Summary
Throughout April 2010 to April 2011 (and continuing into this year), The Marketing Practice and Canon UK have run a combined relationship marketing programme within its 3,633 strong prospect base.
A step change in way that marketing was delivered at Canon, the programme sought to nurture opportunities through a typical 12 month-plus sales cycle via a combination of relevant content, targeted by industry and role. The programme used a simple methodology to maximise content to best effect and tailor to buyers’ specific needs. This meant budget and effort could be directed towards prospect insight and conversations, not just recreating what already existed in many areas of the business (e.g. sales, PR agency, Central European team etc.)
The programme comprised face-to-face events, direct mail, social media, digital and email campaigns underpinned by nurture calling.
Client
Canon is a world leader in imaging and information technology solutions for the home and office environment. The focus for Canon UK is around two market segments – business and consumer. The Prospect Engagement Programme focuses on the Business Imaging Group, which provides solutions for both the office and professional print environment, including multi-functional printers, IT consultation and photocopying.
Strategy
The print industry is competitive with margins in decline and many print services are now considered a commodity purchase. The best opportunities for vendors are early in the sales cycle, where briefs are being shaped and this was a driver to re-think the marketing approach.
Historically at Canon new business generation had relied on high volume, low return direct marketing campaigns. Canon had recognised the best way to identify enterprise opportunities was to create a demand generation programme that helped find these early opportunities and linked more closely with sales.
The Prospect Engagement Programme sought to engage prospects through timely, targeted and relevant communications, but also to create tangible sales opportunities and an easier selling environment. This was one of three programmes run with The Marketing Practice, which provided communication and demand programmes throughout the sales funnel.
As well as the projected tangible benefits of the marketing programme, the shift in how Canon was communicating with its prospects was also seen as a key differentiator, which would provide a more valuable experience for the decision-maker.
Objectives
Focusing on five industry sectors and 3,633 organisations, the objectives for the year were:
- Create a value-driven relationship with decision makers
- Ensure decision makers think, ‘Canon’ when they have a challenge or opportunity
- For marketing to be recognised internally as delivering high return on investment
- More closely align marketing with sales activity and objectives
- Generate sales opportunities
Specifically on the sales objectives, the target was:
– Level two leads = 114
– Level three leads = 105
Level four and five targets not set due to importance of early engagement in the sales process.
Target audience
- Print managers (for central reprographic departments – CRDs)
- Facilities managers
- IT and IT service delivery managers
- Finance and procurement managers
Media, timescales and budgets
The Marketing Practice (TMP) devised a year-long nurture programme to ensure the target audience received several communications, each tailored by role and industry type with a different focus and message.
Given the volume of contacts (approx. 22,000) and desire to weight budget towards communicating with the audience vs. creating content, the plan sought to create ‘templated mechanisms’ from existing collateral and ensure these were always tailored, targeted and followed up in the most appropriate way.
The first step was to define the target accounts and build a robust data strategy using Canon’s Neolane platform. TMP worked closely with Canon sales, marketing and data teams.
Thirty-five communications were delivered as part of the programme including events, research reports, case studies, eDMs, LinkedIn Groups, event follow-ups and direct mail campaigns. Some of these communications are explained further below:
1. ‘Drive-guide’ research campaign
- Objective
– Targeted at 1,450 commercial and public sector Central Reprographics Departments (CRD)
– Engage the CRD audience with compelling content
– Deliver 10 face-to-face meetings with sales
- Approach
Take an existing Canon-commissioned research paper about the future of the Print Room and create a suite of tools to help the print managers best digest the information and arm the sales team with material to help them engage in sales conversations.
Campaign assets:
– A CD-Drive guide with audio summary of the research and interview with Canon’s CRD specialist
– Two page ‘Need to Know’ overview of the research sent as a PDF
– 20:20 vision roadshow invitation – a series of 121s with sales who would take prospects through the research paper in full and discuss how this thinking can be applied into their own organisations
– Landing page hosting the downloadable audio and written summaries
– Personalised text and html emails
– 10 days of follow-up calling
- Results
– Email open rate improved by 54 per cent and click through rate by 1,500 per cent compared to preprogramme
campaigns
– Four 20:20 vision roadshow appointment requests made on first two days of calling
– Generated 19 level two and three leads
– Re-used content cross each industry sector and generated a further ten leads
2. Fife Council case study campaign
- Objectives:
– Targeted 2,300 IT and finance contacts within education, NHS and local authorities
– To drive ‘me too’ sales by raising awareness of the financial and sustainability benefits of a Canon solution
– To generate five level three leads
- Campaign details:
– Created a highly visual benefits-led summary of an existing Fife case study
– Deployed by email and followed up with seven days’ calling
– Linked to a public sector calendar showing Canon’s roadmap of events for the sector
- Results
– Nine level three leads
– Six level two leads
3. Business case campaign
- Objective
– Uncover opportunities within the telecoms sector
– Gather contact level intelligence
– Generate two leads
- Approach
– Target IT and procurement contacts within 155 telecoms organisations
– Brought an anonymous sales team-created business case to life through a visual A3 direct mail
– Two days nurture calling to arrange meetings
– Further adapted and co-branded to be sent to account based marketing prospects
- Results
– Two face-to-face meetings
– Fifty-five new contact names identified to support account level intelligence efforts
Timescale
The programme kicked off in November and continues to run. Examples and objectives in this entry are for period between April 2010 and April 2011.
Client testimonial
“Canon UK is transforming the way it does marketing. The Prospect Engagement Programme is at the heart of this change, delivering dramatically different results from day one – not just from a lead perspective, but also in terms of showing marketing’s value across the business. The programme has received a great deal of positive feedback and is held up as best practice across the business. ”
Clare Want, Marketing Director, Canon Business Imaging Group
