As B-to-B marketers, we put a lot of thought into the companies we are targeting. We carefully pull lists segmented by revenue, geography, job titles and industry. But the reality is, we aren’t only targeting companies and organizations; we are targeting people. And when we only think of them as companies and pound them with numbers and stats, our message inevitably gets lost in the noise. Somewhere, in the midst of all of our campaigns and programs, we have lost an important component of the marketing message: emotion.
Bringing emotion and personality into campaigns comes easily to B-to-C marketers. Budweiser brings us horses that bond with puppies to tug at our heartstrings. Dove shows us that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, and Apple taught us that Macs are owned by cool guys while PC users are nerds. These campaigns focus directly on our fears, hopes, insecurities and dreams.
The next time you are putting together content for a campaign, instead of leaning solely on the latest big data/cloud/security lingo, make an effort to truly connect with your audience. Try an approach that takes into account why your solution is important to the people receiving your message.
1) Start with a compelling story
Take a step back from the tactics of putting together a webinar or creating an email campaign and think about the story you want to tell. Why does your target audience care? True, we want them to buy into attending our event or downloading our whitepaper, but what are they going to get out of it? What is in it for them? Why do they need this information?
2) Think beyond the job title
Once you have your target list by title and industry, think about what the real people that make up your list actually do all day. What are their goals? What do they want to achieve? What would make their job easier? How are you helping them do their job better, faster or more efficiently? We all want to feel smart, savvy, and good at our jobs and we can tap into that desire to perform when we think about how we market our products. These are the emotions that provoke action.
3) Give your campaign a personality
People respond to other people; especially those that we can relate to in some way. Where possible, try giving your campaign a persona. It can be effective to choose the person no one wants to be as a cautionary tale, such as the PC user in the Apple ads, or a positive persona that exemplifies where you want to be, such as the Mac user in those same ads.
Injecting emotion into marketing can be very effective, and it’s fun for those who receive our message as well. After all, what is going to make your email stand out from the pack: a subject line offering yet another whitepaper or one with a little personality?
Jan Bryson: Marketing 
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