An 18-month B2B global lead-generation campaign targeting multiple industries

Problem

Epicor, a leading provider of global ERP software, wanted to differentiate its brand in the market and position itself as a credible partner for business growth. This required a shift from product-selling to solution-selling.

Drawing on our strategic agency skills, bbd was tasked with creating a global lead generation campaign, value proposition and creative idea that could extend across multiple industries; manufacturing, distribution, retail, lumber and building materials. The assets and programmes also needed to be localised to EMEA, AMS and APAC.

Action

To establish relevance…

We did 2 months of audience research, drawing on insights from the Epicor sales team, exploring industry trends, identifying core buyer needs and reviewing analyst research from Gartner, IDC, and the Aberdeen Group. It revealed that the one unifying challenge faced by organisations across all industries was the need to grow their business faster. This was the starting block for the FY17 campaign.

What followed was a deeper exploration of that issue. Prospects and customers alike were facing challenges to do more with less, and adapt and respond to changing customer expectations. These were underpinned by three common strategies – improve operational efficiencies, enhance the customer experience and exploit new market opportunities – both within and outside the business. The details and nuances of those strategies, however, were unique to almost every business.

The perception of growth as specific to each business was an audience insight that emerged from over three months’ research, and it laid the foundation for the FY17 campaign. With over 45 years’ sector-specific experience and expertise, the subsequent logic was that Epicor understands the specific challenges, objectives and contextual complexities of its customers. Put simply, Epicor helps businesses “get set for growth.”

That audience and product truth set the tone for the creation of a unique and differentiated global campaign. By starting with the customer and understanding their core business problem, Epicor was able to assimilate a multitude of different, very specific growth challenges into a single audience insight – “growth is specific to me and my business.”

So, our strategic marketing campaign needed to help key decision makers identify with Epicor as an organization that understood their business and had the expertise and experience to help them achieve growth.

Planning & strategy

Drawing on an in-depth understanding of our audience, we built a full customer journey that illustrated the typical challenges faced by an IT decision-maker. We were then able to develop a content strategy and media plan that aligned with each stage of the customer journey to nurture prospects into sales-qualified leads.

The last piece of the strategy puzzle was to find a way to bring the Get Set for Growth campaign to life. We needed a way to elevate the campaign idea and humanise it, a way to establish emotional buy-in with our audience. We felt the best approach would be to use our existing customers who epitomise growth and how Epicor has helped them Get Set for Growth. These people become the Grow Getters – creating a shared identity that was relevant for our prospects.

Creative, assets and tactics

We developed a signature creative style for the campaign and applied it to our four core sectors – manufacturing, distribution, retail, and lumber and building materials. Asset creation included brand ads, sector-specific ads, banners and concept videos, deployed across digital and social channels. These were focused around core buyer needs such as exceeding customer expectations, improving visibility, identifying operational efficiencies and increasing agility.

In total, we produced over 500 assets across 12 languages.

Deployment and results

All assets were hosted on a central resource hub alongside a corresponding campaign deployment funnel/maps outlining the sequence in which media and assets should be deployed. Guidance was given on best practice metrics tracking and optimization for digital campaigns; e.g.adding UTM tags to creative.

Results

To address global-local adoption of the campaign, we ran a face-to-face workshop with the EMEA team about best-practice implementation of integrated campaigns. BBD’s campaign was very well received by Epicor’s global stakeholders and brand team.

The success of this digital marketing campaign led to Epicor asking BBD to support with its Insights Event, and customer cross-sell and up-sell campaigns.