About T3T
British multinational, Sage software’s top implementation partner in Africa – Times 3 Technologies (T3T) – has been a retainer client of Transform Marketing since February 2021. Sage, established in 1981 in the UK, is the third-largest software company in the world.
T3T resells Sage Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Payroll & HR software, customising its implementation to clients’ specific needs through the following main products and services: Sage X3 (formerly known as Sage Enterprise Management), Sage Intacct, Sage 300 People, Strategic Customised Developments, as well as Implementation Service and Support.
T3T holds Sage’s highest-ranking, platinum status with 30 years of implementing business solutions successfully across numerous industries and sectors throughout Africa. Sage has recognised T3T’s ongoing commitment to providing the best solutions by awarding the company dozens of accolades over the years, including Partner of the Year, Top Implementation Partner, and Highest Customer Retention in AMEA (Asia, the Middle East, and Africa).
T3T has relied on Transform to provide high-quality sales leads through a combination of social media, Google AdWords advertising, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Public Relations (PR) and website content management.
About the project
At the start of the client relationship, and every six months thereafter, the agency set about developing a comprehensive marketing-communications plan that’s linked to specific business objectives which T3T wants to achieve however mindful too of what the pressing issues are in the market that are impacting how potential clients search for and engage a service provider like T3T.
Since the client’s requirement is for marketing to be very much sales-focused, the agency had to ensure that whatever content was developed for the website, its blog, for social media, or for PR, had to carry a call-to-action that would drive people to marketing’s central point of client engagement: T3T’s website, through which sales enquiries would be handled.
Transform’s marketing plan focused on subtly promoting a Sage product and/or T3T service every six weeks. All marketing would be structured around highlighting what the marketing issues were that the product/service was aimed at addressing, and how T3T (through Sage’s enabling) was able to address that issue.
Those six-weekly themes and the stories (featured through social media posts, website content, Google ad displays, and press releases) included:
- Mastering the balancing act of saving cash while expanding IT,
- Managing return on investment expectations around cloud-based financial management ERP,
- How remote working has rewritten the script on productivity and human capital growth,
- Restoring techquilibrium for businesses in an uncertain age,
- Overcoming common enterprise software implementation challenges, and
- How customer experience (CX) remains at the forefront of 2021’s technology trends.
Aside from running six-weekly Google AdWords ad campaigns (featuring different artwork, messaging, and a call-to-action) per period, the angles listed above were then translated into Facebook and LinkedIn posts per six-weekly period. Post types varied, and included, plain text with picture posts, links to a T3T website blog post (adapted from the press release), reposted third-party media coverage (that had covered a press release we had issued for that period that spoke to the campaign period’s issue), infographics (that laid out – in visual form – the essence of a campaign’s press release for that period), as well as posts that weren’t necessarily related to the six-weekly campaign but carried engagement potential nonetheless.
Results
It would be difficult to compare our results with the previous service provider’s given that they were tracking ‘conversions’ as ‘page views’ and not as hardcore sales enquiries.
Already, an adjustment in how results were assessed, had to be made.
Our campaign received 90 461 ad impressions with 4 886 clicks that resulted in 204 leads. Ads received a 5.4% click-through-rate compared to the industry benchmark of 2.9% for Technology, or 2.91% for Finance and Insurance.
We also were able to achieve a great conversion rate of 4.18% compared to the industry average of 2.92%.
Social media’s posting activity and engagement became a vital feeder of traffic to our Google AdWords campaign:
- LinkedIn followers grew by 177 over a six-month period (organic growth, not paid-for),
- Page views increased by 24.4% to 1562, with unique visitors up by 18.8% to 537,
- 164 reactions, with 34 shares, and a great click-through-rate of 6.23% for a reposting of a publicity piece,
- 37 posts, with 157 reactions, 203 post clicks,
- Facebook fans increased by 114 for the same six-month period, with 621 page visits,
- 216 550 people saw content from the T3T page, up by 72% on the six-month period before,
- We ran a paid campaign as well, reaching 247 997 people, up by 100% on the same period before, and
- We achieved 124 new page likes.
Coverage
