Your marketing calendar calls for three new campaigns to launch in the next 90 days. Business goals are outlined, but you’re under the gun to come up with something fresh … and effective. You’ve met with your creative team, but your ideas for marketing campaigns are all tired, or not very good.

If you’re a B2C marketer using an agency or dedicated creative team, give your team some examples of campaigns that you like, and ask them to use those concepts as guidance during their brainstorming.

If you’re B2B and have previously focused on pragmatic, value-driven marketing campaigns, take a look at some consumer campaigns for inspiration. The days of boring feature/benefit messages are over; B2B marketers are now leveraging the same types of creative ideas as consumer-oriented marketers in their campaigns.

A Dating Story … to Sell Software

For an example of how a B2B company used a creative B2C campaign theme, take a look at the case study for Central Desktop’s “The Breakup” campaign, courtesy of MarketingSherpa.

Central Desktop is a B2B software company with a cloud-based collaboration and project management platform. The Breakup campaign highlights a few interesting points:

• The use of a dating story, delivered cartoon-style, to emphasize visual appeal to its target audience. The microsite is here.
• A simple, hand-written “breakup-note” direct mailpiece.
• Humorous, simple yet edgy email follow-up continuing the story.

This example shows that creativity, a long-time staple of B2C marketers, can be effective in B2B. This campaign yielded positive metrics as well as characters and a theme to use in future campaigns, displaying the burgeoning trend of B2C and B2B marketing convergence.

Award-Winning Marketing Campaigns

To get your creative juices flowing, here are more examples of past successful campaigns:

• Top 100 consumer ad campaigns
• Award-winning B2B campaigns
• List of 39 best email marketing campaigns
• 30 examples of brilliant direct mail campaigns
• A single campaign that won awards for PR, direct and digital media

Brainstorming for Campaign Ideas

As you’re reviewing campaign examples, also think about campaigns you’ve run in the past. Which ones worked well? Can you modify the creative to extend their life? Can you use a similar theme?

What about your competitors? What campaigns have they run in the past that you liked?

Also think about other industries, even B2C if you’re B2B and vice versa. Then, list your marketing campaign creative ideas. Here you’re just focusing on the creative aspect.

As you’re considering your campaign concepts, think about making emotional connections with your audience, instead of making promises or filling your campaigns with product/service information or features/benefits.

Try something new … you might be surprised with the results! If you’ve been running the same old tired campaigns for years, your market might appreciate a fresh approach.

Good luck!

If you’d like additional help, we have a guided, interactive marketing campaign planning template in our marketing planning and management app. Feel free to create a free preview account to give it a try.