Posted on 29 July 2009 by Hurol No Comments

Frontline campaign exemplifies the power of online

Overview

There’s a marked difference in the execution of marketing campaigns offline and online.

Offline, you design a campaign, launch it with a big bang and, voila, you’re done. Online, however, the ‘big bang’ is but a part of the journey.

In fact, it marks the start of a valuable ‘extend and expand’ phase – where you continually test and grow the campaign, adding new elements and attracting more people to it as you go.

Frontline Systems, a leading IT infrastructure and services provider in Australia, has embraced the online paradigm and implemented a highly successful campaign for brand positioning and market development. The Solaris is IT campaign – which is still in progress – is a prime example of the ‘extend and expand’ philosophy at work.

Challenge

“As a leading IT infrastructure and services provider, one of our ongoing priorities is to grow our market, utilising expertise from within to achieve this. Solaris expertise has historically been a pillar of our business and with it now being a truly platform independent environment, it complements our Vendor Hardware strategy.” said Greg Wade, Marketing Director, Frontline.

“We sought a campaign that would demonstrate our expertise in Solaris, educate the market about cross-platform support of this powerful operating system across x86 systems from leading vendors, and generate demand for Frontline services.” said Wade.

Frontline engaged Bienalto to deliver a comprehensive strategy; and take charge of campaign design, execution, and the critical ‘extend and expand’ phase.

Solution

Bienalto conceptualised the Solaris is IT campaign as the way forward for Frontline.

Solaris is IT, which includes a website and competition to gauge interest and offer interactivity, is tailored for three key audiences – IT managers, architects and system administrators.

Built using Events Manager, the campaign captures customer data and is designed to integrate with Frontline’s CRM.

“We tested the campaign messaging on Frontline’s existing customer base before expanding beyond their database,” said Hurol Inan, Managing Director, Bienalto. “Once we got the message right, we were ready to broaden the net and capture new leads.”

The expansion strategy entailed the use of social media sites like Twitter and LinkedIn, and online advertising on specialist IT news sites; as well as ongoing email communication with people who had already registered interest.

Using strategies such as these, Bienalto has more than doubled the response rate for the competition since moving beyond the Frontline database.

“Bienalto has been involved at every step of the way – from initial concepts to visual design and development. They are now steering critical activities like email marketing to achieve the best possible outcome,” said Wade.

Frontline’s Solaris is IT campaign is still in progress, yet already a number of sub-campaigns are in the works to extend its scope.

“Based on the foundations we have built with this campaign, we have every confidence to launch new campaigns. They will be predictable from the outset and generate strong results for the business,” said Inan.

Are you ready to leverage online?

Any business with a major initiative or objective on the radar should be thinking about taking the campaign online.

If you are unsure of where to start, speak to Bienalto today. Call us on +61 2 8356 3000 or email info@bienalto.com.

Enter the Solaris is IT competition today!

Bienalto encourages IT professionals to enter the Solaris is IT competition, and promote it within their organisations.

Entering is easy. All you need to do is register to receive Solaris information pack to be in the minor draw. If you are existing Solaris users, this pack also contains instructions on how to enter the major competition for which you will need to state, in 250 words of less, how Solaris 10 improves your working life.

You will go in the running to win some cool prizes, including one of five Google Android powered HTC Dream Smart Phones, or one of five BOSE around-ear headphones.

Learn more about the campaign and enter the competition