Growing market share of voice without a shred of paid promotion

Don’t ever underestimate the importance of an insight-led set of personas. Don’t pretend to know your audience – if you do you’ll create content that doesn’t resonate, and ultimately fails. This is a story of what happens when you do just that.

We created a content programme from real personas with real data for Microsoft Mobile, and the results were tangible. We increased market share – eclipsing the competition with no paid promotion.

This is the power of content that’s led by insight, not by hunches.

The challenge: grow its share of the Enterprise market

Microsoft needed to grow its share of the Enterprise market for phones and tablets, by creating content that would outshine the likes of Samsung and Apple.

The company needed to be considered by Chief Information Officers and senior IT decision makers when they were selecting mobile technologies for their teams. But Microsoft Mobile’s B2B marketing was shockingly similar to all of its competitors. Sales teams dominated planning – demanding white papers and conference stands. Everyone’s content was identical and routinely ignored by customers.

In fact, when we covered the logos on the marketing materials and presented them all together, no one could recognise their own content against competitors.

What we did: created insight-led personas and groundbreaking content

Microsoft had so far assumed that personas wanted facts and data. We discovered a very different reality. In truth, the leading CIOs were curious, ambitious people who loved the power of technology to supercharge productivity and make teams happier.

We researched, designed and delivered a groundbreaking programme of thought-leadership, based on the content these CIOs talked about, shared and read.

We created Smarter Everyday: a content programme that focused on productivity and collaboration, which included:

• ebooks
• videos
• blog posts
• live events
• social copy

What happened: increased market share of voice

With no paid promotion – we exceeded our brand reach target using content marketing.

We achieved an increased market share of voice among CIOs, surpassing Samsung and Apple despite their vast paid media budgets.