Summary
Oracle is a global vendor of business software and hardware systems. In 2003 it embarked on an ambitious acquisition strategy which has seen it buy 69 technology companies to date. The challenge for Oracle now is to communicate the benefits of over 5000 individual products to organisations of all sizes across the globe.
To address this challenge in the Asia-Pacific region, Oracle enlisted Marketing Options International (MOI) to manage the rollout and marketing of a series of ‘Powerdays’ webcasts introducing Oracle products to a diverse audience of IT and business executives in over 40 countries. The objective was to deliver qualified leads to Oracle sales and build a community to nurture.
MOI drew on its knowledge of local country markets and its international campaign management expertise to deliver localised marketing communications in three languages to promote each webcast. MOI also tailored the content of each webcast to local cultural practices while still respecting Oracle’s global branding and messaging.
Between December 2010 and April 2011 MOI managed 15 ‘Powerdays webcasts’, resulting in a total of 7236 live attendees, 2000+ viewers of archived webcasts, and 1619 hot leads delivered to Oracle sales with a combined value of $98 million (£63 million). ROI was achieved many times over.
About Oracle
Oracle is a global vendor of business software and hardware systems. Founded in 1977, it developed the world’s first commercial relational database, and in 2000 introduced the world’s first integrated suite of enterprise applications. In 2003 Oracle acquired PeopleSoft, ushering in a period of intense acquisition activity during which it has bought 69 companies including Siebel and Sun Microsystems.
Strategy — broader business issues the company is facing
Oracle’s business strategy has seen it acquire new technologies at an astounding rate. Every acquired product is made compatible with Oracle’s existing products to form a complete, integrated ‘stack’, from hardware and operating systems through to databases, middleware and applications.
The challenge for Oracle is to communicate the benefits of over 5000 individual products — and its full technology portfolio — to organisations of all sizes worldwide. Its marketing campaigns must be slick, cost-effective and tailored to the target audience and culture in each country, while still retaining global brand and messaging consistency.
Campaign outline
In Asia-Pacific (APAC), an important part of Oracle’s product marketing strategy is its ‘Powerdays webcast series’. These webcasts explain the benefits of different Oracle technologies to IT and business audiences across a region that includes countries as diverse as India, Australia, China and Korea.
Oracle’s senior marketing manager for APAC programs, Meredith O’Ryan, briefed MOI to propose a marketing and support plan for the ‘Powerdays webcast series’. It was a challenging brief as the programme needed to be localised for three languages (English, Chinese and Korean) and regions in eight time zones. The webcasts and associated communications also had to reflect local legislation and culture in eac country.
MOI was tasked with evaluating the different country markets and building a marketing strategy that would maximise the results from each webcast. MOI needed to coordinate with Oracle stakeholders throughout the APAC region, as well as partner agencies in China and Korea who could advise on localisation strategy.
Objectives of the campaign
The campaign had four main objectives:
1. Re-activate a minimum of 1000 cold leads by delivering a programme of carefully targeted communications promoting useful webcast content.
2. To achieve a minimum of 500 registrations per webcast (15 webcasts in total).
3. To strengthen the relationship between sales and marketing by delivering a steady stream of 50 warm leads per webcast and 10 hot leads to Oracle APAC sales every week, over 22 weeks.
4. Build a community of regular webcast viewers from across APAC for sales nurture.
Target audience
The target audience is a mixture of IT and middle management depending on the webcast topic. The target audience for each webcast was agreed at the start of each campaign, with care not to over-target individual contacts.
Media, channels or techniques used
As the objective was to drive recipients to register for the webcasts online, the bulk of the campaign communications were digital. Online communications were clearly tracked and measured throughout the campaign, and were the most cost-effective way of communicating to such a large and geographically-dispersed audience.
The campaign elements were:
- eDMs: one preliminary invitation to register for the webcast and two reminders sent to c. 100,000 targets per webcast.
- Microsite: previewing the content of each webcast and providing a calendar on all events.
- Landing pages: categorised by product solution to gather relevant on-demand webcasts and re-market them.
- Online event calendars: posting details of each webcast on relevant online event calendars and forums.
- Twitter: tweeting about the webcast with webcast specific hash-tags to promote discussion.
- Mobile: SMS reminders sent to registrants — who opted into this service — 15 minutes before the webcast.
- Telemarketing: up to 400 handpicked contacts per event were invited via telemarketing and registered through a specific link — for tracking purposes. Telemarketing was also used to follow up with attendees and no-shows to gather input on how the webcasts could be improved.
- Media: online banners and adverts on media suitable to the target group.
- Webcasts: webcasts were delivered in a culturally-appropriate format, e.g. the Korean language webcasts are in a ‘talkshow’ format, while the English-language webcast is a live presentation with audio and Q&A.
- Surveys: audience surveys were integrated into each webcast to qualify leads and five-week timescale.
Campaign timescales
Each webcast had a rigorous four-five week timescale:
- Kick off with client to agree content, target audience, time and date of webcast etc.
- List request from Oracle’s marketing database.
- Brief partner agencies in China and Korea to build relevant local lists and registration pages.
- Creative work to produce eDM and reminders.
- Localisation of content into Chinese and Korean.
- Update microsite to promote new webcasts.
- Distribute eDM.
- Track and consolidate registrations for daily client reporting.
- Speaker training.
- Manage external list purchase for telemarketing.
- Organise telemarketing to increase registrations.
- Organise SMS reminders to registrants.
- Moderate webcasts and monitor presentations.
- Send follow up emails to attendees and no shows.
- Post-event prize draw fulfilment.
- Final reports and analysis to Oracle.
- Upload leads to Oracle’s database for follow up by sales.
Results
MOI managed the marketing campaigns for 15 ‘Powerdays webcasts’, each attracting over 700 registrations. In total, 7236 people attended a live webcast, with over 2000 additional unique viewers watching an archived version. The programme has delivered 1619 hot leads to Oracle. ROI was achieved many times over.
Client testimonial
Meredith O’Ryan, senior marketing manager APAC programmes, Oracle, said, “MOI has demonstrated a thorough understanding of our target markets in a culturally and linguistically very diverse region. Thanks to their local knowledge, event marketing skills and budget optimisation expertise, we have been able to deliver a powerful series of Webcasts that have delivered $98 million in the sales pipeline as well as revenue opportunities of over $4 million. I am delighted with MOI’s work on this campaign.”
