Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 13.06.2024 
Partner and ecosystem marketing specialist, Coterie and Atos – a global leader in digital transformation, are thrilled to be shortlisted for the ‘best use of data in a content campaign’ at the UK Content Awards. Recognising their collaborative work, the team at Coterie worked hand in hand with Atos to utilise data to develop audience insight, challenge the status quo and transform the Atos and Microsoft partnership
Atos approached Coterie to revitalise their partnership with Microsoft, with a view to:
- Driving sales from within by educating and enabling Atos and Microsoft teams on their joint solution
- Driving awareness and leads through a highly targeted campaign
Taking an ‘always on’ approach
It was identified early in the campaign that Atos needed to take an ‘always on’ approach. Whilst this is commonplace in B2C and traditional B2B marketing, in the partner and ecosystem marketing space, it’s largely unheard of due to the MDF (marketing development funds) funding cycle. Budgets are allocated by vendors to partners on a quarterly or bi-annual basis, often resulting in stop-start campaigns.
Using data to inform this approach
The project began with a list of target company names, identified by Atos as key opportunity accounts. Coterie and Atos began by defining target segments within these companies, through workshops hosted by Coterie.
Using many independent digital tools, we researched to understand the audience further. However, through this research it became clear that this list of job titles wasn’t right. For some of the targets, their interests, search terms and online behaviours did not fully align Atos and Microsoft’s joint offering.
Through further collaborative work we developed a refined and accurate list of target job titles within the target accounts, taking a snapshot of their online behaviours, interests, and more importantly, the relevant challenges they were facing. With a deeper understanding of their preferences, we were able to pin-point the most effective and innovative content types, ensuring our creative would resonate, engage and drive sales.
Under the campaign tagline we developed the ‘Get your data ready for GenAI’ joint campaign, centered around four key topics;
- Cloud Sustainability
- Copilot
- Hybrid Cloud
- AI
Utilising our earlier research and what we already knew about each stakeholder group, we were able to segment our target audience and align them to each of the topics based on how engaged they would be. Our research also extended to each of the topics; we identified key search trends, uncovered the most engaging content formats and the optimum length, giving us a clear content framework to work to.
We populated a landing page on the Atos website as a hub for the campaign. Ensuring a real mix of length, type and purposed of content we populated it with:
- Awareness-led videos
- Education-lead infographics and articles, designed to answer the questions being asked by the targets
- Conversion lead assets including case studies and data sheets
To reach both internal and external audiences we also created a suite of assets to be used in organic and sponsored LinkedIn posts.
Driving sales from within
With a new suite of assets available to use, we undertook an internal campaign to enable sales teams within both organisations. Through targeted LinkedIn activity the campaign exceeded all projections, with over a quarter of a million internal impressions, and 1000+ clicks to the partner page within a 6-week period.
Driving awareness and leads
In addition to our internal campaign, we ran concurrent activity out to market. Through a highly targeted LinkedIn advertising campaign, we were able to reach our target audiences with relevant creative and the hero assets most applicable to their roles.
The campaign has successfully positioned the power of two industry giants, while also creating awareness of new products to market, such as Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Atos’ sustainability offerings, powered by Microsoft. In the first six weeks we also achieved a quarter of a million external impressions (386% of projection), over 1300 landing page clicks (419% of projection) and over 365 leads with 16 converted at the time of the awards submission.
Keeping the spotlight ‘always on’ Atos and Microsoft
Alongside our paid activity, the spotlight is always on the Atos Microsoft partnership. In tech, things move incredibly quickly, which is why we revisit our research every six weeks to keep our fingers on the pulse of market trends, industry challenges, and emerging conversations. This allows us to tweak our content and ensure we’re always meeting the needs of our target audiences, thus driving sales, through a responsive always on strategy.
To be shortlisted for this work is a testament to both Coterie and Atos, who worked collaboratively to transform this partnership. We look forward to meeting our fellow nominees at the awards.
