The Background
Product launches are pivotal moments for a brand, and today’s the B2B tech landscape where there’s no shortage of innovation and product news, a press release alone is not enough. An integrated communications approach is necessary to reach and engage customer, prospects and other key audiences around a new offering and the problems it can solve.
Rocket Software is a global technology leader in modernization software. For more than 30 years, the company has helped enterprises across industries solve their most complex IT challenges and modernize their IT without disruption. The company partnered with V2 Communications to elevate the brand—including building hype around its self-service data intelligence platform.
The Approach
To create demand for Rocket Software’s data intelligence platform and to support a marketing funnel from awareness to consideration to conversion—V2 ideated a survey report, launched within two weeks of the product announcement, that contextualized the value of this new product.
V2 collaborated with agency research partner Researchscape International to field a survey to 250 IT leaders focused on their concerns about what keeps them up at night. The questions were designed to drill into the three key pain points the data intelligence platform solves for – efficiency, risk management, and optimization.
The findings created an opportunity to position Rocket Software’s data intelligence platform as the solution to their problems—an opportunity that V2 promoted via an integrated campaign comprised of activations across earned, owned, and paid channels:
- Earned media and PR: Press release announcing the findings, media outreach across business, technology, and trade publications
- Owned media: Drafted the report and associated blog posts, three thought papers focused on key themes, and three infographics
- Social media: Leveraging brand and executive channels for posts highlighting key data and the product, as well as employee amplification
- Paid media: Published CIO BrandPost articles by Milan Shetti, CEO of Rocket Software, on the data and product launch; LinkedIn ad campaign to drive relevant audiences to the report
- Marketing support: Website report landing page design and copy; creative direction on various content and social aspects
The Results
The combination of releasing a survey and product announcement in short order resulted in an incredibly successful launch. Key results include:
- 27+ pieces of media coverage spanning business, trade and technology press to build brand and product awareness
- 2 podcast segments focused on the survey and product, to help further tell the product and company stories
- 4 media briefings that resulted in coverage of the survey and product launch, and served to strengthen Rocket Software’s relationships with key reporters
- 92% engagement score on the blog post highlighting survey results. An engagement score considers total views, page views, time on site, and bounce rate.
- 13.2K+ impressions and a 5.69% engagement rate on social from 12 corporate social posts and employee amplifications efforts