Creating meaningful ABM experiences with Applaud
Just like the world around us, our strategy and creativity is always evolving. The perfect example of this is our recent ABM campaign with Applaud. Our unique approach delivered a memorable and distinctive creative campaign that resulted in an experience, and not just a series of content touch points.
Our very own Account Director, Alexa Stone, gave an incredible talk about this at B2B Marketing’s Global ABM Conference back in November alongside Applaud’s CMO, Rachel James. They gave the audience creative and practical pointers on how to create a truly powerful ABM programme and a behind-the-scenes look at our approach. You can watch the session below.
Or, if you’re short on time, you can read our roundup here.
WHEN THE MARKET ZIGS, YOU ZAG
HR tech platform Applaud has been a dominant force in the employee experience space for years. But emerging from the post-pandemic landscape saw them facing more and more competitors.
A number of these competitors were communicating identical messages –, indeed, the same one that Applaud had built their business on.
So, as Applaud honed in on their target audience – savvy HR professionals in forward-thinking, employee-focused organizations – they realised that to engage with them in this new environment, Applaud would need a new approach.
CUT THROUGH AND STICK
ABM can (whisper it) sometimes put too much emphasis on research, insight and personalisation. The fact that creative and engaging content is needed can often be an afterthought. Why know who you’re talking to and their pain points, but then create something they won’t ever bother engaging with?
To stand out from the competition and maintain Applaud’s unique stance on employee experience, both Applaud and Digital Radish knew that creative boundaries needed to be pushed to deliver truly engaging content that would cut through the noise and stick with audiences.
WHERE IS THE AUDIENCE?
Ultimately it was this focus on creating meaningful and memorable experiences that drove our thinking. And that’s not just being creative with how we communicated the campaign, visually or verbally, but also in how the audience interacted with Applaud along the content journey.
It’s the consideration of where the audience are, geographically and mentally, that can play a huge role when considering how to reach them, in fact how to meet them.
For example, with a target audience in the US, physically meeting them was impossible. Equally, many people are still wary of meeting face-to-face. So by understanding this, it pushed us to consider a different avenue.
And as is so often the case, technology had the answer.
THE METAVERSE? DO GO ON…
The Metaverse allows for new opportunities to connect, regardless of language or location. We knew we could use it to give a unique point of difference while creating an engaging touchpoint for the target audience.
Because it is so new, and so much has been written about it, we found people approached interacting with the Metaverse with both curiosity and playfulness.
Crucially, we didn’t use the Metaverse simply so we could say we did. We created roundtables to unite people together and actually facilitate collaboration – chats, meetings, ideas and thoughts. It was created to add value, not to simply use a piece of technology for the sake of it.
But we would never have proposed this without the conviction of a client who knew they needed to go outside of their comfort zone, and had the courage to actually do it.
THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING
Ultimately, the aim was to create content where each piece served a purpose, enabling the programme to reach, engage and educate target customers. It helped to create genuine relationships between Applaud and their prospects while humanising HR technology – all the while communicating Applaud’s core messaging.
Here’s a little flavour of how the campaign has gone…
- 90% Account Engagement Rate
- $4.1 million in influenced and pipeline revenue
- 32,000 impressions and influenced contacts
And it’s still running, so expect those numbers to increase.
If you’re after more insights about this campaign – and who could blame you – then head to B2B Marketing’s site where you can read their interview with our Director Renaye Edwards. She talks more about the metaverse and the importance of creativity in B2B marketing. Otherwise, drop us an email at hello@digitalradish.co.uk