Background
A leading software company experienced acquisition and retention issues in three strategic product segments that correlated with declining adoption and skill set levels of their user base. This occurred despite the continuous improvement in product feature sets in recent product releases, and well-designed marketing efforts. Sales reported and increase in time lag from purchase to adoption in B2B space, and marketing was concerned with the increasing cost of a new customer acquisition in the consumer space, which in turn was exacerbated by a decrease in consumer loyalty. Executives asked for a ‘tactical marketing program’ that would improve software adoption and customer loyalty.

Analysis and Teamwork
We began our work analyzing customer behavior in the buying cycle and creating and cleaning customer contact lists for experimental marketing programs. Analysis revealed opportunities in various stages of the buying cycle, particularly in the marketing part of the lead funnel, both for B2B and B2C markets. We proposed and piloted a few marketing communications programs (e.g., tasked to drive the skill set on strategic products, or appealing to users’ inclination to be the ‘first to know’ about the next product release).

We coordinated marketing programs piloting in selected target segments with contact lists, including driving all the major customer and partner recruiting initiatives.

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Results
The client selected two marketing programs for the full rollout. And driving marketing communications strategy and execution for three strategic products resulted in reaching 9M IT professionals & developers globally, with over 30M direct contact touches and impressions within nine months of the full rollout.
 

The marketing communications program supported 23% customer base growth YoY, and averaged 13% growth in customer retention.