Sustain Momentum Over an Epic Buyer’s Journey
Anyone selling to enterprise organizations appreciates that sales cycles can be long. What B-to-large-B and B-to-Enterprise marketers know is that a lot of the buyer’s journey (83 percent, according to Gartner) happens before a salesperson ever gets involved.
So how can vendors stay on prospects’ radar – and work on winning them over – for those months of stealth research and the additional months in conversations with salespeople? Product innovation firm TXI recognized that content and PR can play a major role, especially in tandem. So they sought out Propllr in 2021.
“Propllr is phenomenal at what they do. Their diverse team… helps to drive the performance of our content marketing, extending its outreach well beyond our core team’s capabilities.”
— Chief Commercial Officer, TXI
Challenge: Be Top of Mind When Prospects Are Finally Ready to Buy
Digital transformation is a crowded and buzzy space, but TXI’s approach to its work is unusual, if not unique. What’s more, TXI’s culture and commitment – both internally and in the products it builds – to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) mean that it helps customers build products and make decisions that uniquely position them for long-term success.
Even better: TXI’s customers are often long-term partners and fanatical supporters of the company’s work.
The challenge for a PR and content marketing program was how to make sure TXI’s name makes it into the consideration phase when other great-fit customers start researching the kinds of problems TXI can solve.
Here’s how we’re doing it.
Strategy: Repeat and Spread Key Messages and Proof Points across Both PR and Content Marketing
Knowing that sales cycles are long and buyers’ journeys are even longer (again, they start the process long before they talk to you), we committed to getting TXI’s core messages in front of as many potential customers – regardless of buying stage – as possible.
1. Lean into thought leadership
“Product innovation thinking” is a complex notion. It describes a way of working to ensure the ongoing creation of new value. Among TXI’s leaders are people who have contributed to the development of core facets of product innovation thinking, along with experienced practitioners of product innovation.
In both owned and earned media, we emphasized capturing and broadcasting their ideas to, first, educate the market about what it means and, second, to illustrate the transformational power that this product innovation approach can have for organizations brave enough to embrace it.
2. Publish, promote, repeat
While we incorporate SEO best practices into everything we write for TXI, we don’t rely on organic traffic to supply all site visitors. We take a similar approach with media placements we earn, viewing the original run as just the first opportunity to get a message in front of key audiences.
We collaborate with TXI to promote pieces on social media, via newsletters, and in relevant sales conversations to maximize reach.
3. Use Content for PR and PR Wins for Content
In programs that prioritize narrow search-based queries or rely on trending topics to get media exposure, reuse opportunities are limited. Not so with thought leadership PR and content marketing programs like TXI’s.
Nearly every media win and piece of owned content we help them develop has multiple lives: we use blog posts to demonstrate credible thought leadership when we pitch reporters; we use blog posts and case studies to write award nominations; we pick two or three new pitch angles from every thought leader interview we conduct and share them with relevant reporters.
When an organization has great ideas and the people executing on them are open to conversations, the possibilities are endless.
“[Propllr] has secured key industry awards and placements with highly recognized publications and influencers that have helped to increase our brand awareness.”
— Chief Commercial Officer, TXI
Results: Awards, Visibility, and Recognition That Drive Momentum
Since the start of our program in 2021, TXI has won several local and industry awards for its work, including a nod in Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators, BuiltIn Chicago’s Best Places to Work, Inc.’s Power Partners, awards for consulting leaders, awards for women leaders, and awards for client work that centers accessibility.
They’ve also seen placements in trade publications for the industries they serve, in AI-focused publications, in tech journals, in UX publications, and elsewhere. And organic traffic to their site and engagement with their newsletter have grown steadily.
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