Test and Learn: How CDW Uses a Niche Social Network to Get in Front of the “Right” Buyers

Speaker: Lauren McCadney, Senior Manager, Social Media, CDW

Moderator: Sergio Balegno, Director of Research, MECLABS Primary Research

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What are the most frustrating challenges to social media marketing effectiveness?

45% of marketers said “Converting social media

members, followers, etc. into paying customers” In this session, we’ll learn how CDW has successfully developed social programs that deliver leads, impact consideration and deliver revenue.

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Who are we?

CDW helps optimize your use of technology by offering the best IT brands in the industry, an extensive range of services, dedicated account managers and highly trained solution architects.

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• Initial social media activities uncovered important challenges and a social community with the “right” buyers

Challenges

• Isolating B2B IT decision-makers

• Do the IT decision-makers have a reason to return frequently?

• Is the engagement an extension of natural behavior?

• Is my presence welcome or viewed as an intrusion?

• Can I measure the results and ultimately make money?

How Spiceworks addresses

• “Pure” IT Community

• Built around an application that makes members job easier

• Spiceheads have embraced vendors that are helping to keep IT free and provide useful information

• With creativity, awareness through revenue can be measured

Social media background

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Research Products

Share Tools & Techniques

Solve Problems Manage the Network

Get Advice & Expertise

8:00 am 9:00 am 10:00 am 11:00 am 12:00 pm 1:00 pm 2:00 pm 4:00 pm 5:00 pm 6:00 pm 3:00 pm

On their own...

…with the Community

IT

IT IT IT

Where members manage, research and buy everything IT

What is Spiceworks?

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Awareness

•Listening

•Banner ads

Consideration

•Webinars

•Case studies/whitepapers

•Group sponsorships

•Community engagement

Purchases

•Lead conversion

•Partner promotions

•Embedded search

•Purchasing/RFQ integration

Using Spiceworks at all levels of the funnel

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“I too would like to see my CDW account integrated”

“…we use CDW for all of our hardware needs and it would be cool if I could link CDW orders to tickets.”

“It would be nice if they were integrated into this.”

“…would love to be able to integrate my purchases into tickets and asset management for Spiceworks”111

“I agree. I think it’s a good idea”

“Bump, I want this too”

“I think we all would love this feature.”

“This would also be a great way for CDW to get involved in the community.”

“I would use that all the time! I’m a huge CDW fan as well”

Purchasing/RFQ integration

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How the Request for Quote works

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Community

• ~40% of Spiceworks users have purchased from CDW in the last three years

• CDW Spiceworks users significantly over-index on spend

Purchase Integration

• The initial search widget paid for itself in 3 months

• Beta RFQ: Quote : Order Rate is 10%

• We are tracking for ROI

Results

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Questions

Thank you!

Lauren McCadney, Senior Manager, Social Media, CDW