how eci telecom developed a content-marketing program from concept to completion and the surprising...

Michelle Mogelson LevyAssociate Vice President, Marketing ProgramsECI Telecom

March 16, 2011

Case Study: Executing content marketing to drive leads‐to‐sales conversion

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Associate Vice President, Marketing ProgramsECI Telecom

Michelle is responsible for demand generation and global marketing programs, and is focused on aligning marketing campaigns to the buyer’s journey.

Areas of expertise include lead generation, management, nurturing and scoring, and marketing automation. She is passionate about reporting, measurement and best practices.

@mogelsonlevy

Michelle Mogelson Levy

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Case Study Background

The company ECI Telecom

The marketplace

B2B telecom market, 12‐18 month complex sales cycle

The product Network infrastructure solutionsfor telecom providers

The channel Automated email marketing lead nurturing campaigns

The campaign objective

To increase amount of Marketing Qualified Leads being pushed to sales

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Case Study BackgroundCase Study Background

Centralized core marketing team managing all outbound campaigns

Small team tasked with multiple, simultaneous lead nurturing campaigns covering several segments

Running segmented email campaigns based on behavior without aligning content to buyers journey

Segmented marketing database of over 30K prospects

Hundreds of unmapped/unknown/orphan marketing assets

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Campaign #1 – The Easy Win

Focused, targeted campaign to defined audience for segmented industry

Utility Market Segment

Utilized ECI generated content for 5 step nurturing campaignResults: 33% open rate11% conversionSherpa Benchmark: 24% open rate 12%

conversion

The Tale of Two Campaigns

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Campaign #2 – The True Challenge

Broad‐based technology campaign spanning numerous applications and solutions

Wireless Backhaul

The Tale of Two Campaigns

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Goal

Challenge

Replicate successful conversion rates on The Easy Win campaign…how can we ensure success for The True Challenge?

Create personalized, highly segmented lead‐nurturing campaign by offering compelling content matched to the early/educational stage of the buying cycle

Challenge & Goal

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Strategy

What do I need?

What do I have?

How do I fill the gap?

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What do I have?What do I have? How do I fill the gap?How do I fill the gap?What do I need?

Tactic #1

Define which assets are needed to fuel campaign

Result: Set of third‐party content aligned with educational stage of buying cycle

Strategy to Tactics – What Do I Need?

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How do I fill the gap?How do I fill the gap?What do I need?What do I need?

Tactic #2

Audit and allocate existing content to stages of buying cycleAlign/educate global matrix organization of content creators and owners to buyers’journey

Results of asset audit695 assets

What do I have?


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Transfer the Knowledge to Buyer at Right Time

Loosening of the Status Quo

Committing to Change

Exploring Possible Solutions

Committing to a Solution

Justifying the Decision

Making the Selection

We might have a problem, or we are conceiving a vision.

We understand the problem and how it connects to our business.

Your solution applies to our need.

Your solution will have the greatest impact on our business.

The business case is justified internally.

We are confident and ready to move forward.

Thought Leadership

Solution Knowledge Value Story Solution

ValidationFinancial

JustificationOn Boarding

Published ArticlesSocial MediaWhite papersBlogs

Events/WebinarsWeb site/SEOAnalyst Reports

Business OrientedCase Studies

Proof Of Concept Competitive ToolsExecutive Briefings

ROI toolsClient References Product Specs

Welcome KitTrainingCustomer Newsletter

Education Solution Vendor Selection

What do I have? How do I fill the gap?How do I fill the gap?What do I need?What do I need?

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Education








Solution Vendor SelectionEducation

Content at this stage focuses on introducing a problem, and then connecting that problem to critical business issues. It should create a sense of urgency for a target to take action, action that should eventually lead them to consider a solution that you offer.

Business issues

Business issues

ACTIONProblem

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Solution








Vendor SelectionEducation

Once targets commit to solving a problem, content should be built to help them pinpoint their needs in relation to the problem. Next comes the process of matching needs against a range of solution options in order to find the type of solution that is the best fit, which has unique content requirements of its own.

Solution

Solving the problem

Best fit solution

Needs

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Education

Vendor Selection








Content at this stage should focus on helping buyers differentiate vendors that offer the ideal solution, and arming them with the information they will need to address the questions and concerns of other influencers. Clearly communicating features and functionality, demonstrating return on investment and total cost of ownership, and sharing details around service.

Solution Vendor Selection

vendorvendor

vendorvendor

ROI TCO Service

Vendor

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Alignment: Established Content Committee


Product Managers

Product Marketing

Solution Marketing

Programs Marketing

AR/PR

Web and Media

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Quality Value

Does the content asset meet the same quality standards you set for your products and services?

How thoroughly does it address a customer pain point? What content pieces should be made freely available to Web site visitors and which should be gated?

Relevance Influence

Does the content meet the information needs of the buyers journey? Is it relevant for the designated persona?

Does the content asset influence buyer perceptions? Does it best emphasize specific issues, risks, inefficiencies or opportunities that an offering is tied to?

Content Audit and Mapping Process

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Breakdown by buying cycle:Raw data 400Vendor Selection: 174Solution: 120Educational: 1

How do I fill the gap?How do I fill the gap?What do I need?What do I need?

Tactic #2

What do I have?


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What do I have?What do I have?What do I need?What do I need?

Tactic #3

Acquire third‐party assets

Define sources of valuable content Third‐party validation sources; analysts, research firmsSponsored (writing) articles by independent thought leadersPurchase licensed content for distribution

Execute campaign


Strategy to Tactics – How Do I Fill the Gap?

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Quantitative

The Easy Win: Average of 33% open rate and 11% post‐click conversion rate

The Real Challenge: Average of 78% open rate and 23% post‐click conversion rate

Industry benchmarks: 24% open rate and 12% click through rate (Sherpa 2011 Benchmark Guide)

Open rate: emails opened divided by emails delivered,Post‐click conversion rate: completed a registration form

Content audit serves as basis for web mapping and supports all future campaigns

Organizational alignment to buying cycle

Qualitative

Results

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What do I need?

What do I have?


Increased conversion rates by 136%. Its all about your buyers’ journey…Aligning your content to their journey will enable you to deliver the right content to the right audience at the right time.

Summary and Key Takeaways

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Credits

Aligning Content to Buyers Journey

2011 Email Marketing Benchmark Report

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Michelle Mogelson LevyAVP Marketing Programs ECI Telecom

Mail: [email protected]: MichelleMogelsonLevyTwitter: @mogelsonlevy

Thank You

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