What B2B Marketers Can Learn From Trillion-Dollar Companies

There are only five trillion-dollar companies in the world: Apple, Saudi Aramco, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon.

Interestingly, there are insights we can take from the content marketing strategies of these international behemoths that can be helpful to any business. No matter the size of your company, you have something to learn, and Foundation Marketing’s team of B2B marketers can walk you through how to apply these strategies to your own business.

Apple: Know Where To Lean In 

Name: Apple Inc.
Headquarters: Cupertino, CA
Market Capitalization: $3.07 trillion

The vast majority of Apple’s revenue comes from consumer sales, but that doesn’t mean that B2B marketers have nothing to learn from the company. On the contrary, it’s full of marketing masters, and anyone in any sector can find something of value to learn from them.

In terms of content marketing, Apple is sparing with some details and in-depth with others. Its marketing team members seem to be experts in knowing where you should push with more detail and where you can skim over some parts.

For example, let’s take a look at their iPhone 14 Pro product comparison page. This is a very common type of landing page with one goal: convince readers that your product is superior to a competitor’s. This page has one central message, and it’s right there in the header: 

When you click on one of those questions, it leads to a quick (always under one minute, often under 15 seconds) video of a person explaining the answer in direct, clear terms. It doesn’t feel like a sales pitch, and it feels like it’s as short as it can be. These are simple questions that consumers want simple answers for.

That contrasts with how many consumers feel about privacy. A lot of people are increasingly concerned about keeping their data private, and they want to know some details about how companies are doing that. Apple has built a reputation for data privacy, and it wants to keep it.

That’s why it has a whole separate landing page on its website just to talk about privacy. There’s enough information there to be worth its own breakdown, but suffice it to say that the average consumer is going to be impressed with the care and clarity of the messaging here. It gives the impression that Apple is full of privacy experts who are fully committed to protecting its customers.

What’s the Takeaway?

Know when your customers want to know more, and know when brevity is the soul of good marketing. On the one hand, not every piece of product information has to be discussed in detail. If people want an easy answer, make it sound easy. 

On the other hand, don’t be afraid to dig deep and give those technical details where people want them. It’s all about knowing your customers and what they’ll look for in your marketing materials.

Saudi Aramco: Position Yourself as a Leader

Name: Saudi Arabian Oil Group
Headquarters: Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
Market Capitalization: $2.08 trillion

You might not be as familiar with Saudi Aramco, but that doesn’t mean the company has any less of an impact on your life. But if you’ve ever worked in oil and gas, then you’re certainly aware of the industry’s biggest player.

Saudi Aramco isn’t a B2C company, so it might surprise you to find out that much of its marketing is still consumer-friendly. That’s because it still cares about its general perception, and it wants buyers of all kinds to be able to understand its materials. 

You can see that easily with Saudi Aramco’s Elements magazine. Elements handles stories about the people who work with Saudi Aramco, as well as technological, environmental, and business management topics. 

While you might expect articles about technology to be incomprehensible to the general public, Elements is carefully written to put topics about the latest oil and gas technology into terms that even a content writer can understand! 

For example, this article about a technology called “real-time flow monitoring” immediately hits you with bullet points that highlight the technology’s main benefits:

Did you get that? They’re maximizing the amount of stuff they get, picking up accurate data, and they’re experts.

What’s the Takeaway?

Don’t be afraid of talking to amateurs. Great leaders take people who aren’t the best equipped and give them the information they need to succeed. That means putting complex topics in terms your audience can understand.

Microsoft: Show How You Shape the World

Name: Microsoft Corporation
Headquarters: Redmond, WA
Market Capitalization: $2.74 trillion

Microsoft is the world’s largest software maker. Most of its revenue comes from server products and office software, such as Azure and Office 360. 

Microsoft deals in both B2B and B2C sales, and some of its B2B products are quite complicated. From cloud-based server architecture to the latest advances in AI, it handles plenty of technical, difficult topics.

That can make it difficult to explain what they do to consumers. But where Apple digs into product details, and Saudi Aramco puts its technology in consumer-level terminology, Microsoft takes a different approach to its content marketing: focusing on impacts.

Microsoft loves running stories about how it’s changing the world. Articles like this one just run through the impacts that its technology has, regardless of whether readers understand it. Let’s take an example here:

Do I know what the advantages and disadvantages of on-premises datacenters are vs. the cloud? Not really. Does it matter? Well, I know that making the change let American Airlines gain speed and boost reliability, and that’s all I really care about.

Microsoft doesn’t have to break down the pros and cons of different data storage methods for me. All I care about is how the largest brands in the world trust them for their essential technologies, and it works. Functionally these are miniature case studies, but they’re formatted as news stories.

What’s the Takeaway?

Brag, and do it well. Brag in terms that people can understand, and don’t worry about getting bogged down in technical details. If you want, you can break it down like Apple and Saudi Aramco. But don’t hesitate to get to the punchline: You’re the best, and everyone should know it.

Alphabet: Get Silly

Name: Alphabet Inc.
Headquarters: Mountain View, CA
Market Capitalization: $1.57 trillion

Alphabet owns the two most visited websites in the world: Google.com and YouTube.com. It’s likely you’re reading this article in an Alphabet-owned browser, found it on Google, or got it delivered to your Gmail account. Few companies’ products are more ubiquitous in our lives. 

Although Alphabet is the parent company we’re talking about, Google (and its subsidiary, YouTube) make up over 99% of the company’s revenue, so we’ll focus on Google’s content marketing today.

Google does a great job of breaking through with a distinct voice in its marketing materials. It does that by breaking down the typical corporate tone and doing some things that are a little silly. The company doesn’t have to make Google Doodles, but at this point, they’re an iconic part of the brand identity. In the same way, it creates whimsical content marketing pieces.

Although this content can be silly, that doesn’t mean there isn’t something serious behind it. For example, this article highlights an experiment that used cutting-edge technology to make a purple bird that plays the cello.

Google hired seven professional musicians as a part of this project, on top of paying their own engineers. They don’t do that just for fun, and the technology here is genuinely impressive. But at the same time, it’s a purple bird playing the cello. I wouldn’t be talking about it if it were a boring but accurate cello simulator.

What’s the Takeaway?

Humor grabs your attention; use it. If you have a point you want to ensure sticks with your audience, don’t be afraid to get a little silly and highlight it with clever, interesting content.

Amazon: Market Your Values

Name: Amazon.com, Inc.
Headquarters: Seattle, WA
Market Capitalization: $1.38 trillion

An online bookstore became the world’s largest retailer — you’ve heard it before. But here’s the most impressive statistic I’ve come across about Amazon: It’s the most popular institution in America.

How did it get that way? Amazon has had plenty of scandals on topics as varied as environmentalism, working conditions, and antitrust violations. But that doesn’t seem to have put a dent in the brand’s overall reputation.

But Amazon has clearly stated values, and it centers much of its marketing around them. At many companies, their values feel like a thin veil over their core value of making as much money as possible. Amazon’s content marketing does something interesting to avoid this.

Where most case studies would try and put financial benefits front and center, many of Amazon’s, such as this one, instead focus on its values. In this case, the company talks about reducing carbon emissions before saving cash.

In the excerpt above, Amazon takes it for granted that reducing emissions is a positive and moves on to the question of how. It shows the customers’ values as aligned with the company’s and quotes the CEO not on revenue generation but on this more important goal.

What’s the Takeaway?

Highlight your values in marketing materials. Customers like to know that you’re a principled company that knows what they care about and aligns with their values. By speaking to your own values, you speak to your potential customers’ values and can start building trust before you have your first conversation.

Learn From the Best 

Whether it’s Apple’s mastery of brevity and depth, Saudi Aramco’s successful navigation of complex topics, Microsoft’s impact-focused narratives, Alphabet’s inclination for silliness, or Amazon’s principled marketing tactics, each of these trillion-dollar companies offers valuable insights. Distilling and applying these lessons to your business, regardless of its scale, can foster your growth and solidify your presence in your respective sector. 

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