How B2B Companies Employ Integrated Marketing
Last week you read about how to integrate marketing content to achieve out-sized results.
This week and next, you’ll find out B2B
companies employ integrated marketing.
We’ll look at four B2B companies that integrate
their marketing content successfully:
FEDEX, Maersk Line, SAP, and UPS.
Covering these businesses requires a fair amount
of detail. So I’ll break up this topic into two blog posts. This week, I’ll
cover FEDEX and Maersk.
Before diving in, if you’d like to refresh your
memory, here’s a definitionof integrated marketing.
Successful Integrated Marketing by B2B Businesses
My review of the four B2B companies below lead
to some interesting conclusions. The main lesson learned is that there is no
single solution. Every business does
integrated marketing differently. You have a lot of flexibility.
You’ll see that in my reviews.
What counts, however, is that integrated marketing
is a customer-focused strategy that provides relevant content among various
media. As you’ll see, each company chooses a focus unique to its business
needs.
In reviewing FEDEX’
and Maersk’s websites, we’ll examine
content, social media, and surprises - some features that were unexpected.
Let’s get started.
FEDEX , a logistics company with more than 330,000 employees, has a
fairly sophisticated integrated marketing strategy. It’s the No. 2 player in
the package shipping industry.
Content. FEDEX’ website offers a variety of content, digital and print. It
includes a blog, articles, photos, reports, slides and video. It publishes original content useful to
small businesses. In addition, FEDEX
curates content published by others.
What’s important is that FEDEX selects content – relevant content – that benefits its
prospects and customers. You’ll find articles and blog posts that feature customers
conducting their business and feature stories about children and road safety.
They’re engaging, and they home with customers.
And FEDEX
also publishes an in-house, award-winning magazine, Access (online and print). This magazine analyzes global issues and
trends impacting customers. FEDEX makes sense of these trends – some
of which are not so obvious.
FEDEX clearly establishes itself as an industry thought
leader with the publication of Access. And
they enhance their credibility.
Here’s how this B2B company describes Access:
“Access explores the new ways global connections are being
redefined and how
businesses and communities benefit.”
Access does a superb job at positioning FEDEX services as the solution to its customers’ problems. The
articles offer relevant, useful and compelling content.
Most articles offer follow-on information that
delve into more detail. Click a link and you’ll go to another article or a
video that goes deeper into the topic.
Social
Media. FEDEX is an active social media player. It distributes its content
on eight social media channels, including Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Social
engagement is very high. [A subject for a future post.]
While FEDEX amply covers the social media
landscape, it relies heavily on 2 sites:
- LinkedIn where it has 118,589 followers
- On Google+, FEDEX has 18,892 followers
Integration. FEDEX began a
deliberate integrated marketing campaign in January 2011. That’s not too long
ago. The impetus to implement integrated marketing came from a desire to unify
messaging across online and offline channels.
Specifically, FEDEX sought to promote its diverse products and services from
domestic delivery to international shipping to FEDEX Office business
services.
Clearly, different products and services cater
to different customers. And their content reflects that. But the message of trust and reliability comes through in all of its content.
FEDEX achieves integrated marketing with a clear purpose to build its
brand.
And it also cleverly positions its solutions as the
answer to help customers overcome daily challenges. This further promotes the
notion of trust and reliability.
Surprises:
- Digital and print publication of Access offering leading edge ideas about big picture trends affecting shipping resonates with customers. And it integrates its articles with other articles (on its website), audio and video. These provide more in-depth information on the topics being explored. [Access looked interesting, so I subscribed to the print version.]
- I found a blooper… Outdated and un-synchronized information. On Google+, the FEDEX banner presents FEDEX as the #8 on Fortune’s Most Admired Companies. That’s 2014 info. On LinkedIn, the company banner shows it as being ranked #12 in 2015.
That wraps up the coverage on FEDEX. Now let’s look at Maersk Group.
Maersk Group is a conglomerate. It consists of five core businesses: Maersk Line, APM Terminals, Maersk Oil,
Maersk Drilling and APM Shipping Services.
They’re the 800 lb. gorilla in the ocean shipping
industry. They’re also a big player in the energy industry.
Content. I didn't see any mention of print media available on their
website. Nonetheless, Maersk publishes
a variety of online content.
They publish articles,
blog posts, audio, video, and photos. This gives prospects many choices. However, Maersk
appears to have gone “all-in” with digital media.
So let’s
launch into that now.
Social Media. Maersk chose to make
heavy use of social media. Before committing to social media, however, in 2011 Maersk undertook a study to determine
the best way to employ social media.
As a
result, Maersk now uses nine different platforms
from Facebook and LinkedIn to Flickr and Weibo (China’s version of Twitter).
At the
time of this post this B2B company had:
- 2.3 million followers on Facebook
- 97,488 followers on LinkedIn
- 5,488 followers on Google+
The social
media page on Maersk’s website
explains the focus of each social media channel. They tell you what information
each channel provides and who the target audience is.
That helps
set expectations and improves engagement. This makes it easy for prospects to
find the information pertinent to them.
I’m a
staunch supporter of LinkedIn for B2B
businesses rather than Facebook. But using
Facebook works for Maersk.
Here’s
what Maersk says about its social
media policy.
“Social media is about
communication, not marketing. It’s about engaging, not pushing.
And social media is
definitely not just about the media side.”
Interestingly,
Maersk does not use social media to generate leads.
That’s
right, Maersk deliberately avoids generating
leads with social media.
Instead, they
focus on providing useful and interesting information. And, based on their high
level of engagement, they’re succeeding.
Integration. The company has well-organized website. And it’s streamlined. Notably,
it integrates its social media presence with its website. That is, you can
access any and all of Maersk’s social
media posts directly on its website.
This
simplifies managing consistency of messaging. More important, it simplifies a
potential customer’s search for information about Maersk.
Maersk also takes great care to focus its content on specific topics
such as people, industries, and products/services. This ensures the publication
of useful content and simplifies and reinforces integration even more.
Surprises:
- Social media engagement: This B2B Company out-did their B2C cousins in social media engagement. In June 2014, Maersk came in second to LEGO in engagement. Meanwhile, it beat the likes of Disney, McDonald’s, Oreo, Red Bull, and Coca-Cola. Impressive.
- Social media goals: While Maersk does not focus on lead generation, they zero in on communication, customer services, sales and internal use.
Next week,
I’ll review SAP and UPS and wrap up with some conclusions
we can draw about these four examples. I’m sure you can begin to see some of them
take shape.
Until next
week, then!
Alex Milo
B2B Copywriter and Consultant
“Helping Transportation and Logistics Companies
Generate Leads with Compelling Content”
Phone: 256-886-4684
Email: amilo@b2bcopywriting-alexmilo.com
Email: amilo@b2bcopywriting-alexmilo.com
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