SAY Communications cements its role as a leading research-based PR and content marketing agency.

We’re proud to be shortlisted for the UK Content and PR Awards in the ‘Best Use of Research’ category. This recognition highlights our ability to generate unique insights in B2B technology—and turn them into high-impact PR and marketing campaigns.

It’s the third consecutive year that SAY has been either a finalist or winner of research-based awards. Categories span innovative approaches to generating high-quality insights, the effectiveness of digital and social media campaigns in driving awareness and leads, and the impact of research on the media landscape. 

This time, making the shortlist meant raising the bar—bringing together everything we’ve learned so far and applying sharp strategic and creative thinking to every stage of research, development, and dissemination. A big thank you goes to our client, Gigamon, who trusted us to investigate the highly technical area of hybrid cloud security and craft a compelling story for their Deep Observability Pipeline.

B2B technology stories may appear flat or dry on the surface, but they can be charged with drama by leveraging new, peer-to-peer insights. Having an intimate understanding of the target audience is essential to developing impactful content. At SAY, we know that CISOs don’t want to be sold to. They are a close-knit community that values its members’ insights and cherishes opportunities to discuss best practices. Therefore, elevating the CISOs’ voices and leveraging Gigamon’s own CISO were identified as key to the campaign’s success.  Two ideas in particular enabled the campaign to stand out from the crowd: 

• We leveraged Gigamon’s own CISO as the key face for the global campaign, elevating his voice and opinion on the result of the survey in PR and social media to position the campaign’s assets as created by CISOs for CISOs. 
• The development of a separate CISO Executive Summary focused only on CISO data and insights enabled us to have a second touch point with the media and the audience, 3 months after the initial launch, and delivered a second wave of coverage and interest in the campaign. 

Our campaign successfully integrated PR, Social Media, Web and Email Marketing to deliver new insightful materials within the saturated market of cloud security. We leveraged a deep understanding of local needs, employing voices and data across all regions to ensure each market had relevant insights to share. This resulted in high effectiveness, smashing all media outreach and web traffic KPIs, more than halving the target Cost Per Lead. 

Most of all, our single-minded focus on the target audience set the campaign apart. We understood what CISOs needed and provided materials to empower them, positioning Gigamon as a trusted partner in their mission to protect their organisation.

“At SAY, we are obsessed with maximising ROI for our B2B technology clients. We understand that research is a big investment for the marketing team, and it’s critical to have a content and PR agency that drives the project with confidence and creativity, identifying and securing every opportunity to leverage the research and engage the target audience.” Geraldine Fernandez, Director, Technology.