What Are Examples of Digital Marketing Campaigns that Exceeded Performance Expectations?
To uncover the secrets behind highly successful digital marketing campaigns, we asked five experts to share their standout strategies. From utilizing a micro-influencer strategy to targeting high-value leads with remarketing, here are the unique elements that contributed to their campaign successes.
- Utilize Micro-Influencer Strategy
- Send Personalized Plain-Text Emails
- Leverage Popular Resources for Webinars
- Implement Augmented Reality Technology
- Target High-Value Leads with Remarketing
Utilize Micro-Influencer Strategy
One digital marketing campaign that stands out was for a natural skincare brand where we utilized a micro-influencer strategy on social media. Unlike using major influencers, we partnered with several niche influencers whose followers had a keen interest in organic and sustainable products. This approach allowed us to generate high engagement rates and a substantial increase in brand awareness.
The unique element that contributed to its success was the authentic connection between the micro-influencers and their audiences. These influencers had smaller, more dedicated followings who trusted their recommendations. We provided these influencers with creative freedom to showcase the products in a way that resonated with their personal brand and their audience's preferences. The campaign resulted in a remarkable uptick in website traffic and a significant boost in sales.
Send Personalized Plain-Text Emails
As a digital marketing agency, we work with a myriad of clients for whom email marketing requires a uniquely varied approach.
One of our primary B2B clients requests a schedule of two weekly emails to be sent, each targeting a specific industry. Over the course of a few months, we cover contacting each of the industries relevant to their service.
Typically, these emails are similar in their approach and format—discussion on recent 'goings-on' in the client industry, and then some tailored content emphasizing the services they can provide to the emailed industry. They include custom imagery, external links, and unique landing pages dependent on where their interest would lie with the client.
In recent weeks, we've tailored these emails further (originally via A/B testing) by sending them as plain-text emails. These feature no imagery or exciting format, simply the brand coloring as the background, occasional subheading, and a footer at the bottom to highlight that this is still a marketing email. This change allowed us to produce content voiced as if it was written by a member of the client's team—much more personal, chatty, and informal than a usual email newsletter.
As a result, we saw our email open rate soar to an average of around 23%! This is very impressive to us, as these emails are regularly circulated to industry lists of 5,000+ contacts.
We now maintain the plain-text email format when using marketing services to industries, and believe the added sense of familiarity in the email tone and sender—these are sent 'from' a named member of a team—highlights a sense of intrigue and trust from potential customers that is missing from a standard email newsletter campaign.
Leverage Popular Resources for Webinars
In a world where we've all signed up for webinars 'so I can watch the recording later,' I was blown away by the significant attendance for a webinar we hosted with minimal lead-time and promotion. The key to our success was leveraging our most popular asset: our annual salary guide. By pairing this resource with highly topical subjects like mass layoffs, the gig economy, and hiring trends—and featuring an expert who could demystify these complex issues—we hit a sweet spot. The combination seemed to resonate with our audience, addressing their concerns and providing real, actionable insights. As a result, we attracted a highly engaged and unexpected turnout, proving the power of timely, relevant content and trusted expertise.
Implement Augmented Reality Technology
A campaign for a boutique fashion e-commerce site targeted at millennials featured a virtual try-on experience—an augmented-reality setup that allowed users to see outfits on themselves via their mobile devices. We complemented this tech-savvy approach with a Snapchat ad campaign and Instagram Stories that featured influencers demonstrating the technology. This innovative use of AR technology not only created buzz but also led to a viral spread on social media, resulting in a 200% increase in user engagement and a significant boost in sales, particularly from new users attracted by the tech feature.
The augmented-reality feature in the boutique fashion campaign was the critical element that led to its success. This technology provided a novel, interactive way for customers to engage with the product, enhancing the online shopping experience and setting the brand apart from competitors. The use of AR appealed to the tech-savvy millennial market, providing them with a unique, immersive experience that was both fun and practical.
Target High-Value Leads with Remarketing
One campaign that significantly exceeded our performance expectations was a LinkedIn paid-media initiative for a media agency aiming to boost high-value lead generation. We targeted marketing directors, VPs, and CMOs at enterprise businesses in the US, UK, and Central Europe with a strategy centered on brand awareness and remarketing.
The campaign featured downloadable PDFs and engaging videos, which resonated deeply with the target audience and the problems they were facing. The unique element of this campaign was our precise segmentation and the combination of valuable content with strategic remarketing, which created multiple touchpoints and built strong brand recall.
This approach was instrumental in generating over £750k in new business within just 16 weeks, demonstrating how targeted content and segmentation can drive exceptional results.
