What if every advertisement you saw provided you value/impact/helped you solve a problem? Or, what if every ad gave you inspiration, encouragement, and entertained you? What if you were driving down the highway and the countless billboards you saw provided something of meaning and value to you in the advertisement; not just a weak promise to solve a problem if you give the company money? Not only have I seen this type of advertising work wonders to drive most efficient way to build brand affinity and drive revenue (especially in the B2B world), but I believe this is the future of marketing & go-to-market as consumers are tired of the same old direct-response type ads (i.e. "look at how awesome we are so buy my stuff") - Not including the fact that your buyers sees thousands of ads per day.
Traditional advertising is getting less and less effective at delivering & creating trust (#1 currency in business) that is essential for large B2B purchases. This is why my conversation with Casey Hill was so great. Casey is a Senior Growth Manager at ActiveCampaign and is trailblazing all things demand creation through creating ads that leverage valuable insights from their team, customers, and partners. We talked about all things thought-leader ads, getting your customers and partners to help you create content / ads, and leverage your team to drive employee advocacy and create valuable content that can be turned into advertisements. A gold conversation and I learned a ton! We covered:
- Why traditional ads don't create or deliver trust
- What are thought-leadership ads and why are they so specials
- How to leverage your customers & partners to help you create content that you can turn into ads
- What is zero click content and why social platforms don't like links
- How to mobilize your internal team to create thought-leadership content
- Why content that is 2 or 3 degrees away from your product can drive revenue
- What types of thought-leadership ads work best