Client Successes

Boost new contact acquisition and conversion

Challenge

A midsize enterprise software company wanted to increase awareness and attract net new customers from among a target audience that was highly technical--and highly skeptical of marketing.

Solution

• Launched an independent Web site to freely share proven and agnostic technical content sourced from more than 50 respected industry leaders
• Rapidly increased content on the site and site authority by licensing and selectively publishing exclusive content from technical publishers
• Developed an advertising program for the site to promote high-value branded content offers to increase engagement
• Linked the site to existing marketing programs, including Google ad retargeting, social media, events and demand generation

Results

The Web site quickly attracted a high volume of very qualified traffic, enabling the company to showcase industry leaders, promote expert, non-branded content and:

• Very low cost of contact acquisition at $14 per contact
• 67% increase in top of funnel traffic conversion to contact (download a gated asset)
• 10% increase in product trial downloads, a key conversion point in the buyer’s journey
• Increased overall traffic to the company’s web sites by producing 735 ranking keywords (all of which were unique to this site and represent traffic the company wouldn’t have gotten otherwise)
• Boosted social sharing of content by 35%
• Contributed contacts to additional marketing programs, including retargeting campaigns, social media, demand generation, events and more

Leverage influencers to increase AWARENESS and demand

Challenge

To support existing marketing programs by finding highly qualified new contacts, an enterprise software company wanted to leverage the power of influencers within a very technical community.

Solution

Launched an industry experts program leveraging respected leaders in the technical community, both internally within the company and externally. Key elements of the program included: 

• Recruitment of experts, focusing on those with significant activity in social media, user groups or other high visibility / reach activity area
• Identification of topic area(s) and activity/deliverable sets for each expert
• Cross promotion and sharing of content in company’s channels and in expert’s channels
• Selective repurposing of content generated

Results:

• More than 50 independent experts engaged in co-creating and cross-promoting content in: social media channels; live and online events and more
• For search: 735 ranking keywords,  71% increase in traffic, 226% increase in unique visitors to conversion pages
• For events (via webinars): 27% increase in new contacts, 107% increase in new contact acquisition versus live online product demonstration
• For social: 175% increase in rate of new contact acquisition, versus other channels

Boost organic search through video

Challenge

• A Global 100 software company wanted to strengthen its organic search position

Solution

• Recommended a unique approach that combined two key elements:
• The power of peers in influencing B2B buying decisions
• The power of video in influencing online search

Customers shared success stories in simple videos, in their own words—not in “marketing speak.” By combining efforts of several other agencies, we created a comprehensive solution inclusive of consumer intent modeling, content planning and strategy, creative development, video editing and production, and a proprietary video tagging, packaging and distribution, and, of course measurement.

Results

• Produced more than 120 videos showcasing agency client’s customers, partners and employees sharing what the technology had enabled in their own organizations.
• Delivered over 278,000 total hits in 25 months on client’s dedicated YouTube channel
• CTRs to corporate site were far higher than traditional tactics (for example, 4x better than banner ads)
• >10k video views per month on average
• >2500 lifetime views per video (only 20% of videos on YouTube make it to 500 in their lifetime)
• Achieved significantly higher engagement rates

Generate buzz for a global server launch

Challenge

After unifying several server platforms into a single brand, this Global 100 hardware manufacturer needed an elegant way to unify its diverse customer base.

Solution

Give people in the many and diverse user groups “bragging rights” to share how they had used the technology to achieve results.

• Created a versatile concept to support telling the story from any point of view
• Quickly produced a library of customer story videos showcasing customers sharing their stories
• Extended approach wide variety of launch support materials, from T—shirts to presentation templates to signage.

Results

• This campaign quickly went “viral” because it resonated so well with client’s customer base all around the world that. In fact, the client’s customers were asking to participate—a very unique experience in gathering customer stories.
• The client’s geography—based marketing teams not only embraced the concept, but also used it in English, rather than translate it into the local language. One team even took the campaign on the road, designing a bus wrapped in the creative.
• One marketing manager in the United States declared, “I have never seen a creative that worked in Asia exactly as designed by worldwide, ever for an IBM launch!”

SPEED BUYER's JOURNEY WITH PEER-TO-PEER SALES ENABLEMENT

Challenge

A global enterprise hardware and software company was challenged with engaging sellers in supporting a new offering—sellers were skeptical about market receptivity yet needed to quickly ramp up product introduction.

Solution

• Developed a peer enablement approach based on sales best practices attuned to real market needs
• Enabled sellers to share their successes and challenges with each other by creating a YouTube—like social platform for the seller community and seedeing sales offices with flip cameras
• Mined the seller community to discover and develop repurposable content and tools that pulled the sellers together as a community

Results

• Sellers were very responsive and readily adopted tools
• Program format has been replicated in other seller communities in the company

Increase recruitment and retention through a talent brand

After the merger of two companies, one newly formed tech services company invested in a talent brand to increase its ability to recruit and retain top talent in an industry with negative unemployment. But they needed impactful ways to bring the talent brand to life and engage employees in the process.

What is a talent brand and why have one?

A talent brand aligns with your corporate brand, and leverages employees to share their experience of being part of the company. In fact, engaging employees and candidates in this way is so powerful that research from Lippincott shows that companies that align a corporate brand and a talent brand deliver 36% more shareholder value over 5 years than companies that don’t.

Solution

Nothing tells a story as powerfully as the people that live the story every day. To help this company, we started a program that put real employees front and center, to share their experience of working for the company and with its clients. 

• Produced a high impact, emotional rallying cry video to explain, first to employees, and then to the world, what the business and brand stood for. The video featured company employees making short statements about what the company meant to them and the company’s clients. 
• Infused the talent brand into all things related to talent acquisition.
  • Relaunched the Careers section of the web site, including personalized content aligned to key personas
  • Introduced employee success stories and videos
  • Developed all new collateral and visual for recruiting events  
  • Refreshed all social channels on LInkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and GlassDoor
• Guided multiple company culture building activities to align with the talent brand,  including through employee special interest groups, the performance management program, internal training programs and more.

Results

Early performance numbers showed that the hard work delivered results, including:

• 94% YoY increase in pageviews on the corporate web site Careers section
• Increase in followers on the social channels of 125% YoY