So, what’s your silver bullet?
Just kidding. In today’s B2B marketing world, there isn’t one magical solution to create an effective campaign. Success comes from a combination of things. Silver bullets are about as rare as the hairy lycanthropes* they’re supposed to stop.
As part of Effectiveness Week, our very own Kellie Felsten, VP of Media, and David Hayes, SVP Global Strategic Accounts, took us through what you can do to get the most out of your B2B marketing campaigns. And how by rethinking a few key activities, you can create a campaign that helps you compete with larger competitors. (So maybe less of a silver bullet and more of a collection of silver daggers?)
Watch the video below for the full discussion, where Kellie and David take a closer look at the three areas of the outthink playbook.
Step 1: Focussing your investment where it matters most
Campaigns don’t have unlimited budgets to promote everywhere. In fact, more often than not you need to be fairly ruthless with what’s available. And ask tough questions:
Will your audience see your ads? Will they notice your clever headlines? Will they be in the right frame of mind to interact? Will they even care about any of it?
That’s where historical customer and campaign data comes into play. Studying it allows you to get a better idea of who you’re targeting and how you can tweak content, to make sure your campaign is in front of them, when they’re ready to make decisions.
Step 2: Streamlining your GTM
Go To Market (GTM) plans are a great way to arrange what campaign activities are going out and how you talk about them. But as businesses grow, more departments get involved and everyone can start to build their own. Like the proverbial cooks, too many opinions start contradicting each other.
Customers prefer simple messages and are more likely to remember stories with easy narratives. By centralizing systems and GTM plans, and building a campaign platform to tie everything together, you can make sure stories align and customers understand them better.
Step 3: Challenging category conventions
Once you’ve mastered the previous two steps, it’s time to think about the creative output of your campaign. Making it stand out needs to be a core aspect of your plan from the beginning – it can’t be tagged on at the end.
Making sure the media strategy and creative concept work together makes the final output so much stronger. It leans into the opportunities on offer and is easier to overcome issues that may otherwise stand in the way.
Change your mindset
When you’re trying to stand out, you have to think differently, think smarter. Think like a disruptor brand that doesn’t play by the typical rules of a bigger business.
Acting as a challenger means being ruthless with how you make the most of your channels and brand moments, to ensure your budget drives the greatest reach and relevance. And stops your campaign being a true howl-er…
This session was a part of Effectiveness Week 2024. We brought together marketing leaders from across EMEA, North America and APAC to explore how we can meet the demands of modern marketing. Click here to access the rest of the sessions on-demand and be inspired by leaders from the likes of Marketo, Magic Numbers, Verizon, Palo Alto and Funnel Fuel.
*A posh word for werewolf. And yes, I did have to check with AI. Another great use it has to offer!
