MarketingProfs

A guest post by Jeff Ogden, president of Find New Customers

Although companies like Marketo, Eloqua and Kinaxis have produced terrific written content in blogs, e-books, etc., (like Marketo’s new lead scoring e-book or Eloqua’s Grande series) here we want to focus on B2B marketing key #2—Entertain. As we like to say, “Personality is the missing ingredient in B2B marketing.” We say this because we find almost all B2B marketing deadly dull.

The great book, Content Rules, urged marketers to “be different.” When I was invited to be the special guest on HubSpotTV on Nov. 19 , 2010, the marketing take-away I shared was “Think Different.” The examples below are the personification of “Think Different.” They all are very entertaining, too.

If you are looking to improve b2b lead generation in 2011, you might find some good ideas you can use here. If you like this post, please tell the world—comment, share, etc. Thanks.

Juan Eloqua

This witty campaign by Eloqua used the famed Juan Valdez model of a coffee grower. (Behind the scenes: The hacienda used in the video is actually the home of their Chief Marketing Officer, Brian Kardon, cleverly disguised.)

You Don’t Know Jack (About Online Marketing)

This campaign, by the marketing automation software company, Marketo, used the game developers at Jellyvision to create a fun and interesting way to test business knowledge.

Suitemates

This is from the supply chain software company in Ottawa called Kinaxis. What’s interesting about this video series, is they make light of their own industry. Kinaxis has a lot of great video content with tons of humor, but this campaign – witty and remarkable, is their very best. It’s also won numerous awards.

Laugh and Learn—Featuring the Fearless Competitor

We hate to plug ourselves but this weekly series is a hit. And since we talk about marketing key #2 – Entertain, we live it.
Our aim is to share some irreverent humor each week. Each Friday we publish a new one for the enjoyment of our fans.

HubSpotTV

A weekly online TV show by this Cambridge, Mass., inbound software company is fun and irreverent. (Check out the Behind the Scenes post here.) In addition, yours truly, the B2b lead generation expert, the Fearless Competitor, appeared live on HubspotTV on Nov. 19, 2010. Clicking the image plays the show I was on.

Those are a few of the favorites we found in 2010. Did we miss any? We’re happy to add to the list any suggestions you may have. And if you enjoyed this post, could you please re-tweet it and/or comment on it?

Jeff Ogden is president of Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple.” Check out the online show every Friday at 11 a.m. ET, “Laugh and Learn with the Fearless Competitor.” Find New Customers is a lead generation company in New York.

Tags: Advertising, Branding, Innovation, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy and Tactics