This Is How You Do It

The genesis of this exciting project stemmed from when Trainual was first launched - as its CMO Jonathan Ronzio explains:

“Since launching Trainual, we joked that ‘This Is How We Do It’ was basically the Trainual theme song. Essentially, that’s what our customers are using Trainual for - telling their teams, this is how we do it here. AKA, ‘here are our processes for keeping our business running smoothly.’”

So Montell Jordan’s song fitted in with Trainual’s company mission, and crucially, its audience. Trainual’s marketing team identified its ICP as being:

Entrepreneurs and small business leaders with 10-100 employees who grew up in the 80s and 90s.

Trainual was already courting a millennial audience - the same people who would feel nostalgic about “This Is How We Do It” and remember when it was first released.

There was another factor at play. “This Is How We Do It” had become a popular trend on TikTok, meaning that Montell Jordan and his music were being rediscovered by younger generations, too.

All this led to Jonathan and his team reaching out to Jordan to explore the idea of a collaboration.

“We discovered that Montell was on Cameo. We booked some time with him, originally to record a fun shoutout for the team, but with the idea that we could build a relationship with him. We had some follow-up calls and that’s when we talked about working together.”

The Vision 👀

Once Trainual and Jordan had agreed on creating a new version of “This Is How We Do It”, Jonathan devised some musts for the campaign:

• It had to be cool, fun and relevant. 
• It had to be evergreen, not single-use.
• It had to be a legit track, not a Trainual jingle.

Jonathan expressed his vision like so:

“Let’s write and produce a brand new track that leans into the nostalgia and leverages the recognisability of Montell’s classic, but that feels fresh at the same time.”

Or in other words:

“This song should just be a freaking JAM that people would actually want to listen to.”

Trainual also set some goals for the campaign:

• It had to drive massive brand awareness.
• It had to maximise its promotional partnerships.
• It had to bring attention to Trainual’s Playbook event launch in Q3 2021.

However, before recording and filming could begin, some tweaks had to be made to the song. Back to Jonathan:

“The original ‘This Is How We Do It’ only works in association with the Trainual value prop in its title and chorus hook. The rest of the song doesn’t really align with the aspirations and struggles of our small business audience.”

It took Montell and Jonathan two weeks to rewrite the track, changing the original lyrics to make them fit with Trainual’s brand values. “This Is How You Do It” was born!

Then the team decamped to a studio in Brooklyn, where they recorded the song and filmed the music video. The song was released on streaming platforms and the video premiered on Jordan’s own YouTube channel.

Beyond the song and video, Trainual created other campaign assets, including:

• TV commercials and online ads.
• A campaign photoshoot featuring Montell Jordan and US investor and TV personality Daymond John.
• TikTok videos and Instagram reels.
• A behind-the-scenes video.

It was also a Shorty Awards finalist in the Business to Business category.

Trainual gained some more tangible results from the campaign:

• 5k+ Playbook event attendees - double the attendance from the previous year.
• 57% organic traffic increase to Trainual.com (from 2 months after the campaign went live).
• All this funnelled into 600+ new Trainual accounts during the campaign life cycle.

Why is this campaign such a good example of unboring B2B marketing? As Jonathan said:

“Making this was some of the most fun we’ve ever had.”

And that sense of fun translates to the viewer. Trainual made something awesome and it happened to be good marketing.

Looking at the video’s YouTube comments confirms this. Most people praise the track and like it on its own merits. Trainual is almost a hidden element in its own campaign; most viewers either aren’t aware that the song is promoting a brand, or they don’t much care either way.

Jonathan summed up his thoughts on the project:

“Modern marketing is about the brand - brand resonance and relevance. Your brand is your reputation, and your reputation drives revenue.”