MAKING INROADS WITH A FIRST-CLASS CUSTOMER.
One of the strategic focuses for Vodafone is shifting the perception from a leading mobile and telephony provider to recognition as a global technology business.
Royal Mail, the iconic 500-year-old UK postal service, was a key acquisition target. To date, the relationship had been driven by procurement and a small group of operational and vendor managers. With strong relationships with the incumbent technology provider, it was challenging for Vodafone to demonstrate its value in digital transformation and influence a wider group of decision maker stakeholders.
Having accessed minimal opportunities previously at Royal Mail, Vodafone was keen to demonstrate how they could help Royal Mail on its digital transformation journey.
To demonstrate Vodafone’s commitment to Royal Mail and educate and raise awareness of the breadth of technology services that Vodafone could offer, an acquisition ABM strategy was devised.
AT THE HEART
At the centre of the campaign sat an insight led digital document, built using our Digital Documents platform (a content experience service), entitled ‘A vision for Royal Mail’s digitised postal service’.
THE CAMPAIGN
We began with research, whereby a series of interviews were conducted with the account teams to extract their understanding of the challenges facing Royal Mail. This was coupled with desktop research on Royal Mail’s own communication channels and news sources.
Using this insight, we created the digital document. It set out the similarities between Royal Mail and Vodafone in terms of both organisations ‘being there’ for UK citizens when they were needed most during the pandemic, creating a valuable sense of affinity.
We included ‘The Art of the Possible’: a series of interactive pages vividly illustrating how Vodafone technology can drive positive change and innovation across every part of Royal Mail’s operation – from sorting and distribution centres to doorstep delivery to back-office administration – far beyond mobile and telephony. It included referenceable proof points to show Vodafone’s credibility and experience.
It concluded with an invite to take the next step towards a future vision for Royal Mail, with several senior Vodafone contacts just a click away, along with a contact form prompt. Initially sceptical about the effectiveness of an ABM approach, the Vodafone sales team was immediately engaged once they saw the content come to life and the interactivity of the document.
We followed on with a personalised letter that was curated for a specific senior executive at Royal Mail on behalf of their equivalent peer within Vodafone. It outlined the commitment to Royal Mail, as well as a QR code to the digital document and a personal video from the Director of Vodafone Business UK, that was embedded into the parcel as a video card that played automatically when opened. From within this target group, five senior executives received a Smart Label demonstrating the innovative, future-thinking technology available for parcel delivery. Finally, a targeted LinkedIn campaign was launched to over 200 Royal Mail decision makers, and the direct mail campaign distributed. The account team began InMail send out and liaison with key contacts with the digital document as the basis of these conversations. The campaign opened doors to hundreds of senior decision makers in relevant departments across the business, who then shared it across their teams reaching 392 unique visitors, the majority of which were Royal Mail decision makers, as defined by the inbound data captured via the digital document.
MAILING ROYAL MAIL
Direct mail in the form of peer-to-peer letters with accompanying video cards were targeted to specific decision makers - a sub-set of which received copies of one of Vodafone's latest innovations: the Smart Label.
Every package has a story, imagine if you knew yours. With a Smart Label, you can.
THE RESULTS
The team secured inroads for ten specific opportunities across a broad range of technology areas provided by Vodafone Business UK, with a high qualified annual order value.
In addition, senior executives from multiple other departments at Royal Mail have completed a series of meetings with Vodafone Business UK to discuss innovation and long-term support of their digital transformation journey.
All engagements have been at Senior Manager or Director level upwards, with direct engagement with the existing CCO and, importantly, the incoming CEO.
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