Audience Marketing: Microsoft Learning Product Launch Involvement
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Business Challenge
Microsoft Learning (MSL) Audience Marketing owns audience reach and revenue goals for the learning products tied to key Microsoft product technology launches. MSL is often charged with delivering important early readiness metrics in a timeline that requires that they reach customers before the official communications and marketing engine for product launch kicks in.
Solution
WrightRobbins has played a key planning and execution role in MSL launch campaigns—including Office 2007, Exchange 2007, Windows Server 2008, Office Communications Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008. We developed complete marketing plans to maximize existing demand generation opportunities and create new ones, including the following tactics:
- Demand generation strategies to deliver audience impressions as well as sales results. WrightRobbins is experienced at building cross-functional relationships across business groups to increase marketing visibility throughout Microsoft’s online and offline marketing efforts, including:
- Demand generation and reporting infrastructure for MSL’s largest product launch campaign to date, the Windows Server 2008 launch.
- Creative approaches to demand generation, including the creation of author “blogs” for Visual Studio 2008 books, aggressive offer strategies for Office 2007 learning products, and other strategies to provide customer incentives.
- Proactive development of the customer pipeline for Windows Server 2008 by identifying key constituents and creating programs to proactively turn casual MSL participants into deeply trained and certified customers.
- Strategic negotiation of Customer Readiness goals; for example, working across teams to increase impact of MSL’s efforts for the Office 2007 campaign.
- Development of effective creative themes and collateral, such as the widely used “Heroes Happen Here” creative for MSL’s products related to a combined Server launch in 2008. This creative approach was repurposed several times throughout the launch cycle on Web sites, flyers and other collateral, and was such a popular concept that the product team utilized versions of it for their own global launch Web sites.
Results:
WrightRobbins has played a critical role in driving strategy and execution for several of MSL’s Audience marketing campaigns, helping meet and exceed goals shared by MSL and its partners in other Microsoft business groups, across the IT Professional, Developer, and Information Worker audiences. WrightRobbins helped MSL to:
- Exceed reach goals for readiness and training metrics to date across all audience campaigns tied to Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, Office Communications Server 2007 and Visual Studio 2008.
- Increase audience impressions on web and newsletter placements by 30 to 100 percent through demand generation efforts.
- Build strategic cross-group relationships that were pivotal to campaign success.