Practically every marketer faced the challenge of making more out of less in 2009. A few applied the principles of Marketing as Service and in the process were recognized as best of class by B2B Magazine. Here is a veritable cornucopia of insights gleaned from five of these top marketers.

Marcy Shinder, VP-brand management at American Express OPEN describes their Marketing as Service activities as “earned media,” noting that “we put something out there that is so valuable, people share it on their own.” Establishing a revamped OpenForum.com as a resource to help small businesses, AmEx added Connectodex, an online tool that 1,000 small businesses have already used to connect with customers and partners. Shinder also makes sure that “anything that you see from AmEx is news that you can use.” Now that’s a commitment worth getting charged up about!

David Bills, CMO of DuPont, spread the word about the brand’s sustainability products like Tyvek by helping to rebuild the town of Greensburg, Kansas. Devastated by a tornado in 2007, Greensburg became “an environmental showcase” with DuPont pouring in $750,000 worth of construction materials and countless employee hours working through Habitat for Humanity. The reward for DuPont came via a Discovery Channel documentary on the rebuilding of Greensburg and a 6-minute feature on ESPN that ensured their good deeds were well known.

Judith Sim, CMO of Oracle Corp., rose above the down economy by staying “very focused on the high-touch.” Executing 7,000 events around the globe, Oracle hosted lunches, road shows, and roundtable discussions that enabled “conversation with customers face to face and at many different levels.” Featuring “high-level content” delivered by top tier Oracle execs (including the CEO), attendance at the 2009 events increased 22% versus 2008 and customer deals that could be linked to these marketing activities hit an all-time high of 72%.

Paul Dunay, Global Managing Director at Avaya, directed marketing away from interruptive messaging and into “packaging great, innovative ideas.” To do this, Avaya created “social content and social objects that can be shared,” including high-level events and premium research papers that customers and prospects found useful. A major proponent of social media, Paul noted that just by monitoring the buzz about Avaya on Twitter they were able to engage a hot prospect and “closed that deal within 13 days.”

John Kennedy, VP-Corporate Marketing at IBM, served up a “hopeful message for the world” with Big Blue’s “Smarter Planet” global initiative. More than mere messaging, this campaign set an agenda for governments and businesses to seek more efficient systems and followed it up with SmarterCities summits around the world. IBM also matched its “Big Green” POV with a new division, Business Analytics and Optimization, that helps businesses deal with all their data. Enlisting the support of the blogging community, IBM found actively engaged accomplices to spread the word.