The 95/5 rule in Marketing is all about the idea that 95% of your potential customers aren’t ready to buy and only 5% of your potential customers are in the market ready to buy.
We see brands like Nike, Red Bull, and Liquid Death acknowledge this fact and spend tons of resources in Marketing towards that 95%. They don’t forget about the 5%, obviously, but they’re spending 10x more time on the 95% than their competitors.
And it’s one of the biggest reasons for their respective category dominance.
They’re staying top of mind, storytelling, and nurturing their target demo so that once the 95% transitions into the 5%, you better believe they’re choosing brands like Nike, Red Bull, and Liquid Death.
Now when it comes to B2B, every brand is habitually selling at all touchpoints.
Meaning they’re ignoring this 95/5 rule altogether and using every chance they can get to sell a new feature or get you to subscribe. Which leaves a massive opportunity.
There are very few brands building unique ways to connect to that 95%. Nike uses storytelling through your favorite athletes. Red Bull films wild stunts. Liquid Death entertains through their out of the box collabs and commercials.
But there’s one brand in B2B who is becoming the poster child for selling to their audience without them realizing, investing in top of funnel awareness, and most importantly giving the 95% some attention.
Marketing Bestie, meet Wellhub (formerly known as Gympass), the brand behind wellness plans for every employee and one of the coolest Marketing stunts I’ve seen in B2B.
Founded in 2012 in New York, Wellhub is one of the leading corporate wellness platforms in the world, but they also happen to have one of the most creative Marketing departments in the world.
In the beginning of 2023 Wellhub was looking for a way to cut through the noise, plain and simple.
They were running Meta Ads, posting on organic social, hosting events, running the same playbook that the best B2B brands do.
We’re not here to talk about best practices though, we’re here to talk about the big swings, the risks other Marketers are taking, the murder mystery HR podcasts that B2B brands are running– wait what?
Wellhub was approached by Caspian Studios, a podcast-as-a-service agency specializing in Hollywood Storytelling for B2B, who had a CRAZY idea for the brand.
What if Wellhub leaned into fictional storytelling to organically place their product in a storyline that sold to their audience without them even realizing it, just like James Bond exclusively driving an Aston Martin (product placement 101) in his films.
That’s when the idea for Muder in HR came about.
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A 12 episode series centered around a fictional AI-powered SaaS platform called “Peace of Ship”, which takes a wild turn for the worst when a veteran employee eerily dies at work.
The new HR Manager discovers that there is more to the death than meets the eye, the tech company is actually a “front” for an assassin organization. The podcast follows Jemma on her path to uncovering the killer within the company FULL of trained assassins.
I’m going to pause there.
Isn’t this WILD?! A B2B company creating an entirely fictional podcast, hiring A-list actors – oh forgot to mention that Kata Mara and Brett Gelman are the lead actors, all while STILL being relevant to 2024 with their focus on AI.
Talk about building top of funnel awareness in an incredibly unique way.
They weren’t trying to do a wild stunt that would be a one hit wonder, they wanted to build something that had a similar shock value, but with staying power.
And disrupting the typical B2B podcast was exactly the right choice.
But back to the story…
The 12-part series follows Jemma and Nicholas in their search for the killer. There’s punchy humor, irony, and world class storytelling.
And the entire series all culminates in the pair finding out who the killer was. I won’t spoil it here though lol.
The fictional company (which is an assassin “front”) has all the little quirks that a company like yours has. Employees haggling over benefits, toxic company culture, and that’s where the magic comes into play…
It’s a fictional story, but there are realistic aspects to it which place opportunities on a platter for Wellhub to subtly include their product as part of the employee benefits within the story.
A proven technique in Hollywood translated to B2B, this has enabled Wellhub to sell their product to their audience without them even realizing it.
After the first season, Murder in HR was listened to 1.2M times, won multiple Webby awards, and has turned into a MASSIVE series for Wellhub.
Season 2 was just announced, launching on September 30th, the new cast is LOADED. 👇
Kate Mara still leads the show, with Ben Schwartz and Adam Devine joining her to play the co-lead roles, and featuring viral creator Ross Pomerantz. It’s a stacked cast ready for season 2 and to break all sorts of records for B2B podcasting.
The next time you’re looking to build that top of funnel awareness, look outside of those paid campaigns and events. Go the extra mile, take inspo from other industries, find a NEW WAY to connect with your audience.
The biggest risk you can take in Marketing, is not taking any risk, just take it from Wellhub…
