Project: Sage UK Limited
The challenge
Sage UK Ltd software is headquartered in North East England and has grown to become a worldwide software brand with turnover of £1.7bn. They sell a range of accountancy, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software to businesses of all sizes.
The Channel Development Manager and Marketing Manager (Channel and Customer) were exploring ways to empower Sage business partners (their network of software resellers) to generate more of their own leads. Sage had embraced content marketing and were developing a full strategy for roll out from Summer 2015. This was alongside streamlining of the marketing function in headcount and spend.
What we did
A series of workshops was developed to introduce Sage business partners to the principles of content marketing (Content Marketing Conquered) and then move them up to a more advanced level (Advanced Content Marketing).
The workshop development ran from July 2015 until January 2016; five workshops were delivered to approximately 65 business partners between February and May 2016.
The workshops were attended by 12 to 15 people and delivered by Joanne Dolezal and associates (Belinda White and Katherine Wildman) and identified three key ingredients: developing a content mindset, creating targeted copy and optimising content for SEO.
Each workshop had a different mix of content, exercises and examples and the feedback was very positive. The overarching message was to identify how and where each company is unique, what niche skills or markets they serve and how they differ to each other in approach, background and delivery. This was the key takeaway from each session.
The outcome
Sage UK were able to share a relatively new strategy (content marketing) with their business partners, gauge their level of readiness and ability and offer value-added service to them through fully-funded training opportunities.
This paved the way for Sage to roll out changes to the way they work with business partners (they were keen to sell their software directly as well as through intermediaries) and prepare them for greater online competition.
Working together
Sage approached Joanne to see how she could help, after hearing her speak about content marketing at a conference.
A series of workshops on Content Marketing were commissioned by the marketing team and hosted at Sage UK Ltd headquarters in Newcastle upon Tyne.
“Partners gave really positive feedback, which is the key thing for us.”
“Just wanted to say I thoroughly enjoyed the course and I am very much looking forward to the second day in May. Anything you talk about is always so well explained… My biggest issue is a saturated market and building an email list from scratch.
That first contact with people scares me to death, so I am writing a bunch of white papers to try to get some sign ups and will have to brave the world of unsolicited mails and tread that minefield for the rest.”
“Just wanted to get in-touch after the workshop yesterday. It was a great event, and I could identify with all the things you talked about.”