Summary
Mitie is the UK’s leading facilities management company, with a £2bn annual turnover and employing 54,000 people.
Its ambition was to change market perception of it as a service provider mopping floors and managing receptions, to a technologically-enabled partner providing enhanced benefits for clients’ facilities. It needed an impactful campaign, but with a seven-person marketing team supporting a vast business that had no previous experience of marketing and sales campaigns, it wasn’t going to be easy.
Introducing the organisation to multi-channel, content-led marketing, it created a campaign to launch Connected Workspace, a pioneering new way of delivering services.
As a result, it evidenced fantastic returns on the c.£165,000 investment made; including generating more than 160 marketing qualified leads, resulting in £2.2 million of potential revenue, which equated to an ROI of 1,331%.
It achieved over 260,000 video views across paid and organic media, 3.3m impressions from ads across digital, and over 17,000 unique website visitors. Impressively, by May 2019 analyst group Gartner commented on how their conversations with the market around Mitie have changed due to its technology-led messages.
The first ever multi-channel sales and marketing campaign has been a huge success for Mitie, leaving the business hungry for more.
About Mitie
Mitie is the UK’s leading facilities management company. Founded in 1987, it employs more than 54,000 people, offering a wide range of specialist services from security, catering and cleaning, to engineering, energy and property services. It helps its clients maximise value from their facilities, leaving them to focus on their core business, in a safe, enjoyable working environment.
Strategy
Facilities management is a highly competitive, low-margin industry, historically offering basic services that keep premises running smoothly. When bidding for new business, providers are often engaged in a ‘race to the bottom’ on price. Due to digital disruption, clients are seeking efficiencies across their entire business and, for the first time, in their facilities management. Yet the industry lagged behind.
This presented the ideal opportunity to differentiate by leading the digital transformation of facilities management, but first it had to overcome some obstacles. It had to significantly invest in the skills and technology needed to transform its services, and shift market perception from a traditional to a technology-led facilities manager. It also needed to demonstrate that its new offering adds true value, not just repackages services for more money.
It seized the opportunity and created: Connected Workspace. Connected Workspace is the pioneering application of its consultancy, systems integration, and technology expertise to help organisations improve the performance of their buildings and the wellbeing and productivity of the people within them. It’s now woven into the fabric of all its services.
Objectives of the campaign
- Educate the market: Introduce the opportunities and benefits presented by the digital transformation of facilities management services.
- Create external awareness: Generate a buzz in the market and an appetite for Connected Workspace.
- Change market perception: Showcase the business shift to digitally enhanced services, while remaining a safe pair of hands.
- Build credibility as a technology-enhanced service provider: Highlight its technology partnerships to give confidence.
- Drive demand generation: Generate qualified sales leads through its first inbound multichannel campaign.
- Instill internal pride: Bring staff on the journey and encourage cross-selling.
The target audience
External: Anyone involved in the procurement of facilities management, in the current and prospective client base. With clients at different stages of digital transformation, they are also at different stages of their buying journey.
Internal: All 54,000 employees. It needed to show how Connected Workspace brings together and supports, not replaces, existing services; and can grow existing relationships and open the door into new clients.
Media, channels or techniques used
Content-based approach
In leading the way in the digital transformation of facilities management, and engaging businesses at various stages of their buying journey, Mitie adopted a content marketing-led approach and developed a suite of high impact assets with storytelling at their heart. It also employed a multi-channel approach, ensuring all external and internal channels complemented one other and worked together for maximum impact.
External channels
- Campaign microsite: The beating heart of the campaign; an easy to navigate microsite hosted campaign assets.
- Targeted digital outreach programme: Leveraging social media, email, online display ads and pay-per-click advertising.
- Trade title sponsorship: Sponsoring Facilities Management Journal – online and print – to drive education and awareness.
- National print title sponsorship: Leveraging Telegraph Online’s channels to produce and host content to drive education and awareness.
- Media relations: Securing press coverage for articles and commentary in trade media to drive awareness and leverage third party endorsement.
- Partnership marketing: Working with Microsoft and Vodafone to co-create content, leveraging their brands and budgets.
- Influencer marketing: Piloted leveraging online influencers, to feed messages to the market while endorsing its opinions and campaign content.
Internal channels
- Mitie intranet: Sharing campaign assets.
- Mitie weekly e-newsletter: Promoting to employees.
- Mitie sales summit: Educating leaders on Connected Workspace and showing sales teams how to use the campaign’s assets.
Phase One Campaign Launch assets
- Hero video: Inspired by the Mannequin Challenge cult phenomena, this video features exclusively Mitie staff, filmed in the Shard HQ to showcase the unique Connected Workspace.
- Behind the scenes video: Short and playful video revealing how the Hero video was filmed.
- Talking heads video: Reinforcing credibility and gaining internal buy-in, this interview-led video explains Connected Workspace and its benefits.
- Virtual walk-though: Employing similar functionality to Google Streetview, this allows users to move through the HQ to explore the elements of a Connected Workspace in situ.
- Brochure and sales toolkit: A range of tools including tailored slide decks and a suite of flyers.
- Intranet campaign: A series of articles to create excitement internally, focusing on Connected Workspace and showcasing those involved in the video.
Phase Two Amplification assets
- Vodafone video: Produced with Vodafone Business, leveraging their ‘Digital Ready’ campaign to promote its digital transformation credentials.
- Microsoft video: Case study video highlighting how it worked with Microsoft on its Connected Workspace platform.
- Telegraph Business Reporter Masterclass videos: Three studio interview videos, designed to educate the market.
- Ongoing thought leadership campaign: Bi-monthly articles demonstrating thought leadership across digital transformation topics.
Timescales of the campaign
- Planning and development: June-October 2018
- Phase one – campaign launch: October–December 2018
- Phase two – amplification: January–May 2019
- Reporting and analysis: May 2019
Results
Key measured targets were marketing qualified leads, unique microsite visitors, and campaign/service awareness.
Drive demand generation
- Marketing qualified leads: Target 60 (10 per month). Achieved 166
- Pipeline: Six opportunities in progress with an estimated combined revenue of £2.2 million
- Return on investment: This pipeline equated to a 1331% ROI on its campaign investment
Educate the market, create external awareness, and build credibility
- Over 270,000 video views across paid and organic media
- 3.3 million impressions – ads seen across digital
- Unique website visitors: Target 15,000 (2,500 per month). Achieved 17,208.
Change market perception
In May 2019, analyst group Gartner advised that conversations around Mitie were beginning to change, acknowledging its differentiated positioning and the technology-led message resonating in the market
"As Mitie’s first ever multi-channel campaign, I was blown away by the results. Its success illustrates how having a rich suite of content, comprehensive client target list and a wide range of digital and traditional channels to share that content, generates demand and broadens our reach. Connected Workspace has proven to be a great hook to drive wider, integrated facilities management conversations with clients, and this campaign represents a sea change in how our business delivers its marketing."
