webinar: microsoft case study, with olivier choron from purechannelapps, steven woodgate from...

Commercial in Confidence – (c) purechannelapps Ltd. 2014 1

Presented by:

Steven Woodgate, SMB Social Media Community Manager, MicrosoftMitchell Feldman, Cloudamour Ltd, a Microsoft partnerOlivier Choron, CEO and Founder, purechannelapps

How Microsoft used theirSales Partners to engagecustomers in the B2B space

June 12th 2014


• purechannelapps™, UK-based, incorporated in 2011

• socialondemand®: social media amplification software

• newsondemand: dynamic and targeted e-communications

Background


73% of IT executives are influenced by social networks

in decision making - Socialcast

Empowered tech buyers are two-thirds into the buying cycle before engaging sales

Forrester Research

60% of business decision makers say branded content helps them make better product decisions - Socialcast

Social Networking – Why is it so critical?


Social Networking – The enterprise challenges

B2B organisations are not engaging with their customers and prospects

(too many intermediaries).

B2B organisations are struggling to involve all their brand advocates

in this ‘influence’ cycle.

Brand advocates (employees, sales partners and other intermediaries) show little interest in co-marketing

and ‘influence’ campaigns.


Too many hurdles

Employees, partners and other brand advocates have no time, resources and, in some cases, limited marketing expertise.

Intermediaries are unable to produce professional collateral.

Too many brands are vying for their intermediaries’ attention.

Need simple, easy-to-use tools and programmes that get results.

Brands need to develop and manage ‘influence’ programmes on a global level.


Social Media Amplification via brand advocates and intermediaries

The posts are published automatically on the partners’ social network(s), if they have selected this option.

1. Brands inputs news items (and tag them)

2. Partners receive the news, log in, view/ edit/ post the items 3. The news items are

posted on the partners’ social network(s)

4. Their followers (buyers) read the posts, click on the links and call their partners!


Social Media Amplification

Extensive analytics engine to report on the success of each partner, post,

campaign, and geography

Robust multi-level content creation and approval workflow to support multi-

regional and multi-business unit organizations

Comprehensive filtering for partners who can select to only

receive the content that matters to their followers

Content-publishing APIs for Twitter/ Facebook/ LinkedIn. Partners do not have to login to

their social networks to post.


Brand messages can reach much wider audiences, as you can leverage your sales

teams, sales/channel partners (all types), alliance partners and other brand advocates.

Content reaches those that count – the ‘consumers’ - through those who can actually sell the ‘sales staff/ sales partners’.

Easy for partners to become ‘socially active’ (3 clicks: email to post)

It empowers the ‘through’ intermediaries with compliant content (closer engagement with the brand and more socially active)

Enterprise-class platform (27 languages) enabling you to distribute social mediacontent globally

Cost-effective solution, with a SEM-smashing cost per click of just $0.09/ $0.35

The results and benefits


What our customers say

“Really, the ongoing success of our relationship with purechannelapps™ is as a result of two things; firstly, their product is exceptional, a different league to the competition, and secondly, the ongoing and passionate support of purechannelapps and their account management.” – Michelle Graff, Director, PureStorage

“socialondemand has delivered on every KPI we monitored, and is now an integral part of our marketing strategy.” Chris Harges, Director of Global Marketing, Mountain Hardwear

“socialondemand provides us with a leading-edge, dynamic platform by which we can continue to communicate through our channels to reach our customers.” Angela Leech, Channel Marketing Programs Manager, EMEA, Adobe

"Socialwave enables us to extend our messaging reach to tens of thousands of our partners’ followers. We look forward to incorporating this into our corporate social media strategy and driving more channels sales


Presented by:

Steven Woodgate, SMB Social Media Community Manager, MicrosoftMitchell Feldman, Cloudamour Ltd, a Microsoft partnerOlivier Choron, CEO and Founder, purechannelapps

How Microsoft used theirSales Partners to engagecustomers in the B2B space

June 12th 2014


Case study – Microsoft

Microsoft already ran successful partner marketing programmes

Microsoft believed they lacked a key tool in their arsenal-a tool to socially enable their partners

Microsoft knew their partners lacked the time and resources

to create their own content

A tool would need to be cost effective and easy to use for both them and their partners

$Without the resources, time or budget, partners were turning

their back on social media

Microsoft realised that a socially empowered and active channel network would generate demand and leads for partners through their vast social media networks.



• One month trial (July 2013).

• MicrosoftSocialOnDemand.

• During the trial, Microsoft tested different pieces of high quality content, to get a picture of how this content and socialondemand would work with a larger base of partners.

• Via 20 partners, 66 posts were reposted 2,435 times by partners (37 times per post), generating 19,900 short url clicks/ retweets/ likes.


• Full roll-out (November 2013) – 500 user licenses in the UK

Case study – Microsoft – Key stats

324 Users (UK, SMB) 4,448 likes

1,123 Social Media accounts added, with a combined

4,750,000 followers

280 Partners 343 Posts by Microsoft

Up to 19% click-through rate

186,214 clicks 28,791 re-posts

CPC: £0.20


Case study – Microsoft – Social Media results

743 friends per partner account12 clicks per partner re-post

225 friends per acct<1 click per re-post

117 followers per acct5 clicks per re-post

Personal: 542 contacts per acct/ 3 clicks per re-postCompanies: 105 followers per acct/ <1 click per re-postGroups: 4.5m members/ 8,000 members per acct/ 2 clicks per repost

Fanpages:


Case study – Microsoft – Our posts

• We provide content for ‘Devices’ and ‘Services’, for ‘Consumers’,

‘SMBs’ and ‘Enterprises’.

• We mix Microsoft product content with industry news.

• We publish between 10 and 20 posts per week.

“Building the Business Case for Your Social Business Strategy” 6,598 clicks (most for a single post)

“Like The Lions, businesses face challenges and rely on backroom teams to be competitive”100% re-posting by partners

“The ten most irritating things about working from home”20% click-through rate (clicks per connections)



“At Microsoft, we see our partners as an integral part of our business operations and are always looking at cost-effective ways of supporting our

mutual marketing efforts.”

“socialondemand answered many requirements we had,turning out to be even more popular with our partners than we anticipated.”

“We are now able to make a real difference to our partners and can track how successful they are when it comes to social media,

in terms of customer engagement, interactions and business opportunities.”

Gemma WoodSMB Customer Marketing Manager

Small and Mid-market Solutions and PartnersMicrosoft UK.


Case study – Microsoft – Partner feedback

“This is a great tool, simple to use and really effective. I love being able to share good quality, relevant content consistently. It’s really helped us create a presence on social media, and no doubt has helped Microsoft, too.” Saffra Hale, Trinity Expert Systems, a Microsoft partner.

“The socialondemand tool is just brilliant. The ability to customise what content we get from Microsoft, and seamlessly post it to our social media accounts as our own content is a huge benefit to our social media efforts.”Howard Blacksmith, PFK Cooper Parry, a Microsoft partner.


Case study – Microsoft – A partner’s view

• We are a true ‘Born in the Cloud’ service provider that focuses on building and delivering world class IT solutions using the Microsoft Cloud. Microsoft World Wide Cloud Partner of the Year 2014

• Already very active with Social Media:@cloudamour: 1,665 followers/ 2,539 postsfacebook/cloudamour: 338 likesLinkedIn: 94 followers

• Difficult and time-consuming to find good content to share.

• Joined MicrosoftSocialOnDemand as part of the trial.

• Posted 909 times and generated 5,650 clicks and 194 retweets/ likes.

• Generated 2 ‘Social Leads’ (lead capture via social media)



I added my social media accounts: 1x Facebook, 1x Fanpage, 1x LinkedIn, 18x LinkedIn Groups and 1x Twitter.

I set everything to ‘manual’ because I wanted to be able to review/ edit posts as they came.

(Although the ‘automatic’ option is appealing!)

I receive emails with the latest posts that I set as ‘applicable to me’.



I login to MicrosoftSocialonDemand.

I can edit the post for each of my applicable account.

I typically make my LinkedIn Personal profile post very personal.

I sometimes schedule my posts at a different time.



And hey presto… the Microsoft posts appear, as I edited them, and as if they came from me!


Case study – Microsoft – Partner feedback

“The SocialOnDemand platform is a positive sign from Microsoft that they care about the partners and are making a positive contribution to build a sustainable and valuable business for them. At the same time they improve engagement with new audiences and establish themselves as an authority within their field.” Mitchell Feldman, Cloudamour Ltd, a Microsoft partner


Amplify your messages through your advocates’ social networks

You may not do social media…

But your customers/ prospects, employees, sales partners and brand advocates do!

Social media amplification will enable your extended sales teams to be more engaged (with you) and more ‘socially active’.

You will be able to reach new audiences and drive sales via social media.

socialondemand is a new and cost-effective way to influence potential/ existing buyers.


Thank you.

Steven WoodgateSMB Social Media Community Manager, [email protected] / @MicrosoftSB

Olivier ChoronCEO and Founder, [email protected]+44 (0)7876 472 461 / @purechannelapps

http://purechannelapps.com/uploads/infographic_socialondemand_PCA.pdf

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

