From insight to action: using research for demand generation content and a thought leadership platform

Oli By Oli

Industry research is a great source for demand generation content and building thought leadership. So, when our client Daisy Corporate Services (DCS) was looking to raise market awareness of its hybrid cloud management capabilities, a research campaign was a no-brainer.

To stand out amongst the crowd, we worked closely with DCS to develop several storylines that would capture the interest of both IT buyers and industry media. We boiled these down to three key themes: IT infrastructure complexity, cloud migration challenges, and the impact of legacy IT on sustainability targets.

Data-driven

Through carefully crafting research questions we were then able to generate data points that would support our storylines. The survey of IT leaders told us that:

  • 90% believe their IT landscape has become more complex to build, manage and maintain.
  • 50% said current IT landscape complexity is the biggest challenge facing their organisation when attempting to move more of their IT estate to the cloud. Because of this, 62% have ended up with a hybrid cloud environment by accident rather than design.
  • 63% say their organisation’s legacy infrastructure is causing them a huge sustainability nightmare.
  • 84% say their organisation has IT efficiency targets. However, only 51% are “very confident” they can meet them.

Creating the assets

From a lead generation perspective, we created a research report that DCS could use as a gated asset. We also provided supporting email marketing copy to allow DCS to highlight the key results and make clear how the company can help organisations overcome their hybrid cloud management challenges.

Due to the sheer number of data points we had, we were also able to create two separate press releases to pitch to media over the course of three months – thereby extending the life of the story and report.

The first focused on IT complexity growing since the pandemic and highlighted how organisations now face complications in moving more of their IT estates to the cloud. The second highlighted sustainability challenges caused by legacy IT hardware. In both releases, we highlighted how hybrid cloud platforms can help to alleviate some of these challenges.

Delivering the goods

By taking a two-stage approach to pitching the research findings, we secured over 25 pieces of coverage. This included hits in TechRadarPro, TechInformed, Microscope, Tech HQ and IT Pro. We were also able to set up a video interview with Digitalisation World, and have been able to use research stats to pitch for numerous feature opportunities since then.

The success of this campaign underscores the power of research-driven content focusing on topical issues that IT decision makers are facing. This ensured that the report resonated with DCS’ target audience, as well as attracting the interest of the IT media – which is a win-win.