Summary
The ‘Reduced cost and complexity (RCC)’ campaign was designed to establish O2 as a leader in joined up communications.
In anticipation of its planned joint venture with 2e2, O2 wanted to further establish its credentials as a partner who could integrate customers’ communications with complex IT and deliver joined up communications.
After analysis of both market and customer data that helped identify the biggest potential opportunities, solidify the key messages and develop an approach that reflected the audiences buying cycle, a maturity model approach was chosen as the most effective way to engage the target audience. This research-based interactive model would give the audience opportunity to assess their communication maturity through a series of short questions and receive a personalised report outlining key recommendations of how to improve from their current situation.
As the heart of the campaign, the website which hosted the questionnaire and campaign resources was critical. Further communications were built around the model, using emails, direct mails and phone contact to create new levels of engagement and secure sales opportunities with O2.
Client
Bought in 2006 by Telefonica, O2 is well-known as a mobile provider to both consumers and businesses. O2’s Enterprise division targets organisations with 2,000 plus employees – offering everything required to keep a business connected from a fixed, mobile, voice, data and technology perspective. Following the recent joint venture with 2e2, O2’s customers are now able to outsource their IT and communication needs to a single provider, helping to join up communications and reduce costs by up to 30 per cent.
Strategy
O2 wants to establish itself as the communications supplier of choice for business and the public sector, to significantly increase its market share.
Reducing cost and complexity are key priorities for senior decision makers, and supplier consolidation is seen as one of the best ways to address these issues.
However, in a competitive market, developing marketing messages on these themes and making them distinct and compelling was a challenge It was important to form a dual strategy for customers and prospects, which recognised the specific requirements of organisations looking for a solution immediately and those where renewal dates and budgets were further down the line and just needed useful content and to understand where they should be heading.
Independent market research into 300+ leading organisations was used to develop a model that benchmarked organisations’ communications performance against agility against cost efficiency. O2 propositions could be matched to the model and used to develop a business case for change and a route forwards.
TMP and O2 agreed that a flexible and interactive website was the best channel to present the findings of the survey and the maturity model in an attractive, interactive and helpful way; a website was also considered the best way to deliver objection-handling material and act as a showroom for to demonstrate O2’s full capabilities.
Objectives
The key objectives from O2 were to create an ongoing pipeline of leads and appointments amounting to 167 leads (face-to-face meetings with sales where a specific opportunity had been identified) over 12 months.
Target audience
The campaign targets all key decision makers in communications, particularly IT directors, telecoms and network managers and their equivalents. The website enables these key stakeholders to produce personalised reports that can be shared with others in their organisation, increasing O2’s reputation for education and helpfulness.
Media, timescales and budgets
The website has a three stage structure designed to educate and inform the audience, handle their
objections to a single-supplier communications model and demonstrate O2’s credentials in the space. The principal element guides visitors through a simple questionnaire, after which a personalised PDF report is generated, benchmarking them against competitors and providing simple steps towards improvement.
Website
The site features the interactive tool to explore the maturity model, as well as searchable videos and case studies. These elements support the questionnaire and report aspects of the site, and are used to show both the ease of transition to a single-supplier model, and O2’s credentials and experience, in a way that’s easy to understand, friendly and authoritative.
Although the campaign involves a combination of tactics including email, direct mail and telemarketing engagement, the website remains the centre of the campaign (see following page for a visual overview of the campaign). Because of the level of the research involved and the ease-of-use, telemarketers and sales staff have great confidence in steering contacts to the site, or using it to illustrate key points. All other contact, including the still-in-development inbound elements (ranging from a social media strategy, through banner ads, to a mass-market newspaper advertising campaign) use the site as their end point.
The website is the engine for the entire campaign. The site functions as, first of all, a destination – initial contacts are driven to it. The site itself is extremely rich in content that has both direct and indirect value to prospects and O2 – ranging from the communications questionnaire and personalised reports that are produced for the prospects to the case studies and video testimonials that handle their objections. The website plays an active role in qualifying prospects and refining data, as a reference point for all future contact with prospects; it therefore functions as a constant regenerator of the campaign as a whole as well as its most visible and powerful tool.
Timescales and budgets
The campaign began in November 2010 and is set to run until December 2011.
Results
At the time of writing, the campaign is on schedule in terms of leads created and appointments generated:
Website stats
- 643 visits
- 7,983 page views
- 12.42 pages/visit
- 3.19 minutes average time on the site
Client testimonial
“We were impressed from the start with TMP’s idea for the interactive maturity model and ability to pull together all elements of the campaign. From the initial brief, we quickly had an agreed vision of where we wanted the campaign to go, and TMP brought that to life perfectly. The website is excellent: it delivers the kind of precise, personalised content our audience needs and supports our position as a trusted and helpful advisor.” Zoe Frost, head of enterprise marketing execution, Telefonica UK
Sales feedback on the campaign
“This was a fantastic lead – well done!“– Sukhi Gill (public sector).
“I was very impressed with the amount of information and the value of the opportunity” – Rebecca Tully (manufacturing).
“A very good lead – well done TMP and more please!” – Peter Jeffry (financial services).
“Good lead received yesterday … thanks and keep up the good work” – David woodhouse (financial
services).
