Demandware Case Study

The landscape we arrived in

Our Client, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, formerly Demandware provides cloud-based retail solutions to businesses looking to unify their online and physical sales points. Customer expectations are evolving, and it’s become increasingly clear that reducing friction throughout the buying process has become a key factor in retaining business.

That’s why businesses are increasingly looking to third party providers – trading a more intricate control of their commerce solutions for ease of use and reduced security and development costs. But it’s a highly competitive market, and one in which potential consumers are often overwhelmed by the diversity of pricing models and pace of development.

The challenge

Our brief was to create a campaign strategy and messaging framework to put Demandware ahead of the competition.

Our solution needed a long-term capacity for thought leadership, driven by content and communications crafted for senior decision makers among target businesses.

Our solution: Future-Ready Retail

With so many examples within the retail industry of once unassailable brands failing to adapt and grow with the times, we positioned Demandware as an opportunity to future-proof businesses across Europe.

Our key focus was on providing genuinely interesting and insightful content to build relationships and develop trust among both potential customers and key industry influencers. Referencing and crediting these influencers and independent experts throughout the campaign allowed us to gain further traction through social buzz.

How did we do it?

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Identifying our key message

We started by defining what it means to be future-ready.

During this stage we identified five key vectors for change, which informed all future content. After establishing key personas in the buying journey, we released our Future-Ready Retail whitepaper as an introduction to Commerce Cloud’s message.

Diversity
Agility
Performance
Ubiquity
Scale

Global research series

After releasing the initial paper, we followed this up with a global research project. We commissioned a multi-national research report on behalf of Demandware with independent research firm, Dynamic Markets.

The objective was to develop interesting quantitative research looking at millennials who shop online. In addition, retailers and brand manufacturers, to compare and contrast their views on digital commerce, and identify points of friction (and therefore interest) along the way. 7000 millennials were surveyed across the UK, US, France, Germany, the Nordics, China and Australia.

View Interactive Infographic or Download PDF

Reaching our audience

This evolved into targeted lead generation campaigns, in which we used our research as a basis for papers on reaching millennials, retaining them, and effectively growing into new regions.

These were supported by communications tailored to our personas, including:

Web banners
Interactive infographics
Social media content
Presentations and slide decks
Hosted events and webinars

The Future-Ready Retail Microsite

The microsite is the knowledge hub for the Future-Ready Retail campaign.

The site hosts all the whitepapers and research to support the future of retail and is a platform for though-leadership while also capturing data from prospects. The site also hosts topical blog articles, infographics, events from influencers and a Digital Readiness Audit tool for retailers to assess their position in the future of retail.

The Digital Readiness Audit Tool

The ‘Digital Readiness Audit’ is a really exciting tool we developed and built in-house that allows retailers to take a simple online audit that will give them insight into how ready their business is for the future of retail.

After taking the 15-minute audit, the user will receive a personalised report. The information in the report, developed by industry experts, will be based on the answers the user has provided to the multiple-choice questions. This gives the user the following key pieces of information:

A review of their current situation and how ready their business is for the future of retail
How they benchmark against the industry 
Actionable advice on how to become ‘Future-Ready’

The report is really valuable for retailers as it will help inform their business strategy and objectives and help them prepare for the future. The audit also plays a key role in sales enablement by empowering the sales team with intimate knowledge of a prospect’s challenges and environment prior to the first conversations.

Influencing the influencers

The strategy included giving Demandware a wider credibility by providing a dedicated platform for chosen influencers to share their opinions. An important consideration here was to deliver a balanced view of the industry while avoiding the temptation to openly market Demandware products.

With the programme, we held thought-leadership events in London and Europe and invited influencers to validate our thinking around Future-Ready Retail and to identify key themes that can punctuate future communications/campaigns. We worked with them further to proactively to accelerate sales e.g. by talking directly to prospects, speaking at our events. We also developed content from the influencer engagement that supports the Demandware message, marketing and lead-generation activity.

Highly targeted personalised direct mail

To cut through the noise of daily communications we produced a highly targeted direct mail piece aimed to engage senior IT decision makers. We created bespoke video brochures with the message delivered by Demandware’s Vice President of EMEA.

The video message addresses the individual, their company and talks, with insight through the pain points the business faces and how the Commerce Cloud platform could help them achieve their goals and objectives. The call to action invites the individual to a breakfast meeting. The video was delivered as a mailer and was accompanied by a personalised brochure that provides more detail about the benefits of the platform, supported by customer testimonials.

What has it delivered?

Between July 2016 – Janury 2017 the Future Ready Retail campaign has:

Captured over 770 pieces of data
Generated 184 qualified leads
Touched over 50 of EMEAs biggest retail influencers

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