The Secret Ingredient of a Successful Marketing Campaign
The making of a successful marketing campaign is much like crafting the perfect batch of soup. Just as a chef artfully combines various ingredients to tantalize taste buds, marketers blend a medley of carefully chosen elements to entice and engage their target audience. From the savory broth of compelling storytelling to the perfectly diced vegetables of data-driven insights, each ingredient plays a vital role in achieving the desired flavor of marketing success. With winter officially here, we asked some of the best marketing “chefs” in the industry what their secret ingredient to a successful marketing campaign is…and got them to share their delicious soup recipes as well.
The secret to a great campaign at B+L as it turns out boils down to one thing: audience.
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Carne con Chile en Sopa de Fideo
Account Service
Knowing your audience is where any successful campaign begins. In the case of our account service team, their audience is our clients. They serve as our head chefs. The relationships they build with each client and the insights they develop on their wants, needs, and tastes allows them to perfect each and every recipe. They serve as the bridge between our agency and our clients, mapping out the ingredients that each campaign calls for.
Creative
Once the vision of the campaign is established, our creative team serves as the cook behind the stove. They complement the established ingredients with the perfect blend of spices to create a compelling story. Storytelling is the bread and butter of the department, but knowing the audience is what makes the story. Understanding the audience we are trying to reach helps the creative team create an accurate flavor profile of the consumer. Telling the right story to the right audience is what makes our marketing efforts flavorful.
Paid and Earned Media
Once the campaign is ready, the responsibility shifts to our paid and earned media teams to ensure it is served to the right audience. Just as delivering a dish to the wrong table can ruin the dining experience, the most compelling story would fall flat if it’s delivered to the wrong audience.
Our paid media team serves the dish to the masses. They use data-driven insights such as where the audience lives, their age, and interests to serve the right ad at the right time. Trying to reach Gen Z on Facebook or Boomers on TikTok isn’t a standard recipe for success, and it’s these insights that allow them to ensure the flavor profile of the audience matches that of the dish they’re serving.
Our earned media team serves the food to the food critics - editors, producers, reporters, and other editorial gatekeepers. Editorial coverage often brings an implied 3rd party endorsement, as the media outlet has deemed our information worthy of coverage – i.e., it’s been “earned” as opposed to paid for. Our earned media team makes sure the story pairs well with the tastes of the media outlet we are bringing it to. While we may have a mouthwatering story to share, it will leave a sour taste if pitched to a journalist or outlet covering an entirely unrelated topic.
The secret ingredient for marketing success at B+L is simple yet profound – it's all about the audience, just like the perfect bowl of soup is all about the ingredients and how they come together. The account service team perfects the recipe, the creative team makes the story just right, and the paid and earned media teams bring the dish to the tables of our audience. By understanding and catering to the audience's preferences, we create campaigns that are as satisfying and flavorful as the finest soup on a cold winter’s day.