Category: Marketing News

  • South Korean Starbucks boss apologizes anew for ad campaign that evoked massacre

    2025 Clio Entertainment Winners: List of Marketing Campaign Winners

    Marketing campaign

    Hilton created a 10-minute TikTok—way longer than platform conventions suggest—featuring Paris Hilton and other influencers showcasing hotel experiences. Physical experiences designed for shareability translate directly into social content and reach a wider audience than paid ads alone. The campaign reinforced Airbnb’s brand identity as experience-focused while generating massive organic reach.

    They cut through the clutter on crowded platforms, fostering loyalty and helping businesses establish industry expertise. Explore top brand examples, planning frameworks, influencer tactics, and metrics to track so you can boost reach, engagement, and conversions. We hope that these results set a high standard for how to engage with audiences today and where to meet them in the future.” “This year, the Clio Entertainment jury awarded work that took risks at a time when playing it safe often feels like the smarter move,” said Ashley Falls, managing director of the Clios, West Coast. Marketing campaigns for Wicked, Severance, Sinners, Weapons, Abbott Elementary Marketing campaign and 28 Years Later are among the winners for the 2025 Clio Entertainment Awards. The anger over the campaign has triggered public calls for boycotts, amplified by government officials, including Interior and Safety Minister Yoon Ho-jung, who said Starbucks products will no longer be used at government events and lamented the chain's "anti-historical behavior."

    Marketing campaign

    Digital marketing campaigns often offer precise targeting, allowing businesses to reach very specific groups of people online. Some common types include brand awareness campaigns, which aim to make more people know about a company. You need to know your target audience well so you can create messages they care about. Proper first-party data management requires a customer data platform, which unifies data sources into a single profile to execute automated campaigns. You need to automate workflows for manual tasks in data, content, campaign orchestration, and reporting. Real-time personalization technology automates data and decision-making to provide relevant recommendations and offers.

    years of media evolution provide few answers to brands’ chaotic 2025

    Marketing campaign

    Learn more about how to automate SMS campaigns or get started with one of these pre-made templates. When the next viral stunt hits, your data will already be doing the talking. They also included a message to Nike that said, "Hey @nike, is your campaign walking the walk? Let's track it on social—live." Learn more about how to automate Facebook, or get started with one of these templates. Automate post scheduling, cross-share videos across social platforms, and instantly alert your team when engagement spikes, all while the creative team stays focused on the story. Learn more about how to automate your social media marketing, and here are a few templates to get you started.

    Email marketing campaign

    Marketing campaign

    Imagine what would happen if a team created assets for an email campaign, and in one of those assets, the company’s name is spelled wrong. A company’s brand is its driving force, and many people feel passionately about how it’s represented. Many brands have discovered the secrets to creating marketing campaigns that engage target audiences and drive results.

    Marketing campaign

    A deep understanding of your target audience is the bedrock of any effective marketing campaign strategy. You can’t create a compelling message if you don't know who you're talking to. For lead generation, measure how efficiently attention turns into demand. We will walk you through a proven, step-by-step framework for creating and running a marketing campaign that works. Launching a marketing campaign can feel overwhelming.

    • Improvado unifies ads, email, web, and CRM data.
    • Leverage AI-driven solutions to unleash your team's potential with dynamic workflows that adapt to ever-changing business needs and drive company-wide success.
    • Cadbury's latest short film, "Memory," is a poignant addition to their celebrated 'Generosity' campaign, which has been recognized globally for its heartfelt storytelling.

    Step 2: Know your audience and message

    Scrolling farther down will also give you a list of websites your target audience visits. This socioeconomic data shows that most men interested in travel are employed full time. This type of content often feels more genuine than ads or product reviews, helping build trust. The company got local hosts worldwide to create user-generated content (UGC) to show how they make traveling with Airbnb special. Its goal was to encourage them to adopt a keg in their neighborhood bar to help local businesses stay afloat. Carlsberg’s Adopt a Keg campaign drew customers’ attention to this problem in Malaysia.

  • Marketing Segmentation Explained: Frameworks, Examples and How to Do It Right

    Target audience: How to find yours + real-life examples

    demographic segmentation

    A single market segment might contain multiple personas, each requiring different communication approaches and content strategies to address their unique motivations and challenges. Marketers can optimize resources through segmentation by identifying and understanding unique customer segments with diverse needs, preferences, and behaviors. Over time, this kind of targeted approach improves acquisition rates, reduces marketing spend per customer, and builds stronger brand relevance with the audiences that matter most. If we wanted to run ads for our shoes, we might look to these three domains as audiences for the chosen shoe brands also spend time here. Whether you’re running PPC, LinkedIn ads, or Facebook ads, optimizing your campaign gets you a better return on your ad spend. While detail is important, segments that are too narrow often lack enough buying power to justify the time, budget, and resources required to target them effectively.

    demographic segmentation

    Non-sensitive items like age and location can go at the start if they support routing. Avoid them when the group is small enough that responses could identify individuals, or when the organization already has access to the information. Placing them at the end tends to work effectively for sensitive topics. Analyzing conversion rate helps identify the effectiveness of the sales funnel and potential bottlenecks, such as poor product assortment or inadequate customer service. For instance, Sephora, a luxury beauty retailer, uses demographic and psychographic segmentation to target high-end customers who value premium products and personalized service. These tools enable the delivery of timely and impactful campaigns that connect with audiences effectively, all while improving efficiency and outcomes.

    In this way, it successfully maintains a ‘cool’ edge that ensures the brand stays at top of mind among target audiences. The Diet Pepsi target audience typically drinks the beverage on a regular and everyday basis, and also at special occasions and parties. One Pepsi marketing strategy is the sponsorship of major sporting events worldwide, including the NFL Super Bowl Halftime Show.

    Likewise, if you know that the majority of your audience is based in a specific timezone, you might want to scale your customer support staffing to match their waking hours. When you’re focussing your efforts more specifically on a certain type of person, there will naturally be a reduction in wasted effort and redundancy. Different kinds of segmentation may be useful for different brands and products, and you may find yourself segmenting your audience in different ways at different times, depending on the needs of that particular situation. This means customers get more relevant messaging, and businesses can target their resources to where they’ll be most effective. Here’s how segmenting your audience according to their background, age, location and other factors can help you target the right people and create more relevant experiences for your customers. We’ve established how demographic segmentation can be beneficial to your brand.

    We are happy to scope a project based on your specific objectives and budget. We work with clients early in the process to understand what first-party data is available so we can integrate it effectively. This is the question that matters most, and it is one we spend meaningful time on in every debrief. A well-designed survey can capture demographic, behavioral, psychographic, and attitudinal data at scale, giving us the statistical foundation needed to identify meaningful segments.

    Follow customers’ leads instead of trying to tell them where to go. This company‘s understanding of its target audience is apparent even in demographic segmentation the name. Gamification is a key piece of its brand and how it differentiates itself from competitors. Duolingo's approach to audience targeting works because of its emphasis on progress instead of fluency. Instead, they lean into budget cooking and life's everyday chaos. The company's approach to audience targeting works because of its focus on the average consumer’s everyday needs.

    Marketing and content teams will value having detailed information for each customer segment, as this allows them to personalize their campaigns and strategies at scale. When you know what each of your market segments cares about and how they live their lives, it’s easier to know what products will enrich or enhance their day-to-day activities. If the product or service you’ve developed doesn’t solve a stated problem of your target audience or isn’t useful, then that product will have difficulty selling. This helps you identify and understand gaps in your offerings that can be scheduled for development or follow-up.

    Marketers combine the answers to these questions and create groups of people with shared attributes and preferences. In addition to demographics, you may also use psychographics, behavioral, and geographic questions to categorize people. Social media platforms have built-in analytics that can highlight demographic trends among engaged users to inform your marketing strategy. With SurveyMonkey, you can easily design professional surveys, distribute them across multiple channels, and analyze the results in real time.

    What are the key advantages and disadvantages of market segmentation for business growth?

    demographic segmentation

    Understanding the distinction between psychographic and demographic data is critical for building a complete marketing strategy. For instance, a luxury car brand has no business running expensive video ads targeted at college students with entry-level incomes. Broadcasting a message to the entire internet guarantees that a massive portion of the budget will be wasted on people who have zero interest in the product. Understanding the exact makeup of the user base ensures that companies build features people actually want to use, rather than guessing in a vacuum.

    Increased effectiveness of marketing and advertising campaigns

    Industry-specific segmentation allows for tailored solutions that address unique sector challenges, while company size segmentation ensures appropriate resource allocation for different deal values. Another common mistake is neglecting segment overlap, where customers fit multiple categories but receive conflicting or redundant communications. Over-segmentation can create unnecessarily complex campaigns that strain resources and confuse messaging consistency across customer touchpoints. Behavioral targeting offers deeper insights into customer intent and purchasing patterns, allowing for more sophisticated predictive marketing approaches. Geographic segmentation provides immediate demographic insights and enables location-based marketing strategies, making it ideal for businesses with regional products or services.

    Identify Your Market’s Major Segments

    Once you have your segments sorted you can use this data to create personalized ads and landing pages to usher visitors into your marketing funnel. This type of segmentation is closely related to demographic segmentation, as it helps in targeted marketing campaigns to specific consumer groups. Rather than targeting individual leads, it targets the account level. Unlike traditional demand gen, account-based marketing is often described as a flipped funnel approach because it inverts the process.

    demographic segmentation

    Demographic segmentation is a key strategy for reaching your target audience effectively. Specific categories of people become target demographics for marketers, enabling them to sell to these groups more effectively. Marketing demographics and segmentation enable marketers to identify efficiencies, increase personalization, and build customer loyalty. You cannot effectively communicate with an audience when you know nothing about them, and a personalized, targeted approach is essential to managing your advertising spending effectively.

    • From there, match your content format and tone to how people actually behave on each platform.
    • That requires a build sequence that connects data inputs to queue logic before the framework goes live.
    • Location, occupation, family structure, and more will also influence a customer’s budget.
    • With the largest reach, Facebook and YouTube are where the majority of users across every generation spend their time, and they’re still essential for awareness.
    • Advertising with gender stereotypes like this could easily make your brand look sexist and cause you to miss out on or anger your target audience.

    Their films, theme parks, and merchandise are designed primarily with children in mind, but they also appeal to the inner child of nostalgic adults who grew up with Mickey Mouse and friends. Many companies use age as a primary demographic variable when designing products and marketing strategies. So while customer demographic segmentation provides a good jumping off point for audience selection, targeting translates these insights into the type of focused strategy that will best drive engagement and sales. After segmenting the market, a business must evaluate which categories are the most viable in terms of size, growth potential, and alignment with their products or services.

    For added flexibility, its API supports custom integrations, enabling businesses to combine behavioral insights with CRM, email campaigns, and personalization data. These tools offer diverse capabilities, from real-time behavioral insights to privacy-focused segmentation, ensuring businesses can refine their marketing strategies effectively. Firmographic segmentation enables brands to tailor their marketing strategies to specific types of businesses. Start with the data you already have, identify which behaviors correlate with the outcomes you care about, and build from there. And no company wants to waste ad spend on the wrong people.

    Better Campaign Performance

    They’re a game-changer for cutting out unproductive leads. I‘ve found that combining personas with lifecycle stage data works wonders for mapping out and creating highly specific content. When you dive into each persona‘s preferences and behaviors, you’re able to tailor your marketing to specific segments in ways that feel both relevant and effective. Creating detailed buyer personas gives you the ability to craft content and messaging that truly connects with your audience. In fact, marketers who offer customers a personalized experience are 215% more likely to say their marketing strategies are effective than those who don't.

  • ToFu, MoFu, BoFu: A practical guide to the conversion funnel

    How conversion funnels create a better customer journey + tips to optimize yours

    bottom of funnel

    For marketers, the takeaway is straightforward. By embedding AI into chat, the platform is positioning itself as a space where users can move seamlessly from question to action. This reduces the need for multiple touchpoints across different platforms.

    Sections like pros and cons, features, and “why people use Slack? Making emphasis on the lacking features your competitor has, but your product excels at. They’re not just presenting a simple online store success story; they went more specific with “Shopify store,” so any Shopify store owner can relate even more with that headline. But if you think about it, a person must be specifically interested in your product and actively thinking about making a buying decision when they click on your case studies. The kind of content you want to read at this stage should answer all these questions and help you make a decision — whether or not that decision involves buying the competitor’s product. So, you better choose the right format according to your business model.

    bottom of funnel

    One of the most notable aspects of this launch is how it connects brand engagement directly to outcomes. It is designing experiences that feel native to how users already communicate. AI is accelerating that shift, turning chat into the place where people discover products, ask questions, and make decisions in real time.

    Enhance attendee engagement

    Let’s explore campaign types using an example from a retail shoe company. A warm audience is made up of people who are familiar with your product or service. With desire ads, you must highlight the added value of your product, emphasize its problem-solving features, and ‘prove’ that your product is the best available option. Now it’s time to show prospects why your solution is better than market alternatives. At this point, the target customer is aware of the problem but hasn’t explored any solutions. At this stage, your target customer has a problem but is not actively looking for a solution.

    How Digiconn Unite Helps Businesses Build High-Converting Funnels

    When you use them with intention, they stop being side projects and start becoming assets that actually move your business forward. Ask yourself these four questions and you’ll know exactly where to start. And you don’t need a massive audience to start.

    • We think too many brands overfocus on top of the funnel content and would be better off prioritizing BOFU instead.
    • For example, a nutritional and healthcare startup launched a website that offers varieties of freshly cooked meals in tier-1 cities in India.
    • Unique link clicks are the number of individual Facebook users who clicked on the link in your ad.
    • Once intrigued, they follow up with a Google search of your company but find nada.
    • For instance, you may want to bid higher for high-intent segments and optimize separately for new vs. returning users.
    • Now is the time to show how your product or service solves their pain point and beats the competition.

    Think of them as digital billboards—great for delivering messages, updates, and promotional content that’s meant to be seen, read, and clicked. This vast user base makes it a critical channel for marketers aiming to reach and engage audiences. As of 2026, Facebook remains the most widely used social media platform globally, with over 3.065 billion monthly active users.

    Everything you need to sell online, all in one place.

    Most people don’t buy on their first visit. Understand the principles behind why certain funnels work, then adapt them to your specific audience, voice, and offer. What works for a fitness coach won’t necessarily work for a software company. You can learn from other funnels, but don’t just clone what someone else is doing in a different market and expect the same results.

    bottom of funnel

    It must still provide value by answering questions, removing objections, or making the buying process easier. Having worked on multiple BOFU strategies, I’ve seen how powerful this type of content can be. Sign up for our Freemium plan today, and let’s help you create bottom-funnel content that is sure to secure the sale. Your prospects want to buy into an offer, now it’s up to you to ensure your business proves why your offer is the best one! Since it’s the last stage of the sales funnel, it’s crucial that your business provides prospects with high-quality content. With all the examples and strategies we’ve explored, you can now consider yourself an expert on bottom-funnel content!

    These experiences let buyers test your product on their own time and answer nuanced questions without waiting for a meeting. Consideration ends when the group has narrowed its options and believes your solution is viable enough to advance into deeper evaluation or a trial. These materials support group alignment and internal pitches. Consideration begins once buyers understand their problem and start evaluating which approaches or vendors could solve it.

    bottom of funnel

    Your potential customers probably don’t know all the features of your product, and they honestly may not care that much. With over 30 million users and excellent service, it’s easy to see why this company has been a hit in the marketing world. The following businesses have an excellent grasp of their bottom-funnel content and have subsequently secured many sales. A product features page highlights your unique product features and appeals to prospects looking to buy a product for a specific purpose.

    Stage-to-stage conversion rates show how effectively prospects progress through the funnel. Progressive profiling (collecting information gradually across multiple interactions) helps teams gather richer data without overwhelming users in a single ask. Content tailored to specific roles — technical evaluators, end users, budget owners — helps the group evaluate options and move toward consensus.

    bottom of funnel

    Retargeting isn’t just an effective strategy for advertisements. Break down your products and services vs. those of your competitors to show exactly why you stand out. They allow the customer to see for bottom of funnel themselves how your product or service can resolve their pain points. Customer testimonials and case studies can be persuasive tools to show these customers what your business can do for them.

    A Call to Action (CTA) is the nudge, the prompt, the sign that tells visitors what they should do next. While the salesperson can rave about the vehicle's features, nothing compares to the experience of actually taking the car for a spin. Letting potential customers experience your product or service firsthand can significantly reduce their apprehensions about buying. Similarly, on a website, a chatbot or live chat feature provides instant support, ensuring potential customers feel valued, heard, and guided, making them more inclined to finalize their purchase. By presenting discounts or special packages with a ticking clock, businesses can accelerate the decision-making process of potential customers.

    Dive deeper into your industry with middle-of-funnel content (consideration)

    In today’s dynamic business landscape, a well-structured funnel is essential to the success of any organization. If you have a blog, then I highly recommend you start using OptinMonster. My only regret is that I didn’t start using OptinMonster sooner.

  • 10 Effective Account-Based Marketing Strategies to Boost Your Sales in 2025

    Account-Based Marketing: Strategy, Types & Best Practices

    account based marketing tactics

    But that means finding a way to make your mark offline can be a good way to stand out and make a real impression on the accounts you’re targeting. Most account based marketing tactics account-based marketing tactics happen online because that’s where you have the most control over tracking and incorporating relevant data. Use what you know about the main target accounts and individuals on your ABM list to create ads that are highly relevant to their needs, and use the targeting options on social media and PPC platforms to get those ads in front of them. Most social media platforms allow you to upload a list of email addresses you want a specific campaign to target. Or use them as a good example of how to do a tactic you’re covering in your piece.

    The CEO even shared the image on his personal X account, exposing the smaller company to a large audience. Whitepapers, webinars, and podcasts are wonderful lead generation techniques that hook clients and inform them about your services. You should treat each account individually and use the right messaging that addresses their pain points and offers actionable solutions and tips. The next account-based marketing tactic is to start creating content and campaigns that align with each account's needs, challenges, and preferences. Once you've done your research, you can start creating your strategic marketing plan. A successful ABM plan requires perfect collaboration between sales and marketing.

    We’ve only just begun, and as technology continues to unlock new opportunities for personalized engagement with top accounts, B2B marketers will continue to achieve new levels of ABM success well into the future. Although the idea of ABM is a bit older than you might expect, B2B marketers have only scratched the surface of ABM’s potential. In this article, we’ll explore how ABM can benefit your business, how to get started with ABM, and how to create an ABM strategy that excels. It’s also important to remember that ABM is a strategy supported by your products; it isn’t a product itself.

    What are common challenges with account based marketing, and how can marketers overcome them?

    account based marketing tactics

    By aligning your sales territories with your target accounts, you can ensure that your sales team is focusing their efforts on the most promising prospects. These types of content not only provide value to your prospects but also position your company as a thought leader in your industry. For example, if you’re targeting a company that’s struggling with lead generation, you might offer a free consultation or a demo of your lead generation software. One of the most effective Account-Based Marketing tactics is to develop offers that are specific to each prospect. They involve understanding your target accounts, identifying key decision-makers, and developing strategies to engage them. At the center of ABM, you’ll find a strong alignment between sales and marketing.

    • It encourages enterprise teams to talk with sales and develop a custom plan rather than signing up for a self-serve plan.
    • Once you've done your research, you can start creating your strategic marketing plan.
    • Strong account based marketing tools and better targeting usually improve conversion quality over time.
    • Understanding your customers is important for you to personalize your communications.
    • You waste time on leads that don't fit while your best prospects get the same generic message as everyone else.

    By leveraging social media in your ABM strategy, you’re not just being seen, you’re becoming part of your customer’s world. To begin, show your support by liking their content or comments. By actively listening and engaging, you can learn more about your key accounts, create personalized interactions, and position your brand in a way that resonates with them. Savvy sales and marketing teams have come to appreciate the intrinsic power that social media holds within an Account-Based Marketing framework. You can start by sending personalized gifts to your key accounts during the holiday season.

    account based marketing tactics

    Many of these (ABM) account based marketing tactics require devoting resources to every contact on your list. Giving all your teams a shared point of connection through a messaging platform like Slack is a great place to start, so marketing and sales teams can keep service updated on key account insights. Talk to FinalFunnel to put your ABM strategy together and start implementing the best account based marketing tactics right away! The shift toward AI-enhanced content orchestration reflects the growing challenge of creating enough high-quality, personalized content to support sophisticated account based marketing tactics. The traditional handoff between marketing and sales departments no longer works for executing high-performing account based marketing tactics.

    Why Account-Based Marketing Matters For Modern B2B Companies: 5 Key Benefits

    Data-driven decision-making allows marketers to track performance, measure key metrics (like conversion rates and ROI), and adjust strategies based on insights. To optimize content for LLMs like ChatGPT and Perplexity, focus on clear headings, concise answers, and semantic markup that helps AI systems understand and recommend your content. Content repurposing allows businesses to extend the lifespan of existing content. For example, after analyzing your multi-touch data, you might discover that webinars contributed to 45% of conversions, even though they didn’t appear in the last-click attribution. While gated content (like webinars, eBooks, or white papers) is often seen as high-value, ungated content also plays a crucial role in nurturing early-stage leads. Social media is a multifaceted tool that supports every stage of your inbound marketing efforts—from brand discovery to customer purchase.

    Essential indicators to assess ABM success include the Total Addressable Market (TAM), Account Engagement Score, and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Direct mail is employed by 46% of marketers as part of their ABM strategies to bolster engagement with key accounts, leading to a higher win rate according to over half of the marketers surveyed. In order for prospects at the decision-making stage to be convinced successfully, compelling formats such as case studies and video testimonials can illustrate tangible benefits experienced by other customers using your services or products. When buyers reach the consideration stage, it’s important to provide more detailed resources like reports and webinars that demonstrate your authority in the field and assist them in weighing their options comprehensively. They guarantee that your promotional messages are seen by key individuals at opportune moments, optimizing the reach and impact of your account based marketing campaign.

    account based marketing tactics

    For businesses with limited resources, a multi-channel approach can easily tax your team. Social media listening can also uncover opportunities to reach out with a personalized message. Each video included a short message from a sales rep that highlighted the offer and how Intercom could uniquely benefit the prospect’s company. Once sales and marketing are aligned, they should collaborate on content that’s personalized to each target account’s needs and pain points. A study by the Revenue Marketing Alliance found that 78% of sales and marketing teams used integrated tools to improve their alignment. Aligning sales and marketing departments is essential for creating cohesive campaigns covering the entire buyer’s journey.

    Host events relevant to your target accounts

    Instead, you measure how accounts move through the pipeline. These aren’t “best practices.” But they’ve landed actual pipeline and they’re worth stealing. That’s how you correct the course before the pipeline dries up. If you’re still reporting on form fills or CTRs, you’re missing the point. Track everything in a shared sheet.

    I can easily set up workflows to help me identify high-value accounts, making it much easier to create my list of priority targets. If you’re already using HubSpot for your CRM, trying out HubSpot’s ABM software only makes sense. You can customize the content, agenda, and attendee list to address each account's specific pain points and objectives. Host targeted events, webinars, or roundtable discussions just for your key accounts.

    It involves joining the sales and marketing teams to spread personalized marketing campaigns that suit the needs of the targeted accounts. Creating appealing conversion offers involves offering personalized encouragement programs like whitepapers, eBooks, or webinars to attract targeted accounts. Blogging is the best way to reach your target accounts as they will receive all the information they need to start their customer journey with you. Engaging with accounts through personalized content, positive PR, and consistent communication helps establish a sense of trust and loyalty.

    account based marketing tactics

    The campaign reversed the traditional outreach model, requiring prospects to contact BillingTree instead of the other way around. They also Improved conversion rates by focusing on specific accounts and strengthened sales and marketing alignment to help its teams act on key engagement signals. They then refined their ad targeting through DemandBase’s integration with LinkedIn, ensuring their messaging reached the most relevant decision-makers.