What are the best B2B multi-channel marketing campaigns to learn from?

Multi channel campaigns are often quite complex - and you can quickly lose money by setting them up wrongly, with wrong expectations and missing knowledge. If you can not cover this on your own or within the team - search for a sparring partner - this will help you to speed up and safe ?learning budget“.

A common mistake most marketing experts make is to think that content for LinkedIn will also work on Meta Audience Network. Also, when it comes to B2B, quality is more important. Quantity just as much but diversified across the target audiences. Simply put, content that can convert a CEO via email and say LinkedIn may generate only an impression from the CMO on Instagram or X. The latter might prefer en masse content while the former might prefer it suited up. But as a B2B marketer, it's crucial to engage both these individuals of an SMB to make sure your brand is talked about in the next meeting and get a mail back.

It’s also useful to keep in mind that less is often more. Sometimes companies (especially in early days) don’t have the appropriate resources or sufficient capacity to execute multi-channel campaigns and that is fine. It’s always worthwhile to fully exploit one or two channels than run a campaign across 3 or more channels poorly.

It's interesting to note that the examples mentioned are companies selling non-tangible subscription based products that can convert from lead to sale without a sales person's involvement. One thing to be mindful of is that more tangible B2B purchases, particularly when it comes to capital equipment, still very much depend on the personal touch of a trusted sales advisor to close the deal - not just at the point of order, but building a strong relationship along the way. It's important that any content produced to nurture during the buyer's journey could also be used as a sales aid in face to face and virtual meetings, if no dedicated sales enablement tools are in place.

One of the biggest problems in marketing is that the "best practices" held up for us to emulate are things only leader brands can afford, and that leader brands can get away with. If you're neither, leader brand tactics might hurt you. Because you might spread yourself too thin. And you might offer things your audience won't value because they don't care what non-leaders think. So if you're a non-leader looking for campaigns or tactics to emulate, be sure to also look for them from brands who are in a somewhat similar position to yours, or who face the same challenges you do.

This article title is potentially taking us all down the wrong road. Only around 10% of B2B customers are ever in market so that means 90% of your customer won't be interested in your product or service at any moment. So think hard about how you appeal to the 90% of your customer audience, how you can warm them up, and build a relationship through valuable non-promotional content, so when they are ready to buy you are there for them.

Studying successful B2B multi-channel marketing campaigns can provide valuable insights. IBM's "Watson at Work" used webinars, social media, and content marketing for thought leadership. Cisco's "The Network Effect" blended webinars, social media, and email marketing, fostering engagement. HubSpot's inbound marketing integrates blogs, email, and social media, nurturing leads effectively. Adobe's "Do You Know What Your Marketing Is Doing?" utilized webinars, email, and content marketing, showcasing seamless integration. Learning from these diverse campaigns offers strategies for effective B2B multi-channel marketing.