Case Study - Integrated Campaign
This Case Study is provided as an example of how to connect a Business Requirement to a Marketing Campaign, the outcome of which provides Results to meet the Business Requirement as well as other benefits.
There are many levels to consider integration for marketing, in terms of internal and external contexts, the directionality of integration and the purpose of working to points of integration. Often marketing activity is governed by pragmatic pressures of what budget is available, what sales support / lead generation is needed, or what corporate marketing assets already exist. While these are all essential considerations, if they are the only considerations they produce marketing activity that can be blinkered from a bigger corporate impact or from a market-based view. If marketing can answer which market opportunities it can influence, how it is aligning to overall corporate objectives, and which emerging growth areas it can seed, then it is much closer to operating as a strategic asset for the enterprise.
This case study is a useful demonstration of how, if an overarching corporate objective is the starting context for marketing activity, then the market outcomes generated by the activity can be much more effectively integrated into the enterprise.
In this way, marketing is not just being measured by raw metrics such as # touchpoints, # responses, # suspects handed to sales for qualification, but by its ability to contribute to a more comprehensive purpose.
There are many levels to consider integration for marketing, in terms of internal and external contexts, the directionality of integration and the purpose of working to points of integration. Often marketing activity is governed by pragmatic pressures of what budget is available, what sales support / lead generation is needed, or what corporate marketing assets already exist. While these are all essential considerations, if they are the only considerations they produce marketing activity that can be blinkered from a bigger corporate impact or from a market-based view. If marketing can answer which market opportunities it can influence, how it is aligning to overall corporate objectives, and which emerging growth areas it can seed, then it is much closer to operating as a strategic asset for the enterprise.
This case study is a useful demonstration of how, if an overarching corporate objective is the starting context for marketing activity, then the market outcomes generated by the activity can be much more effectively integrated into the enterprise.
In this way, marketing is not just being measured by raw metrics such as # touchpoints, # responses, # suspects handed to sales for qualification, but by its ability to contribute to a more comprehensive purpose.
Context: Business Requirements
The campaign in this case study was run in the lead up to a major version release of an enterprise application, and was developed to address some specific business issues:
The answers to these issues carry very significant financial and market impact. Often vendors use a mix of approaches to retain visibility into this area, including sales engagement, customer care program, customer satisfaction surveys, industry analyst engagement, technical support analysis and customer advisory boards. Each has strength and weakness in the approach and outcomes, but when they are not combined then the view into product utilisation, feature development and forward potential becomes fragmented and opaque, and different functions within the vendor may start pulling in different directions.
The campaign in this case study provided a level set for this view into product utilisation, feature development and forward potential.
So, starting with the Business Requirements context, the logic flow looks like this:
- There are multiple legacy versions in the market: confirm current utilisation by version
- Understand what internal customisations have been implemented by customers
- Assess each customers’ usage of and perceived value of support services
- Thereby assess the migration burden and benefit to the upcoming new version release
The answers to these issues carry very significant financial and market impact. Often vendors use a mix of approaches to retain visibility into this area, including sales engagement, customer care program, customer satisfaction surveys, industry analyst engagement, technical support analysis and customer advisory boards. Each has strength and weakness in the approach and outcomes, but when they are not combined then the view into product utilisation, feature development and forward potential becomes fragmented and opaque, and different functions within the vendor may start pulling in different directions.
The campaign in this case study provided a level set for this view into product utilisation, feature development and forward potential.
So, starting with the Business Requirements context, the logic flow looks like this:
Summary: Marketing Implementation
The campaign plan, budget and resource requirements came as a consequence of the business context. Without going into the mechanics of the campaign, it was decided from a cost and impact perspective to run the campaign at a regional level, and so the implementation complexity stretched to thousands of customers in 16 countries with 12 prime languages and a marketing asset kit that varied for each country. What didn’t vary was the overarching purpose of the campaign, the style and tone of communication, the execution steps and timeframe, the customer response mechanisms (call to action) or the internal project management channels.
Summary: Deliverables
The response rate for a single iteration of the campaign was 16.4% which provided the following results and flow-through actions:
1. A large number of customers who provided direct feedback to the Business Requirements, which then flowed through to:
· Confirmation of current utilisation by version of a significant proportion of the user base, with follow up extrapolation to the rest of base
· Understanding of internal customisations that have been developed, with insights for R&D, implications for product management and product marketing in managing the new version release, implications for sales and professional services in providing consulting opportunities, and implications for technical support and customer advocacy programs for customer retention
2. In addition to feedback on the Business Requirements, these respondees gave very clear indications of intent on future priorities and purchase areas, which flowed through to:
· Inputs to the internal customer management system of new first stage qualified opportunities with total deal size over US$100m
· New priorities for developing sales plays and channel enablement programs
· New profiles for companies expanding versus economizing their IT investments, and which countries, industries and solutions need additional corporate, regional and local focus
3. A statistically relevant sample size of the entire user base which allowed us to segment non-respondees for likely patterns and marketing follow-up campaigns
4. Deep market insight that provided a key value-add back to customers (‘here’s how you responded in the context of your peers’) and was also useful for a broad market communications program designed to drive market awareness and competitive positioning
5. Identification of candidates for the early adoption program of the new version release
6. A marketing database clean, where a number of respondees were relatively new to their role and had this campaign as their first point of contact with one of their major suppliers
1. A large number of customers who provided direct feedback to the Business Requirements, which then flowed through to:
· Confirmation of current utilisation by version of a significant proportion of the user base, with follow up extrapolation to the rest of base
· Understanding of internal customisations that have been developed, with insights for R&D, implications for product management and product marketing in managing the new version release, implications for sales and professional services in providing consulting opportunities, and implications for technical support and customer advocacy programs for customer retention
2. In addition to feedback on the Business Requirements, these respondees gave very clear indications of intent on future priorities and purchase areas, which flowed through to:
· Inputs to the internal customer management system of new first stage qualified opportunities with total deal size over US$100m
· New priorities for developing sales plays and channel enablement programs
· New profiles for companies expanding versus economizing their IT investments, and which countries, industries and solutions need additional corporate, regional and local focus
3. A statistically relevant sample size of the entire user base which allowed us to segment non-respondees for likely patterns and marketing follow-up campaigns
4. Deep market insight that provided a key value-add back to customers (‘here’s how you responded in the context of your peers’) and was also useful for a broad market communications program designed to drive market awareness and competitive positioning
5. Identification of candidates for the early adoption program of the new version release
6. A marketing database clean, where a number of respondees were relatively new to their role and had this campaign as their first point of contact with one of their major suppliers
Context: Points of Integration
The campaign provided a level set feedback to the following functions:
For each of these points, opportunity existed for follow up by each function based on what further or deeper insight was needed. The campaign provided a point of internal collaboration so that, as each function followed up on its points of interest, they could also fold back the results into a common internal view of the customer.
- R&D: which features of existing versions were key points of utilisation; which homegrown customisations customers had developed to extend product functionality; what go forward solutions areas customers were looking for
- Product Management: what sunsetting and migration issues exist in the customer base; what go forward solutions areas customers were looking for
- Support: which customers are paying for and utilising support, by what product version; what profile characteristics are there of actively engaged customers, and how can support log analysis be better used to proactively reach out to other customers
- Training: what user and power user training requirements exist based on customized environments
- Professional Services: profiles of actively engaged customers who may have a propensity to purchase consulting services
- Sales: forward roadmap for opportunity development; existing version utilisation and migration opportunities / challenges; profile characteristics for prospecting
- Product Marketing: sales and marketing channel enablement; customer success stories opportunities
- Field Marketing: cleaned contact lists; campaigns to non-respondees; PR to broad market
For each of these points, opportunity existed for follow up by each function based on what further or deeper insight was needed. The campaign provided a point of internal collaboration so that, as each function followed up on its points of interest, they could also fold back the results into a common internal view of the customer.
Next Steps
The purpose of the campaign was to provide a significant volume of quality customer engagements on the Business Requirements issues, which it did. Additionally, the campaign was designed to offer the vendor multiple go forward options to leverage the engagement momentum and insights that came from the campaign investment.
The campaign provided the following opportunities of next steps:
The campaign provided the following opportunities of next steps:
- Sales development of identified points of interest from respondees
- Field marketing campaigns for nurturing this sales development
- Sales and marketing plays to non-respondees
- New version launch early adopter program approach to selected respondees
- Technical support audit by call log and contracts review
- Customer advisory board development for those respondees with strong roadmap vision and/or interesting customisations
- Replay of the campaign to non-respondees and/or to other geographic regions