Aptum:
It’s not always sunny in the cloud – The Aptum Cloud Impact Study

Strategy

Champion recommended that Aptum develop a campaign to enhance demand in its new services and solutions amongst its target market. We needed to give Aptum evidence that it could confidently use to demonstrate its knowledge and expertise.

Prior to developing the campaign narrative, we spoke to the Aptum team and wider stakeholders as part of research and concluded that whilst the benefits of Cloud technologies are simple enough – lower costs and more flexibility – many companies fail to properly migrate to the cloud. Costs can run out of control as systems become more challenging to monitor and manage.

Our strategy was to develop a narrative that cascaded across earned, shared, and owned media to drive awareness, credibility, and trust, which would then be translated into engagement, lead generation, and sales.

Method

To do this, we conducted market research to highlight the challenges IT decision makers face with cloud technologies. This data served as a foundation for the coverage that we developed, which was shared with the sales team to drive conversations with potential customers. We were able to generate media coverage that not only increased Aptum’s media presence but also had a positive impact on the business development process.

We worked with market research company Vanson Bourne to survey 400 senior IT decision-makers across the UK, US, and Canada. The questions were designed to create headlines that prospects would relate to and helped us identify challenges concerning cloud technologies.

We then used this data to create a four-part content-centred campaign that fed new insights into the market over a year-long period. This cadence and sustained visibility reinforced and associated Aptum’s name with new insights that cemented its position as an ally in cloud services.

The four parts of the campaign each consists of various assets, including press releases, infographics, eBooks, media relations, and social media activity. The four themes of the campaign, each of which had an eBook, are:

• Cloud leading businesses through COVID-19
• Bridging the Cloud Gap
• The Security and Compliance Barricade
• A Bright Forecast on Cloud

We then issued press releases for each section of the eBook that we pitched to secure earned media in international and national business, IT, trade, and vertical media. We also published the content across Aptum’s social media, which synchronised with the earned media coverage.

Beyond that, the research and editorial coverage was shared with the sales teams, generating a dynamic catalogue of third-party endorsement and branded assets that they could use when driving conversations with potential customers. This supported Aptum’s sales and marketing operations at all stages of the funnel, from general awareness and lead generation, to confirming purchase decisions.