Marketing and Lead Generation for JEM Software

Case Study: Planning audiences and messages, creating content and supporting lead generation

JEM is specialised software that supports configuration, pricing and quotation (CPQ) for companies that sell and support complex technology solutions. We helped them deliver a successful lead generation campaign, focusing in on strategic market segments, creating marketing materials and building prospect lists.

Background

JEM has a varied customer base, from telecoms resellers and technical service providers through to postal services. The software receives glowing testimonials and almost all their new business has come from recommendations.

The business challenge

The management team wanted sales growth to be faster and more predictable. They recognised the potential of outbound marketing and telesales, but were not sure what kinds of companies to target or how to present the product to them.

They had spoken to telesales companies but were concerned that they didn’t understand the product’s capabilities well enough to seek out new customers and sell effectively. Before investing in lead generation, they approached Achaleon and asked us to help with their strategic marketing focus and messaging.

Creating a sharper customer focus

The first step was to understand their customers’ business challenges and why they chose JEM over competing ERP and CRM packages. We spoke to customers to gather their perspectives and to understand their buying journey, from first awareness through to selecting JEM.

Together we drew out the common themes from these conversations and established the defining characteristics of their ideal customers. We identified specific niches to target, eliminating any where there were particularly well-embedded competitor products.

As well as considering target companies, we spent time understanding the job roles, aspirations and working styles of our target customers. We prioritised the most compelling challenges that those people are likely to be facing and created marketing messages that matched product capabilities to those needs, while differentiating JEM from alternative solutions.

We prepared a clear and succinct document of the marketing propositions, setting out the target audiences, their needs, the solution and benefits. This provides an effective briefing for any new salespeople.

Developing clear, persuasive marketing messages

I have never heard our product and its benefits explained so clearly
James McArthur, Managing Director, JEM/Stratford Consulting

Planning a lead generation campaign

We started by reviewing LinkedIn as a source of data and a platform for interacting with prospects. We found that our target individuals and companies were well represented on LinkedIn, so developed a pilot campaign to test the feasibility of the approach.

Together we agreed the criteria for prospects – primarily based on company size, industry sectors and locations and built a list of organisations. We worked through LinkedIn profiles and websites to qualify those that were a good fit, then identified individuals in appropriate leadership roles.

We introduced a long-standing telesales partner to call the companies on the prospect list. They obtained introductions to the right decision makers, introduced JEM, nurtured relationships and opportunities and obtained permission to stay in touch.

The pilot delivered successful results and continued as an ongoing lead-generation exercise. We trained up a member of the JEM team to use LinkedIn tools to find and qualify an ongoing stream of prospects for the telesales people to contact.

To support the calling, we created a landing page for the website which focused specifically on these segments and propositions. To introduce the new proposition and lead visitors to that new page, we also made some small but significant changes to the homepage.

We created a two-page overview of JEM, from the perspective of the company directors and owners who we were targeting, presenting the new propositions and giving reassurance about the credentials of the company.

We also wrote a series of emails used to follow-up longer-term prospects.

Producing sales materials and web content

Outcomes

When we shared the new marketing propositions with the Director and his team, he commented that he had never heard such a clear explanation of what they do and why customers love it.

The messages developed for the campaign have also resonated with the target audience and a strong pipeline of good opportunities has been generated.