In December of 2019, Krampus Republic was approached by one of its B2B clients who wanted to launch a digital marketing campaign to improve their brand awareness but didn’t have the foundations in place to do so.
Krampus Republic referred the case to one of its media partners. The client has been so impressed with the success of the campaign, despite the pandemic, that they agreed to our media distribution manager at Krampus Republic talking on the record with the leading media strategist at our partner company about the campaign.
In 2019, Krampus Republic referred a case to one of their media partners. Our partner company, Loki Media Works, devised a digital marketing campaign for a client in the B2B sphere. The client, who wishes to remain anonymous to protect their strategic development plans, reported an ROI ratio of 7:1. The company referred to in this interview will be known as Company1.
Company Name: Company1
Industry: B2B Logistics Services
Year Established: 2012
Aim: Improve brand awareness
Action: Develop a digital marketing campaign
Krampus Republic Representative (KR): So, last year, one of our most successful B2B clients approached us to improve their brand awareness. We connected them with you at LMW so that you could do your magic, which you did.
Company1 has reported an ROI of 7:1 in only 6 months. How did your team achieve such fast results for Company 1?
LokiMediaWorks (LMW): To be honest, it’s just what we do! Creating strategies is the best part of our job, and brand awareness campaigns are so interesting. The LMW team uses a formula to research a business before we start anything else.
The first step is running a SWOT analysis.
KR: A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats metric?
LMW: Yes, that’s right. As a team, we sit down and evaluate the company at hand. In this case, Company1 wanted one of their team to take part in each stage of the campaign development, so that did expedite some aspects of the research.
Creating an unbiased and productive view of the areas of strength and weakness for the business helps us to create a well-informed marketing strategy.
Once we have that, we can start to dig down to the company UVP.
KR: The unique value proposition? Tell us how you determine that from your SWOT analysis and why it matters?
Many companies neglect to put the time and resources into really defining their UVP, and this is why they fail to reach their target audience.
LMW: It’s all a simple pattern really. A great marketing strategy is derived from a company’s unique value proposition, which is defined by understanding its main strengths and differentiators against competitors determined in the SWOT analysis, as opposed to being based on desires or thoughts.
Knowing your real UVP is one of the most valuable assets your business can have. Many companies neglect to put the time and resources into really defining their UVP, and this is why they fail to reach their target audience.
The best value propositions are clear, to the point, and they answer customers’ pain points.
KR: So you’ve done the SWOT analysis, which gives you the basis for evaluating a UVP, what comes next?
LMW: Next we get to work defining the objectives of the strategy.
Objectives dictate what measurable outcomes should be achieved within a particular time frame and they help us to evaluate the success and effectiveness of a particular marketing strategy.
We use objectives to align expectations and plans, coordinate efforts, and hold teams accountable for results. We generally choose 3 objectives – aim, timeframe and outcome. They are assessed on a regular basis so teams know what is expected, what is working and what needs more attention.
Any marketing campaign is really all about the customer.
KR: Right, so how do you go about getting to know who the customer is and how to solve their pain points? This case was a B2B logistics service, their pain points would have changed a lot in the past 6 months right?
LMW: Surprisingly, no, the customer pain points that we identified for Company1’s target audience are the same, just amplified due to the pandemic.
To seek to solve customer problems through a marketing strategy, you first need to fully understand who your customers are.
We rely on a combination of smart data, as well as traditional marketing methods, including focus groups and surveys, to determine the customer persona for our client.
This research is so thorough that changes such as the pandemic tend not to overly influence the basis of who the target audience is, because we determine more than just a surface level desire, but find the audience who are in actual need of the product or service our client offers. Even though some logistic operations slowed for some markets, they really ramped up in others, such as medical supply chains, so our client was actually busier during the first few months of the pandemic hitting Europe. Their B2B clients really reached out for their assistance in answering urgent calls from the public sector and Company1 responded. It was impressive to see them in action.
Company1 was very forthcoming, so it was easier to develop a customer persona for their campaign. We understood the audience they wanted to target and the reality of their current campaigns. They weren’t too far off the mark, they just needed to refine their tone and voice for an online audience.
KR: You say that they had to adjust for an online audience? Is the B2B logistics services market busy?
LMW: Yes. It is dominated by some big names, but there is plenty of business for smaller competitors too. Think about commercial logistics and the boom we’ve seen for that sector; well B2B have been ahead of that curve for at least 8 years, if not longer. Businesses love working online. It creates paper trails that can be followed and real accountability for communications. It’s frankly surprising that private shoppers have taken so long to come to the party.
So yes, Company1 has been providing logistics services for years, but they haven’t focused as much as they should on brand awareness. They have been a bit too relaxed, depending on their reputation for excellence in the industry, which is great, but it can mean that growth stagnates. You do have to put your brand name out there.
KR: So why did Company1 decide that a digital brand awareness campaign was the best option for them?
The best marketing methods explain, teach, and communicate your brand message to your target audience.
LMW: The best marketing methods explain, teach, and communicate your brand message to your target audience.
So, you have to find out where that audience lives so that you can deliver the message. Company1 had already determined that their target audience was to be discovered online, but they weren’t sure what method would be best to get the attention they wanted.
After trying a few content campaigns, which attracted an audience but did not offer any new leads, they approached you guys for more advice. When you passed the case over to us, we took one look at the brand and just knew we needed to increase their awareness – we do this stuff every day and we hadn’t heard of Company1 despite their position as one of the best in the industry.
By combining our revised customer persona with a fresh approach to creating online content, we were able to launch a digital marketing brand awareness campaign that produced results in only 3 months, and secured the company’s ROI in only 6 months.
KR: Why do you think you were able to produce such fast results?
LMW: Because we take a methodical approach, research our subject and work closely with our partners in any campaign we produce. We understand how essential it is for the client to see results and we ensure that we provide the metric to measure that success as well.
KR: You sound really pleased with this campaign?
LMW: We absolutely are. We took a brand that was a niche B2B solution and have elevated them to the next level by providing new ways to connect with their audience. We helped them understand their new audience, produce content that is meaningful and also helped them to communicate their core values with their target audience. We did everything that we needed to do in order to be successful.
KR: Well, thank you for your time today, and thank you for sharing with our audience some of your methods for creating a successful brand awareness campaign from the early stages of development.
LMW: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
