When Microsoft wanted to extend its relationship with its Global Accounts in financial services, it turned to Riversix to create a pan-European campaign that combined market intelligence, relationship building and senior-level lead generation.
Microsoft’s worldwide financial services team and global accounts organisation is responsible for managing and engaging with the largest and most innovative financial institutions. In early 2009, Microsoft decided to focus on extending its reach within its global accounts and develop new relationships with senior business decisions-makers and C-level executives.
The challenge
A key part of Microsoft’s strategy was to deliver a pan-European campaign to ensure consistency across both countries and sales teams when engaging with their global accounts in financial services, with a specific focus on line-of-business solution sales. Based on its previous work with Microsoft UK, Riversix was chosen to run the European campaign.
Andrew Longstaff, worldwide financial services field marketing manager for Microsoft , said, “We were introduced to Riversix by our UK financial services team who were already working with Riversix and its Chief Wine Officer subsidiary to get closer to C-level contacts in their UK key accounts.”
Microsoft’s goal was to create a cost-effective, pan-European campaign that combined market intelligence, relationship building and senior-level lead generation. Based on its established process for driving senior-level customer engagement and lead generation, Riversix devised a four-stage campaign for Microsoft.
Understanding the business
In order to provide deep customer insight into individual global accounts, Riversix developed a dedicated sales portal. The portal allows Microsoft to profile key contacts within each global account and stay up-to-date on technology and business developments in these accounts. The portal also includes news feeds and market intelligence sources, including bespoke content written by Riversix’s editor. The portal also delivers automated email alerts with news of account-specific potential business opportunities.
Longstaff said, “For us, a key part of the sales portal is the market intelligence it provides alongside regularly updated information on industry drivers and trends.”
Meeting the influencers
Having created the sales portal, the next stage of the campaign was to introduce Microsoft to Riversix’s key contacts through a series of events. Riversix’s Chief Wine Officer (CWO) series of C-level networking events enabled Microsoft to create, enhance and maintain relationships with nominated contacts from their global accounts. In parallel, smaller roundtable events on specific solution areas, such as advisory services, wealth management, and the branch of the future, gave Microsoft an opportunity to build on the relationships formed through CWO.
In both cases, Riversix was responsible for identifying and inviting the guests from Microsoft’s global accounts, taking care of logistics, and hosting the events in a number of prestigious locations such as London and Zurich.
Progressing Microsoft’s relationships
Once Microsoft established relationships with contacts in its target accounts through the CWO and roundtable events, Riversix began an ongoing lead generation campaign. Using Riversix’s extensive network of contacts and through highly-targeted emails and calls, Riversix set up qualified one-to-one meetings for the Microsoft sales teams with individuals in their target accounts.
Longstaff said, “Not only does Riversix have a great network of contacts, they have a deep understanding of the industry issues we’re addressing through our solution areas. I brief them on the value proposition and target market, and they take care of everything else from refining our messages through to setting up one-to-one meetings.”
Ongoing nurturing
The final stage of the campaign was based around nurturing the relationship between Microsoft and contacts at its global accounts through the targeted provision of relevant news and announcements from Microsoft and its partners alongside news of other events.
Longstaff explained, “Riversix’s ‘touch’ campaign gives us confidence that, having created the relationships and driven the demand, every opportunity in our target accounts is being nurtured and kept warm.”
Hands-off relationship
As part of its customer engagement and lead generation processes, Riversix aims to take proactive responsibility for the successful delivery of its projects, thereby allowing its clients to focus on other priorities.
Longstaff explained, “We have a very good relationship with the Riversix account team. They have an excellent understanding of our business in financial services, and really understand the issues we face. In short, Microsoft provides direction and Riversix delivers quality results.”
Supporting the sales pipeline
Since the campaign started at the beginning of 2009, Riversix has significantly extended Microsoft’s reach into its global accounts. Through Riversix’s four-stage campaign, Microsoft has hosted more than 140 people at Chief Wine Officer events, attracted around 150 people to solution-specific roundtables and had a large number of one-to-one meetings with new contacts from its target accounts.
Longstaff concluded, “We are planning another version of the campaign shortly and I would certainly recommend Riversix to other groups within Microsoft as well as our worldwide network of technology partners.”
“The success of this project has been the result of two things. The first is Riversix’s industry knowledge and extensive network of contacts, the second is their ability to execute high-quality and very targeted marketing campaigns.”
