TERADATA + RELEVANCECASE STUDY

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“The Big Data Marketing Hero campaign was one of the most successful B2B lead

gen campaigns in our history.” —Lisa Arthur, CMO; Teradata Applications

Does your content make HEADLINES?

Content Promotion for Serious Content Marketers

AS COVERED BY

TERADATA + RELEVANCE | CASE STUDY

SummaryTeradata overcame numerous challenges to hit a 24 percent referral conversion rate — and earn the attention of a highly specific niche audience with over 3 million media impressions.

Teradata partnered with Relevance to achieve several goals, all of which centered on using content promotion to get the attention of enterprise marketing executives, director level and up. That’s tough to achieve with so many other agencies competing for that same audience.

It didn’t take long for the teams to agree that Relevance’s content marketing strategy, powered by strategic content promotion, would be the best option to increase market awareness and stimulate lead generation. By integrating research, content and promotion, this digital marketing strategy gives audiences the content they really want to read — in all the right places. It was designed to achieve the results Teradata wanted.

Research revealed that “big data” was a topic highly relevant to Teradata’s new integrated marketing solutions and its targeted audience. The problem? Many of the agency’s competitors also were talking about the same topic.

The teams determined that Teradata couldn’t afford to pass on the opportunity to make a significant contribution to the marketing community’s dialogue on big data. They need to make a “big contribution.” Working with Relevance, Teradata was able to launch its first contribution to the marketing conversation around big data. They released an ebook, “Be a Big Data Marketing Hero: An Enterprise Guide to Ruling Your Customer’s World,” in the summer of 2013.

Within four months, the contribution met Teradata’s goals with the following results:

*Total potential media impressions: 3,000,000 from 25 pieces of influential media coverage, including both industry-specific and national news sites such as Inc.com, PRDaily.com and KDNuggets.com.

*Coverage referral conversion rate: 24 percent“We needed to get the Teradata brand associated in the mindshare of marketers and align the marketing applications,” says Christy Uher Ferguson, Director ofApplications Communication Strategy for Teradata, “and the contribution strategy worked.”

3Million+MEDIA

IMPRESSIONS*

24%CONVERSION RATE*

With experience in analytical data platform and consulting services dating back to 1979, Teradata is clearly recognized as a global leader in its marketplace. But in 2011, the company found itself in new territory after entering the marketing software and applications industry.

With that move, Teradata quickly determined it must accomplish several significant goals. It needed to expand upon its legacy while getting the word out that they were now in the marketing

application business, explained Uher Ferguson. And, of course, Teradata wanted to gain new business in that industry by generating leads among a highly specific niche audience.

Uher Ferguson realized getting that type of attention among enterprise executives, director level and above, would be challenging. “As an organization, we compete with big players,” she notes. “However, we realize we’re also competing with all the content on the Web that’s already targeted at our audience.”

Mission:

Background

Boost downloads of specialized content about big data and Teradata solutions

TERADATA + RELEVANCE | CASE STUDY

Get Teradata in front of high-level executives at enterprise companies with sales of $500 million or more

Drive top-of-the-funnel traffic for marketing solutions

Boost social awareness among influencers of Teradata’s entrance into the marketing industry

After Teradata consulted with Relevance, an Internet marketing agency that it had previously hired for SEO services, the teams agreed that a data driven content marketing and promotion strategy would help Teradata achieve its goals. “The Relevance solution, which integrates research, content creation and promotion, clearly was the right choice,” says Marty Muse, Vice President of Client Solutions and Success at Relevance. “This strategy uses leading-edge content promotion strategies to put great content in front of the audience who actually wants to consume that content,” Muse says. “It unites social, search, content and PR. It drives success for all four of those channels.”

In summary, the strategy needed to accomplish the following objectives:

To determine the success of the overall campaign, KPIs such as traffic and conversions were measured as sources that could be contributed directly to the content promotion services of Relevance.

Although Muse was confident in the ability of a content and promotion strategy to achieve Teradata’s goals, there were still some unknowns since it was a new approach.“It was a pilot for us, so we realized there was a high risk,” Uher Ferguson says. “This was something that was new and hadn’t been done before. It was hard to sell internally because we didn’t have a lot of data. Of course, hard data is important for a data-driven company.”

Yet Teradata decided to move forward based on the extensive research Relevance had conducted on the content marketing industry.

“They understood explicitly what we are trying to do,” Muse says. “I appreciate Christy’s willingness to be such an early adopter. As a result, Teradata is on the cutting edge of content marketing and content promotion.”

Campaign

1. Identify audience content needs and connect them with the most suitable industry media outlets.

2. Research and determine audience influencer personae.

3. Create and promote content to target media outlets.

4. Create and execute social and native promotion strategies.

“This was something that was new and hadn’t been validated before.”

—Christy Uher Ferguson, Teradata

TERADATA + RELEVANCE | CASE STUDY

Although they were sure they had hit upon the right content promotion solution, it didn’t take long for Relevance and Teradata to identify another challenge, which came in the form of big data. It clearly was the right topic for Teradata’s first content and promotion strategy, but it also was clear that it would be tough to get noticed.

“Many players already had come in and dominated media share on the topic … and they had been moderating the conversations,” says Eleanor Heins, Relevance’s Client Success Director for the campaign.

It was clear that, in this case, Teradata had to do something special to earn the attention of the marketplace.

After some discussion, the teams concluded that Teradata needed to move forward. They couldn’t afford to miss the opportunity to join in on the conversation in a big way. One of the brand’s goals is enabling clients to use data to drive business for their own customers. “We decided to move forward because it was important for Teradata to gain a voice on the topic of big data in the minds of marketers,” Heins says.

So the question ultimately became: “How would Teradata, technically a new player in the marketing solutions game, get noticed in this ‘saturated’ dialogue?”

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Volume - scale of data Velocity - analysis of data Variety - forms of data Value - to consumer

Understanding Big Data:

TERADATA + RELEVANCE | CASE STUDY

ExecutionWith the stakes so high, it was essential that Relevance maintained full transparency with Teradata by making the brand a full partner in its campaign. With weekly meetings and regular reporting throughout the process, Relevance was able to set the campaign on a clear path from the start. “They set expectations right up front,” Uher Ferguson explains.

“Once we got on the right track, it went rather smoothly. From a client perspective, the process was well executed and the team was a pleasure to work with,” she says. “It’s a credit to Eleanor and her team.”

The campaign process involved three phases: research, content creation and content promotion.

TERADATA + RELEVANCE | CASE STUDY

Research, the first phase of the content marketing strategy, played an essential role in getting the market attention Teradata desired. In this case, research was the key to developing content and promotion campaigns that would propel Teradata into relevant media placements and social conversations. Relevance’s philosophy is backed by the leading marketing think tank Forrester. “Marketers always ask me how to make more or better content, and it’s almost always the wrong question,” Forrester’s Senior Analyst Ryan Skinner says. “The right question is: How do I get my content in front of the right people?”

Teradata was able to get the Relevance team off to a solid start by providing extensive research about its targeted audience, including detailed personas. They also provided access to subject matter experts within the company, project managers and internal content teams that could provide additional insights.

“It helped us become familiar with the language of their products and services,” says Dustin Clark, Inbound Marketing Consultant for Relevance. “We then used audience clues and motivators to locate domains that would publish content that was attractive to that targeted audience, specifically websites with a specific focus on business and finance.”

This research process was threefold. It consisted of a content analysis, an audience analysis and a media analysis. As part of the content analysis, Relevance consultants performed a content gap assessment — identifying opportunities that may have been missed to create and promote content that the audience would want to read. They also started developing a content strategy and recommendations for promotional opportunities based on their findings.

Using the targeted user personae provided by Teradata as a foundation, the team conducted an audience analysis to uncover the audience’s online habits and determine degrees of separation from influencers.

Finally, the team performed a media analysis to identify key online media outlets for outreach, which also helped the Media Outreach team compile a list of targeted social media influencers relevant to the targeted user personae. By identifying the best media and social media influencers, the outreach team could allocate resources towards effectively building relationships.

The type of in-depth and exhaustive research undertaken during this phase was particularly critical to the Teradata campaign, says Ashley Halberstadt, Director of Media Outreach for Relevance.

“With Teradata, we were faced with our most targeted niche audience yet. Not only that, big data is a topic that’s talked about a lot,” Halberstadt says. “That’s why we spent so much time in the research phase … We wanted to make sure that the content was valuable and targeted specifically to that niche audience.”

Research

TERADATA + RELEVANCE | CASE STUDY

Content promotion

The final phase of the content marketing strategy — the promotion phase — is critical. “Great content doesn’t mean anything unless it gets in front of the right people,” Muse points out.

The Relevance Media Outreach team worked to establish connections with appropriate media outlets and online influencers based on the media analysis. The team’s approach centered on working with editorial staff at targeted media sites in an effort to secure articles written by these media contacts that would support or showcase the ebook. In addition to the editorial earned media, the creation and placement of articles on major industry sites like Inc.com, VentureBeat.com and SmartDataCollective.com helped increase awareness and drive traffic.

The social element of content promotion took place primarily on Twitter, using Teradata’s @Teradata_Apps account. The Media Outreach team also engaged directly with key influencers and used hashtags such as #bigdata and #bigdatamarketing to drive traffic to the ebook’s landing page.

Using the data gathered during the research phase to guide the creative process, the Relevance Creative team wrote and designed the ebook “Be a Big Data Marketing Hero,” the content centerpiece of the campaign. From ideation to execution, the Creative team built the ebook with both the audience and media outlets

in mind — ensuring that it would be visually appealing and specifically address a community problem.

The team wrote highly engaging guest blog posts and articles that could be used by the Media Outreach team to promote the ebook. The content needed to appeal specifically to the audience as well as the media outlets they frequent. “It’s important to make sure that what you’re giving them is what they need and what they want … in this case, content that specifically helps marketers and PR specialists for enterprise corporations, including Fortune 500 and Global 3000 firms, ” Halberstadt says.

It was also important that the content objectively served the audience’s needs without directly promoting Teradata’s products and services, notes Relevance’s Shari Finnell, Director, Creative/Editor in Chief. “If it comes across as self-promotional, it loses its authenticity,” she says. “That alone would make it tough to promote to media outlets.”

Content creation

TERADATA + RELEVANCE | CASE STUDY

Not only was the process easy for Teradata to follow, the deep and thorough research conducted by Relevance resulted in a few other unexpected benefits, Uher Ferguson says.

“There was great value in this program for a number of reasons,” she says. “Relevance accomplished its contract goals and provided extensive research and data we can use for other campaigns. This has provided tremendous value already.” Here’s how the content marketing strategy for Teradata performed during the four-month reporting period:

Total campaign conversion rate 18%

Coverage referral conversion rate 24%

366

3,000,000+

Total conversions

Media impressions for 25 placements

Content promotion findings

Content promotion fuels the success of content marketing campaigns. When paired with effective and comprehensive content promotion strategies, the results from content marketing campaigns are significantly improved.

Understanding current trends can lend relevance to content and promotional efforts. This requires a team of specialists to keep a finger on the pulse of online discourse in target industries and audiences. Media outreach, creative efforts and the ongoing analysis of trends can help a brand stay ahead of its competition.

Research drives the ideal promotion messaging. Content that’s been created specifically for a target audience has a higher success rate; it takes in-depth research to make sure the content will resonate with that audience.

Results

TERADATA + RELEVANCE | CASE STUDY

THE RESULTS ARE IN THE DATA:

FOR RESULTS LIKE THESE CONTACT US. 888.603.7337 ext. 205 / info@relevance.com

@relevance / relevance.com

Our team of experts know what it takes to get content noticed online. We start with industry leading research and get to know both your audience and the media outlets they trust. Add in some unbeatable creative work to produce content that commands respect, and finish with targeted promotion to get that

content picked up by the most relevant media outlets in your industry.

This earned media coverage delivers more shares, more traffic, more awareness and more conversions.

Call it “content promotion.” Call it “earned media.” Call it “SEO” if you really, really want to. We just call it Relevance.

TECH SALES AND MARKETING AWARD WINNER

8-Digit REVENUE INCREASE

Teradata won a Mira Award for an integrated marketing campaign that included The Big Data Marketing Hero ebook. The various components of this marketing initiative earned Teradata an eight-digit bump in revenue.

30 Global BRAND MEETINGS

3Mil+ MEDIA

IMPRESSIONS

24% CONVERSION RATE

(Coverage referral conversion rate)

TERADATA + RELEVANCE | CASE STUDY

36x ROI

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