B2Bey Marketing: 3 digital marketing lessons we can learn from Beyonce
On April 23rd, Beyonce debuted her surprise new ‘visual album’, Lemonade, on HBO. The hour-long special took users on a sleek, meticulously produced journey through the narrative of the album. With it she’s demonstrated that music can be a fully immersive, multimedia experience. Naturally, it helps if you’re Beyonce. But it’s an intelligent way to generate hype – and it got me thinking about the digital marketing lessons we could learn from Queen Bey. Here’s my top three:
Stay true to your brand
Beyonce isn’t shy about making a political statement. She’s carved out a successful career and empowered women across the world. Her new album carefully reinforces this. The messages remain consistent, through the visuals, lyrics, tone of voice – and even down to the choice of distribution channel (it’s only available to stream on Tidal, the streaming service owned by husband Jay Z).
Don’t just craft your brand strategy and forget about it. Take time to understand it, then live and breathe it. This applies to everyone within your company, not just C-level executives or those in external-facing roles. Maintaining a strong, consistent brand identity across all channels will reinforce positive sentiment and trust in your company.
Visuals create an impact
Lemonade resonates with our shift towards visual consumption. As the musical drama unfolds, it brings to life the album’s narrative and immerses viewers in it. Crucially, it’s an emotive experience: she exposes her vulnerabilities just as much she asserts her independence. It makes Beyonce somehow relatable.
Of course, a new data centre might not garner as many likes as Beyonce in a diamond-encrusted fur coat. But results are relative. B2B businesses inherently have a niche audience – the trick is to find them, understand their motivations and engage them by producing content that resonates.
Tell your brand story. Share something new. Invoke surprise, joy or anticipation. If you’ve spent time developing your core messaging and brand guidelines – use them. Your visual identity should be aligned with your written communications. Whether a customer visits your website, sees an advert or spots a LinkedIn update, the depiction of your brand should be the same.
Make it collaborative
She’s won 20 Grammy awards and has an estimated net worth of $450 million. Despite this, not even Beyonce can do it alone. Scan down Lemonade’s album credits and you’ll spot some unlikely names, including Jack White, Led Zeppelin and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Collaboration is a sign of strength. Our integrated campaigns would be impossible to execute without involvement from all teams, and some of our most inventive ideas were generated during company-wide brainstorms. Different teams bring different skills to the table. Take inspiration from unexpected places and the results might surprise you.
This post was originally published on www.aspectuspr.com.
Shelley Bowdler is Digital Marketing Manager at Aspectus and tweets about digital marketing, social media, UX, design – and Beyonce – at @shelleybowdler.