Previous Project
Helping COLT go further
Disciplines—
Eloqua + digital + integrated + demand generation
Challenge—
COLT provides converged data, voice and managed services for some of the most demanding companies in Europe.
After listening to what their customers had to say, COLT discovered they were very happy with the existing level of service. They just had one request – that COLT go further. The United States to be precise. So, as COLT set about expanding to New York, Boston, Chicago and Newark, we set about creating an integrated awareness campaign to announce its arrival.
The campaign needed to target IT decision makers (IT Directors, CTOs and CIOs) within multinational financial services and media organisations.
Solution—
Initially COLT wanted the campaign to focus on the technical features, how the service is faster and more resilient. However, after testing this message, we discovered these claims would be met with skepticism.
Instead we built the campaign around how COLT responded to what their customers wanted, leading to the proposition: COLT-grade Ethernet – the great service from here, over there.
Not only does this communicate the extension of the service, it also provides COLT with a unique positioning. ‘COLT-grade Ethernet’ is a message none of their competitors can challenge and it places COLT in a class above.
This message was delivered to the COLT sales team, as well as existing and prospective COLT customers, using a wide range of media.
To the COLT team:
Sales team teaser and launch emails
Sent out to the sales and support teams. All the emails were sent and tracked through Eloqua to measure the effectiveness of the campaign.
Intranet site
Here the sales team could keep up to date with the campaign, get access to sales tools, and also give their feedback.
Other internal collateral
Posters and pull-up banners were placed in COLT offices across Europe and India. Campaign-themed luggage tags and mugs were placed on every employee’s desk within the Major Enterprise Division. And a hanging mobile (based on the campaign’s four airplanes) was hung in the reception area of COLT’s main headquarters.
To COLT customers:
Launch and follow-up emails
The sales team could personalise and tailor this series of emails to suit their individual target audiences, depending on their prospect’s sector and the stage they were at in the sales cycle.
They were then sent via an Eloqua Outlook plug-in so they could be tracked. An alert email was sent to the sales person every time a prospect clicked through to the campaign microsite.
A series of follow-up communications were then made available, including emails the sales teams could send depending on the prospect’s vertical and whether they had responded to the previous email.
Ethernet microsite
We created and hosted the main destination for all the email communications – the COLT-grade Ethernet website at www.colt.net/ethernet. Each time a known prospect visits the site and interacts with ‘high-value’ content, a real time alert is sent to the sales team via Eloqua. The site was translated into French, Italian, German and Spanish.
Forrester videos
Through our relationship with Forrester, we also organised a video interview with Phil Sayer – one of their Principal Analysts. These videos are now featured on the microsite and used in presentations at events.
Results—
To date, COLT has made a number of large sales directly attributed to the campaign. Plus, this is what Clare Shearson, Senior Product Manager had to say:
“I just want to say a big thank you for all your help on the project. Appreciate all your support and think you’ve all done a fantastic job. Generally the view is an overwhelming thumbs up and that this is the project they all want to emulate for future launches. Looks like we may be busy...!”
Contact—
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