Summary

This campaign was a limited time span campaign executed for a call centre service provider, Callfactory. The challenges not only came from the time and budget aspects but also the target audience which was the director level of Hungarian enterprises. These personas are difficult to engage with and have minimal online footprint. The aim was to increase brand awareness and get the company acquainted with 10 enterprises. The creative idea came from the insight that this industry was significantly affected by the pandemic, so the theme was around how to cope with it.  The communication strategy was based on the fact that the targeted personas like to be on stage. The campaign had 2 phases. In phase one we gathered leads from SEO optimised blogs-ebooks, LinkedIn, and social advocacy activities, and in phase two thanks to our relevant content and effective targeting we could invite 16 directors from these leads to an interview by a radio station. Fortunately 11 directors accepted our invitation, which were thanked by a gift from Callfactory. 

The unprompted brand awareness increased by 3874% during the campaign compared to the former period and there were further negotiations by Callfactory in case of 3 companies.

Introduction, objectives

Callfactory is a Hungarian call centre service provider established in 2009, supporting sales, back office and customer service mainly in the insurance sector.

For a call centre service provider the most important target personas are the sales and customer service directors of large enterprises, whom it is almost impossible to reach, engage with and have a relatively limited digital footprint. On top of it, Callfactory’s brand awareness was limited, which made the sales process even more difficult. The suppliers are selected for a year by these enterprises in September, and ContentPlus was approached by Callfactory in February, so we had limited time to execute the project.

The campaign’s target was to increase brand awareness and get the company acquainted with 10 enterprises.

When creating the persona profiles it turned out that both the customer and sales directors are extroverted people, like to be on stage. It also turned out that the Covid pandemic affected this sector quite dramatically. You might think the telesales, customer service work could be easily done from home, but it turned out that the efficiency of them declined significantly. The campaign was built on these insights. 

• To provide visibility for the targeted personas while getting to know that it was provided by Callfactory and through this connection achieving personal contact with Callfactory’s founder
• To provide insights on how the pandemic changed this sector and propose the best practices on how call centres can cope with these issues. 

Solution

The campaign had two phases. In phase one we identified those companies’ sales and customer service directors who were interested in call centre services. In phase two we invited these directors for an interview in Hungary’s trendy economic radio, Jazzy. So the campaign strategy was prepared with an ABM mindset. 

We used blog posts and SEO, LinkedIn social media (organic, paid) and 2 ebooks to gather relevant leads. One of the ebooks was prepared based on market research about  the effects of the pandemic on the different industries’ customer service and telesales departments, also presenting their solutions to the new challenges. During the research phase based on the number of participants, Callfactory offered support for a foundation who helped kids who lost their parents during the pandemic. In phase one the sales manager and the owner also sent connection requests to the newly identified leads on LinkedIn. As we used a social advocacy software to support the key employees (owner, sales, operation)  with relevant content, they were active on LinkedIn, so their authority increased.

Thanks to these activities we could identify 16 customer service and sales directors who were invited to Jazzy radio for an interview. Finally 11 directors accepted the invitation of Callfactory. They gave interviews on how they have coped with the pandemic. The interviews not only appeared on the radio but podcast series were also prepared, which appeared on Callfactory’s blog in several articles. After each interview Callfactory’s owner sent a thank you mail with a rubber duck (because of the duck in the Callfactory’s logo) to these people. Out of these 11 companies, Callfactory could negotiate further in 3 cases.

Results

The campaign was 5 months long and started in May 2021 after a 6 weeks long strategy phase. The radio interviews happened from mid July till September.

The campaign’s budget breakdown was 50% media spend and 50% content production, agency fee. During the campaign several KPI’s were tracked. Strategically the most important ones were the number of leads identified, the lead acquisition cost, the earned media value from the advocacy program, and the unprompted brand awareness based on branded search and website visits. The unprompted brand awareness increased by 3874% during the campaign compared to the same period before the campaign and remained +1498% higher vs. the before campaign level even 5 months after the campaign, while the website visits more than doubled during the campaign and remained 19% higher vs the before campaign level even 5 months after the campaign.

Altogether 165 leads were generated, which is not comparable, as no lead acquisition activities were in place for the company before. 2550 € media value was earned thanks to the advocacy campaign, so 13% of the total marketing budget was earned back by Callfactory thanks to this activity. Before the campaign Callfactory’s website reached organic search impressions for 19 keywords, while during the campaign it has increased to 205.

The Sales and Marketing Manager of Callfactory described the partnership afterwards as follows: During our partnership with ContentPlus, we received a lot of positive feedback from our partners on our marketing communication. The strong online presence that has been developed for us boosted our lead acquisition, relationship building capabilities. The common work was effective and smooth, with professional processes and lots of creative ideas.