Article Highlights:
As Adobe Experience Cloud expanded its content marketing to the manufacturing vertical, Stoke stepped in to assist in creating and executing a sound content strategy. Read on to learn more about:
- The challenges and opportunities Adobe Experience Cloud faced in the manufacturing vertical
- The strategy Stoke developed to help manufacturers see the value in Adobe Experience Cloud
- How the content Stoke created surpassed benchmark metrics
Entering a new market presents multiple challenges for any company. You need to go where potential customers are and attract them to your property, and also deliver content that’s relevant to their specific needs and industry. As Adobe targeted the manufacturing vertical, Stoke was able to show their ability to create and execute a sound content strategy for Adobe Experience Cloud. Read on for the full story.
The Challenge
Adobe’s digital marketing business had only a few manufacturing customers, but they saw lots of opportunity for this focused market. To build a program to reach this potential market, Adobe recognized its need for content that addressed the specific requirements and pain-points of manufacturers. The challenge was that they had no formalized marketing content for the manufacturing vertical.
Because marketing leaders at manufacturing companies had not been strongly targeted by Adobe in the past, they weren’t already engaged with Adobe or its content. However, the North America and EMEA regional markets within Adobe saw the potential with manufacturing customers, and requested support.
The Solution
A major aspect of the strategy to build out the manufacturing vertical for Adobe was content creation. Stoke was asked to propose blog content for Adobe’s industry marketing team.
After thorough research from associates with a background in manufacturing, we proposed content topics and also developed an accompanying distribution strategy to draw in a new audience for Adobe.
We started by identifying how manufacturers would use Adobe products. After researching and interviewing manufacturing industry experts inside and outside of Adobe, as well as a few customers, we developed three series of articles, and a fourth series in partnership with one of Adobe’s B2B solution partners, SapientRazorfish. We produced content ranging from a spotlight on current customers, “How DuPont is Powering Experiences With Sales-Enabled Mobile Apps”, to stories about how manufacturing companies could engage their B2B customers with an omnichannel digital experience, and how they could establish a digital foundation to transform and add value to their entire supply and distribution chain.
To cultivate the audience and promote the content series, we determined additional methods of distribution: display ads, emails, social posts, and placement of articles in third-party publications that reach manufacturers. We also worked with SapientRazorfish to co-brand articles and have them featured on their blog and Adobe’s blog. All these tactics helped us drive new traffic to content on Adobe’s blog, and a new manufacturing vertical landing page on Adobe.com.
The Results
The success of the series was evident in the metrics we watched. Page views on blog articles surpassed benchmark measurements for all blog articles. More important, though, were the results for shares per visit, which is a quality indicator for Adobe.
For the manufacturing articles, the shares per visit were 54 percent higher than their benchmark metric.
This high-quality content (way above benchmark for Adobe) was not only shared on the blog and social channels — which is the only distribution that our stats reflect — but also was used in email, banner ads, display ads, event marketing, contributed articles, and through the distribution channels of SapientRazorfish (email, display, event, and blog/social).
Mara Petersen, the Adobe content strategist with whom we worked closely for several months on this project, says,
“Stoke’s strategy, not just initially, but all along the way, significantly influenced the success of the project. Anytime there was an obstacle, they provided solutions for moving forward strategically. The outcome definitely increased the ability of our regional sales teams to confidently build this new market.”
We also received overwhelmingly positive feedback from sales leaders about the work we produced:
“Thank you for this and I’m encouraged by this program and continue to be a strong and vocal advocate.”
“This is incredible stuff. I am so pleasantly surprised at how quickly we understand things as a company once we decide that we want to. Thank you so much!”
Overall, Stoke’s work helped establish Adobe as a digital marketing leader that understands the manufacturing space, and increased its visibility in this sector. The content we produced and the distribution strategy we employed laid the groundwork for future marketing efforts within this vertical, and in many other verticals. The foundation that we laid should continue to drive traffic and, most importantly, growth and revenue for Adobe’s manufacturing team.
Discover how Stoke can help you get started with a content strategy that delivers success.