson here is that you should employ a variety of platforms for your marketing initiatives, said Michael Sadowski
5. SuperSmart Security graphic novel by Cisco
Cisco, in my opinion, has the most inventive B2B advertising, according to Jack Zmudzinski of Future Processing.
"As a senior associate at Future Processing, I continuously do A/B testing on our marketing efforts to see which ones are most effective. I've learned via trial and error that positioning, reputation, and powerful message that connects with potential customers come close in second.
And Cisco's campaign adheres to every one of the recommendations in Zmudzinski's list, giving us an intriguing lesson in how dull information may be conveyed in a fresh way.
According to Zmudzinski, "Cisco did away with the notion of a dry but instructive campaign and, instead, published a graphic book - replete with a superhero — to teach people about cybersecurity. It just doesn't get much better than that, to be honest!
6. Google’s comic for the launch of Google Chrome
"This cartoon was a terrific piece of material that expounded on extremely complicated themes in simple, accessible ways," says Anu Ramani of Isoline Communications. Stunningly thorough, properly presented, and answers all the key questions regarding the browser that developers would have.
Ramani asserts that "Tech B2B does not have to be all about text on a website!" In your work, don't be scared to experiment with new and creative mediums.
7. Xerox’s Get Optimistic campaign
Xerox’s Get Optimistic is rated as one of the finest B2B marketing campaigns by Francois-Louis Mommens of Linkody.
"Xerox opted for highly targeted advertising," notes Mommens. It began with twice-weekly emails that were distributed according to industry. The prospects would be directed to each website related to their sector.
Then, Xerox and Forbes collaborated to develop their own publication platform, Chief Optimist. They sought to communicate with all employees who were involved in making decisions, not just the executives. I think the reason it was so successful was due to its unique marketing strategy. Additionally, using a personal touch in advertising is a great idea.
The key lesson to be learned from this, says Mommens, "is to keep things personal in your campaigns". People like it since it demonstrates your concern for them and your want to aid in their development by offering useful information about their sector.
In addition to personalizing their emails, Xerox also started a magazine that concentrated on clients' specific needs. Additionally, Xerox made the decision to conduct seminars around the US in order to promote itself.
8. Monday.com’s quick explainer video
David Cusick of House Method suggested this advertisement as a successful example. The reason it works is that: "Monday.com's advertisement is aesthetically appealing and makes it apparent exactly how it can assist organizations in more effectively managing their workflow and project management."
To put it simply, "A company owner looking at the ad may easily imagine their firm utilizing using the app."
A key takeaway is that "good use of images may make a campaign simple yet snappy and efficient in attracting a target audience's attention," according to Cusick.
9. The Slack mockumentary video with Sandwich, Inc.
According to Naveed Ahmer of Keka HR, the Slack mockumentary ad with Sandwich, Inc. is the most creative B2B marketing campaign he has ever seen.
"Slack customers - Sandwich, Inc. is a video production agency. The ad showed Sandwich's transition from not utilizing Slack to using it. The finest part was that it described how several organizational communication channels could be combined into one single platform. The ad entertained the audience with its humor and sarcasm.
So what's the takeaway from this? Try an interesting case study ad.
According to Ahmer, "The ad was a real case study and also from a client's perspective, which provided validity and made the app seem more practical. Slack intentionally emphasized the difficulties that most businesses don't even recognize and how to resolve them."
10. Hey’s marketing campaign (a new email product created by founders of Basecamp)
According to Better Proposals’ Petra Odak, "It's quite difficult to be provocative in today's society, but Hey managed to pull it off and capture the interest of the whole SaaS community worldwide." They promised to "solve" email once and for all and to eradicate spam.
In essence, according to Odak, "all it required was a landing page with some pretty amazing ad copies and a signup form. The story was picked up by media sites and quickly became viral. And if you want to emulate Hey's campaign's success, it is precisely what you should strive for.
11. Sweet Fish Media’s podcasts
According to Stacy Caprio from Growth Marketing, "the most innovative B2B marketing strategy I've seen is the way podcasting company Sweet Fish Media constructs its podcasts to advertise to other enterprises in its target market."
Inviting their prospective clients to their podcast is one way they organize their podcast campaign to attract more B2B clients, according to Caprio.
"This enables them to serve as a means of client attraction. The campaign is quite successful because even if they don't receive a lot of listeners, they are still able to speak with their prospective clients personally by asking them to participate in the podcast.
Do you want to attempt this marketing strategy?
Caprio summarizes everything in this succinct lesson: "Learn to precisely target the customers you want to buy from you. You won't need hundreds of thousands of site visits or campaign views to begin seeing sales and money if your targeting is really accurate and specialized.
12. Oracle’s Digital Bank of the Future research campaign
According to Jim Pendergast from altLINE Sobanco, the campaign "resulted in over 350k new leads for Oracle and an anticipated $28 million sales stream."
Pendergast explains why it was so successful. A multi-channel lead-generation campaign created by Oracle and B2B marketing MOI Global was successful on two fronts: "First, it gave not one but two gated, in-depth studies on the gap between banks and modern customers. Even better, the reports included a benchmarking survey so that readers could evaluate how well their own banking procedures matched the expectations of today's digital-first consumers.
"After completing the benchmarking survey, participants had the option of enrolling in tutorials and boot camps offered by Oracle. As a result, the reports were much more interesting and practical since you could apply the results to your bank or other place of business and actually improve it.
What is the lesson of this marketing campaign? The main takeaway is that audiences do, in fact, respond to in-depth gated information, according to Pendergast. But when you give prospects something tangible they can do with it once it's in their hands or on their screens, you'll see true lead generation traction. Few businesses do more than just distribute those dry reports and whitepapers.
Wrap up
There are many things you can do to make your B2B marketing campaign successful, from utilizing various marketing platforms to developing a message that is aesthetically spectacular and appealing to your audience.
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