We’re used to seeing stellar examples of marketing everywhere, but the award-winners and headline-makers tend to be beloved B2C brands like Nike or Warby Parker. Unfortunately, when it comes to B2B brands in the SaaS space, marketing is rarely as flashy. But just because what you’re selling isn’t as sexy as cars or phones doesn’t mean you can’t create cool, creative marketing that turns heads. The truth is there are plenty of SaaS brands doing really cool sh*t, and we love to give them the shine they deserve. So today we’re giving you a fresh roundup of great SaaS campaign examples that stopped our scroll and gave us the hit of inspiration we need.
10 Inspiring SaaS Campaign Examples
From clever visual storytelling to brilliant billboards, these SaaS campaign examples will inspire to you stretch the boundaries of your storytelling, explore your creativity, and find more unique ways to connect with your unique audience through content.
1) Choose a Better Way to Work by Slack
Slack’s core brand promise is about making work easier and more stress-free by putting everything in sight on one platform. To reinforce this promise, they built a clean and beautiful campaign that shows Slack’s ability to turn chaos into clarity–simply by organizing shapes. In print, billboards, video, and digital, they tell a powerful story, making a major impact with incredibly simple design.
Tip: Visual communication can transform your own brand storytelling. Make sure you’re doing it the right way by avoiding these common mistakes.
2) Spiraling Up: The Journey to Become a Unicorn by Hubspot & Linked
The best marketers know what their audience wants and needs to hear, and both Hubspot and LinkedIn are pros at creating highly resonant content for their target demos. In this latest venture, they are creating a three-season documentary series that chronicles the journeys of startup founders at every stage of funding–from seed rounds to unicorn status. Each episode features a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges, successes, and resiliency it takes to run a successful startup.
Tip: If you want to connect with your audience, you need to have empathy for what they’re going through and create content that speaks to them. Get more tips to incorporate more empathy into your own marketing.
3) Taking Stock by Mailchimp
We might be the biggest Mailchimp Stans around, considering that they seem to make their way into most of our roundups. But it’s because their work is just that good. We’re especially big fans of the Taking Stock campaign, a hilarious spoof of how those awkward business stock photos come to be. It’s a brilliant premise and a great way to show off that classic Mailchimp sense of humor.
Tip: Video is an especially powerful way to connect with consumers. See our guide to brand video, and find out how to make low-production video that makes a big impact.
4) OPEN by {Default} by Finastra
Winner of the The Drum Awards for Marketing in 2022, this campaign demonstrates the power of great thought leadership. As a financial services company, Finastra is entrenched in the day-in, day-out challenges that the financial industry faces, and one issue is a particular concern: AI bias. By facing this issue head-on through a variety of campaign content (including video, TikToks, online discussions, and additional assets), Finastra is planting their flag on this issue, showcasing their efforts to combat it, and making the brand an industry leader in the process.
Tip: Sharing your values is one of the best ways to differentiate your brand and build relationships with your audience. Try these tips to turn your own values into content.
5) Holiday Marketing Strategy Reboot by Attentive
Cool, creative, and very fresh, Attentive’s fantastic holiday shopping guide is a sight (and site) for sore eyes. Instead of issuing a standard, templatized holiday marketing guide, they created an interactive guide designed like an old-school Web 1.0 site. You can listen to a ‘90s playlist, click for tips, and enjoy interviews—all served up in a bubble gum website wonderland. This is the perfect example of presentation completely transforming the way you experience content. A+ stuff.
Tip: Interactive content is a great way to engage your audience. Follow these tips to brainstorm and vet your best interactive ideas.
6) Elm eLearning Campaign by ELM
It’s hard to stand out in the marketplace, especially in SaaS marketing. Knowing this, ELM Learning underwent a massive rebrand, creating a fresh visual identity, messaging, and visuals to better communicate their brand. The result? A beautiful, eye-catching campaign that tells a consistent story across mediums, including graphics and video.
Tip: Creating a consistent, cohesive brand identity is crucial to communicate your brand story. See our tips to make sure the content you create is always on-brand.
7) The Worst Ad by Bango
We love a good billboard, especially when the billboard itself is a part of your brand story. To emphasize the fact that search advertising is broken (and Bango has a better solution), Bango went and bought the worst billboard in the UK (because it’s seen by the least amount of people) to prove that one lonely billboard will still get seen by more people than your PPC ad. It’s a bold and brilliant campaign that turns heads and makes you think.
Tip: We love when brands for seemingly boring products get insanely creative. See 15 more examples of brands doing great marketing for less-than-exciting products and services.
8) Long Live the XLA by Acora
How do you make IT services exciting? Turn it into a Game of Thrones-esque battlefield. That’s exactly what Acora does in this unique marketing campaign. The best part? This campaign is so thorough they use every asset to reinforce the brand story, from the battlefield video to the CTA (“Join the battle for better IT”). That is the level of detail we absolutely love to see.
Tip: If you want to grab attention, you need to know what is unique about your brand. Find out how to tell stories that your competition can’t.
9) Seamless Is More by Software AG
To increase brand awareness outside of Europe, German company Software AG needed a fresh campaign to communicate the brand’s value to a larger audience. As their software seamlessly integrates with companies across industries, they built a full campaign around the theme “seamless is more,” creating a series of visuals that featured the seamless stitching together of photos to create unique imagess. The result was a colorful, creative, and impactful campaign that increased awareness around the globe.
Tip: The key to telling a cohesive visual story is having a strong visual identity. Use this checklist to ensure you have a visual identity that will support your content strategy.
10) Race to Zero by Intuit QuickBooks
This is another great example of a big brand using their voice and values to make social change. Intuit Quickbook’s Race to Zero campaign encourages small businesses to tackle climate change one sale at a time. The campaign includes mini documentaries featuring planet-conscious small brands, handy tips to help businesses adopt greener practices, and a public pledge to sign. It’s a simple way to both celebrate and promote these practices while building community around the brand.
Tip: One of the best ways to tell your story is to let other people tell your story for you. See our tips to create unique and exciting user-generated content.
How to Make Your Own Successful SaaS Campaigns
We hope these examples have inspired you to take your own B2B marketing to a new creative level. If you’re planning your next campaign, here are a few more tips to make it as strong as possible.
- Know your audience. Get inside their minds, find out what makes them tick, create marketing personas, and find out how to market to different generations,
- Focus on value. Campaigns are only successful if they speak to your audience’s needs and wants. One of the best ways to do that is to offer your audience valuable education. Try these 5 tips to educate your customers the right way.
- Mix up your mediums. Multichannel campaigns are always the most effective, but it requires the right mix of content to make it successful. Find out which types of content may be right for your audience, and try these 20 tips to help your SaaS campaigns succeed.
Of course, great content doesn’t happen overnight. It requires smart strategy, the right skills, and a solid production process. If you need a partner for any part of the process, we’d be happy to help if we’re the right fit. Take a look at our FAQs to find out more about what we do, then reach out directly. We’d love to turn your next SaaS campaign into our best case study.
