How Multapplied Supercharged Organic & Paid Marketing Strategies to Drive MSP Lead Generation
B2B technology marketing is tough, especially if you have a niche product. Connecting your message to your target audience is key for successful brand awareness and lead generation.
Multapplied Networks Inc. is a Vancouver, BC-based software company that builds high-performance SD-WAN solutions tailored to the needs of its target audience: managed service providers and internet service providers.
A “Vendor of Note” in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure, Multapplied operates a unique business model, selling its high-performance, white-label SD-WAN technology solely through its service provider partners.
Multapplied’s niche SD-WAN technology allows service providers the flexibility to host their own solutions, bundle and package SD-WAN with other service offerings, and completely own the customer experience. In essence, Multapplied enables service providers to deliver network provisioning services without the cost and complexity involved with working with a telecommunications provider or a mainstream SD-WAN vendor.
Their solution is extraordinary — all they needed was a solid marketing and communications strategy to fuel their fire.
“Our solution is not something that’s well understood, even within the technology community. Once our target audience gets it, it’s a no-brainer but it takes a lot of explanation initially.”
— Geoff Hultin, President, Multapplied Networks
“We needed a team of experts who could extract key information from our teams and distil it so it resonates with our audience in a meaningful way.”
— Logan Campbell, VP of Sales, Multapplied Networks
Getting the Message Right
The Multapplied team recognized that they had a marketing and communications problem. The team has immense knowledge of the features and functionality of Multapplied’s solutions but, according to Geoff Hultin, President of Multapplied, “We struggle with what to say and how to say it.”
Faced with the decision of either hiring a marketing headcount or bringing in an agency partner, Multapplied chose the latter and connected with TPM to discuss overhauling their marketing and communications strategy.
Why TPM?
Multapplied had been managing some marketing tactics internally. They had also experimented with another agency but the relationship had been unsuccessful. According to Logan Campbell, VP of Sales at Multapplied, “The original agency over-promised and under-delivered. As a result, our team wasn’t confident enough in their abilities or their understanding of our business to relinquish full control. It was a mess.”
Because of the failed first attempt, Multapplied was apprehensive about bringing in another agency. They wanted a local agency so they could have a closer in-person relationship and considered a few agencies in the market before deciding on TPM.
“TPM took the time to learn about our business,” said Campbell. “They really want our business to succeed and it shows. If you want an agency that follows your direction blindly, go somewhere else. If you want a real partner who truly invests time in understanding your business and offers expert advice to challenge your status quo, choose TPM.”
TPM’s technology chops also played into Multapplied’s decision. After checking with some TPM client references in a similar industry, the choice was easy — TPM was the perfect fit.
“If you want a real partner who truly invests time in understanding your business and offers expert advice to challenge your status quo, choose TPM.”
— Logan Campbell, VP of Sales, Multapplied Networks
Putting the Foundations in Place
TPM audited Multapplied’s existing content and built a pillar and cluster content and SEO strategy to drive organic growth around defined keywords for Multapplied.
In parallel, the marketing automation experts at TPM took control of HubSpot, overhauled existing lead capturing, nurturing, and scoring mechanisms, and established analytics best practices.
The paid ads team at TPM then built a thoughtful strategy to boost lead generation by targeting the right people with Multapplied’s message. It’s early days but, so far, the results are positive and the team is still fine-tuning the targeting to ensure Multapplied gets maximum results from its ad spend.
“What we say and how we say it is important. As important is getting our message across to the people who will actually care.”
— Logan Campbell, VP of Sales, Multapplied Networks
Initial Results
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Lead Volume
TPM built and tested several lead generation campaigns targeting economic and functional buyers within Multapplied’s target market of IT service providers.
TPM excluded companies that Multapplied already works with from the ads campaign to ensure the campaign is as cost-efficient as possible. It’s early days but, in the second month of the campaign, lead volume jumped by 200% — likely the result of continuous ad testing with multiple variations of imagery, copy, targeting, and lead forms. The team also ensured the redirection of ad spend towards the best-performing ad sets.
Watch this space as we nurture these early leads and track their conversion to sales…
“TPM has elevated our marketing and made it look far more sophisticated than what we were doing before.”
— Logan Campbell, VP of Sales, Multapplied Networks
“TPM is selling a service and, yes, we are their customer — but it doesn’t feel like that. With TPM you’re getting a true partner on the marketing side.”
— Geoff Hultin, President, Multapplied Networks
Building for Success
Now that the marketing strategy is in place, TPM will focus on delivering continued return on investment for Multapplied.
The teams have already established benchmark reporting metrics and will continue to fine-tune the strategies to adapt to changes in the market. For example, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, TPM spun up a new support campaign and quickly shifted ad spend toward it.
As the team gathers more marketing data, TPM will be able to deliver even richer insights and expert advice to inform Multapplied’s future marketing strategies.