Marketing your service, brand or new achievement is something that every business wants to get right and in doing so, create an impact. That impact doesn’t necessarily have to be on a global scale, but gaining worldwide notice almost always is!
However, knowing what you want to do and actually executing a plan or campaign to achieve that result, are two very different things. To give you some inspiration as to what type of digital marketing techniques could work for your next campaign, I’ve selected 6 impressive digital marketing campaigns from the past few years that have inspired the way I do things.
1. Know Your Lemons
This campaign from the Worldwide Breast Cancer charity, is a great example of using humour to engage your audience on a serious topic. They used a box of 12 lemons to highlight the different symptoms of breast cancer.
There were images, videos, advice on how to promote the ‘Know Your Lemons’ idea through parties and to teach the signs at schools. It was visual, shareable and informative.
With just three Facebook posts, the campaign reached 7.3 million people. The charity also exceeded its JustGiving Fundraising target by 317% in the wake of this campaign.
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2. Stranger Things Can Happen
You’ll love these Eggo recipes. Trust us. Friends don’t lie.
Get the recipes: https://t.co/zddMfmZ2i5 and watch #StrangerThings on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/TQ48dlUuKA— Eggo® (@eggo) October 27, 2017
Eggos, which is a frozen waffle product popular in the US, achieved some stellar engagement figures through product placement on the first series of the hit Netflix series, Stranger Things. Kellogs, who makes Eggos, then capitalized on that by teaming up with Netflix in the lead up promotion period to the second series.
They created new waffle recipes to air with each new series 2 episode, sent an Eggo food truck to the site of the series 2 premiere in LA and even created a google chrome extension called ‘L’Eggo My Spoilers’ designed to block any Stranger Things spoilers for the biggest fans.
It all worked wonders for the frozen food item and in October 2017, when series 2 began, Eggo waffles achieved their highest ever social media mentions in a month, while consumption of the packaged food grew 14%.
3. Share a Conversation Over a Beer
Heineken’s Worlds Apart campaign was all about promoting the benefits of sharing a beer and talking about things, even when people have views that are polar opposites. The brewer created social experiment, which was turned into an advert, pairing people who had opposing views for the campaign.
The ad was then promoted across social media and the response was positive on a variety of levels. As well as netting over 138,000 shares and 324,000 engagements, the video was viewed 17.7 million times – 3 million of those happening in the first 8 days. It also earned a twitter hashtag that swept the microblogging site.
Promoting conversation, despite our differences was a gamble that hadn’t paid off for Pepsi, but the approach Heineken took, worked.
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4. Don’t Be Boring
First firing of Starship Raptor flight engine! So proud of great work by @SpaceX team!! pic.twitter.com/S6aT7Jih4S
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2019
This next one is less of a specific campaign and more of a general style of brand promotion. Tesla is a relatively new brand of car, however, it’s the third most mentioned vehicle on Twitter and has the most engaged audience of all car brands on the same platform.
The reason? It’s enigmatic co-founder and CEO, Elon Musk. Yes, he tweets about Tesla, the company. But he also tweets about other topics too, including his Boring Company and SpaceX. Add into that a healthy dose of live streams of interesting and topical issues and it becomes easier to see why Tesla is so incredibly popular worldwide, despite not having been around for long, nor having sold that many cars, compared to other manufacturers.
Adding value through your digital marketing and engagement practices will almost always encourage interest and social shares, resulting in a well-known business and bumper sales.
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5. Nano Influencers
Fast fashion brand H&M have taken a different approach to the influencer marketing scene and turned to nano influencers – online social media users with small, but ultra-engaged, specifically targeted followers.
By paying for sponsored social media posts from nano influencers, H&M has achieved an average of 294.1 engagements per mention by their nano influencers. This type of campaign has to be well thought out with the right influencers selected for the promotion.
But, with results like that, it’s got to be worth your time and energy.
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6. Stand Up For What You Believe In
Last, but by absolutely no means least, Nike’s Colin Kaepernick advertising campaign certainly got a lot of people talking. Kapernik caused controversy in the US when he chose to kneel during the national anthem, in a very public stand against racism.
This strength of feeling encouraged Nike to use him as part of their 30-year anniversary campaign, with the slogan ‘Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.’
It proved divisive and people took to social media to say they were burning their Nike sportswear. However, there was also a lot of support for the NFL star quarterback and Nike’s decision to feature him in a major ad campaign.
This may not be a style that can work for everyone, but if nothing else, it got Nike trending on Twitter and other social media platforms and people talking about Kaepernick and why he did what he did. Indeed, Nike CEO Mark Parker said: “We’ve seen record engagement with the brand as part of the campaign.”
As you can see, there are a variety of ways you can create and run a digital marketing campaign that hits the right buttons and gets people talking about your brand and engaging with it, too.
It can take time to develop a strategy that works for your brand and audience, patience to wait for the penny to drop and bravery to stick to your beliefs. But, if you can get the right tone, topic and target audience for your ad campaign, you’re on course to getting noticed by the right people.
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Feel free to share your favourite digital marketing campaigns in the comments section below.