Case Study

SoftwareOne:
Increasing Awareness and Accelerating Sales Conversions for Software Solutions Provider

The Problem

SoftwareOne had a perception problem. It was predominantly seen by its customers and prospects as merely a reseller of legacy software-licenses. This couldn’t have been further from the truth with the company boasting a wide range of solutions and services designed to optimise businesses cloud costs and usage.

As a result, SoftwareOne’s sales team were suffering. They were struggling to sell these financially lucrative solutions and missing their targets. Champion was tasked with creating a campaign that would enhance customers and prospect’s perceptions of SoftwareOne and help to increase demand in its services as a result

54 Pieces of coverage and counting
72 New prospects in the first month
45% Increased LinkedIn engagement

Objectives

  • Educate existing and potential customers about Software One’s solutions
  • Enhance demand levels to make it easier for the business development team to close more deals

Strategy

Champion recommended a strategy that would:

  • Increase SoftwareOne’s editorial share of voice above its key competitors in relevant third party earned media environments, allowing SoftwareOne to elevate its story beyond its software licensing roots.
  • Engage SoftwareOne’s decision makers on a global scale with messaging that would support SoftwareOne’s new commercial objectives.
  • Generate brand authority by creating a bank of content that SoftwareOne could cascade through earned, owned, and shared for months to come.
  • Provide SoftwareOne’s business development teams around the world with impactful assets that they could leverage to open conversations, nurture prospects and close deals for all SoftwareOne solutions.

Method

Throughout 2022, a looming recession was the central theme dominating the UK’s editorial agenda, particularly the cost-of-living crisis, survival of businesses, and mass companywide layoffs. These are all themes that directly impacted SoftwareOne’s clients and prospects, and therefore we could capitalise on them by providing journalists with provocative and immediate content from SoftwareOne.

Given the continued decline of the global economy into 2023, we decided to deploy a data driven campaign that focused the impact of the economic crash on IT investment and budgets and how CIOs are adapting.

From analysing the data, we uncovered:

  • Despite the economic crisis, 93% of CIOs expecting IT budgets to increase in 2023.
  • However, 83% say they are under pressure to make their budgets stretch further than ever before.
  • 72% of CIOs admit they are behind in their digital transformation because of this technical debt.
  • 80% plan to increase their investment in FinOps to improved transparency and control of cloud costs.

Using these data points, we were able to create our ‘2023 CIO Pulse Check’ news narrative, which highlighted the problem of cloud financial management, where CIOs within organisations are at risk of adding to their mountain of IT debt and not meeting boardroom expectations despite the increased IT investment. We used this narrative as a trojan horse to carry SoftwareOne’s messaging around its FinOps and ITAM platform to its desired target audience.

In order to deliver our narrative and messaging, we created a media relations campaign that was sold into the tier-1 media outlets we know SoftwareOne’s desired target audience would be reading, and a report that was gated for lead capture on SoftwareOne’s website.

Outcome

  • 54 pieces of coverage and counting achieved in tier-1 publications, reaching an audience of over 10 million.
  • Interviews across tier 1 IT outlets, such as Tech Target and Computer Weekly.
  • Champion’s coverage was directly linked to the sales team getting MQLs with 72 new prospects in the first month of the campaign going live.
  • LinkedIn engagement was increased 45% thanks to our CIO Pulse Check survey.

Testimonial

As a result of Champion’s activity, we have achieved significant coverage as well as a number of downloads of the report. More importantly, this has translated into bottom line impact with 72 MQL’s in the first month of the campaign hitting. The sales team has reported increased sales velocity and the new business opportunities cover the breadth of our portfolio.

Melissa Talago
Global Director of External Communications & Thought Leadership SoftwareOne

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B2B Content Campaign of the Year – Champion Communications & MobileIron: Trouble at the Top

Best Use of Data in a Content Campaign – Champion Communications & MobileIron: Trouble at the Top

Shortlisted – B2B Campaign
of the Year (Aptum)

Best B2B Trade Campaign – Aptum

Best B2B Trade Campaign – Ivanti

Best Use of Data – Ivanti

Winner – Best Use of Data (Ivanti)

Winner – Best one-off Content Campaign (Ivanti)

Winner – Best Use of Data (Greenlight Commerce)

Winner – Best Content Campaign to Assist with Corporate Positioning (Greenlight Commerce)

Shortlisted – Best one-off Content Campaign (Aptum)

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Shortlisted – Best corporate decision-maker targeted campaign: Trouble at the Top, MobileIron

Winner: gold – best pr campaign, go instore

Winner: bronze – best corporate decision maker targeted campaign, Ivanti