Integrated GTM Strategy Case Study

CASE STUDY

© 2015 BRUCE PHARR | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY MARKETING

www.brucepharr.com

Penetrate New Markets and Drive Growth with an Integrated Go-to-Market Strategy

AN INTEGRATED MARKETING PROGRAM | 2

“The business enterprise has two and only two

basic functions: marketing and innovation.

Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function

of the business.”

Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management


CASE STUDY | SYMYX TECHNOLOGIES, INC. (SMMX)


JANUARY 2009 – JUNE 2010 In 2009, Symyx initiated an integrated marketing strategy intended to grow revenue and

bookings, penetrate new market segments, and increase brand equity for the Symyx Electronic

Laboratory Notebook (ELN). The program integrated print advertising, public relations, unified

digital marketing (website, micro-sites, banner ads, SEO, webinars, email marketing, and social

media), global telemarketing, and sales enablement. Following are the benchmarks, goals, and

results for the top-level key performance indicators (KPI).

PERFORMANCE PARAMETER BENCHMARK GOAL RESULT INCREASE OVERALL REVENUE1 $9.5M NA $18.3M $8.8M 93% OVERALL BOOKINGS1 $11.3M NA $16.8M $5.5M 49% NEW MARKET SEGMENT BOOKINGS2 $0.2M $1.6M $2.5M $2.3M 1,150% NEW MARKET SEGMENT SALES OPPORTUNITIES2 $1.0M $8.5M $11.8M $10.8M 1,080% BRAND AWARENESS3 22% 32% 45% 23 PTS 105% BRAND CONFIDENCE3 32% 42% 54% 22 PTS 69% 1Benchmark is 2009 actual, and result is 2010 full-year estimate as of June 30, 2010. 2Benchmark is 2009 actual, goal and result is for the 12-month period from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010. 3Benchmark is from a third-party study completed November 2008, and result is from same third-party study completed November 2009.


PRINT ADVERTISING The primary goal of the print advertising

campaign was to build brand equity—specifically

awareness and confidence. The creative approach

appropriated Steve Job’s metaphor of “a bicycle

for your mind,” in that the Symyx Notebook took

you places that were difficult to reach with a

traditional laboratory notebook, and it got you

there much easier and faster. It also appealed to

scientists who, in general, are more likely to camp,

hike, and mountain bike than people in other

professions. An early indicator of the ads

performance was its number one position in an ad

recall study, where it outperformed ads from

billion-dollar multinational corporations in

pharmaceuticals, analytical instruments, and life

science informatics—including Merck KGaA, Shimadzu,

and Waters—and achieved a 69% recall, versus a 43% average recall of the 16 ads studied.


MEDIA RELATIONS & THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

ELNs were initially introduced in the 1990s for

individual, domain specific applications. In 2008,

Symyx introduced an enterprise ELN that could

be used across multiple domains. The media

relations’ strategy was to establish Symyx as a

thought leader in the emerging enterprise ELN

market, and the goal was to author or appear in

12 feature articles in target publications reaching

lab scientists in chemistry and biology domains.

Between January and December of 2009, Symyx

authored or appeared prominently in 16 feature

articles in 12 target publications including Bio-IT

World, Bioscience Technology, Drug Discovery &

Development, Lab Manager, and Scientific

Computing.


BRAND EQUITY METRICS Brand awareness and confidence directly affect

whether a buyer will consider purchasing your product.

Bio-IT World conducted a brand study in late 2008 to

benchmark the Symyx ELN and the leading

competitor’s ELN. The study was repeated in late 2009

to measure the effectiveness of the integrated Symyx

Notebook print advertising and media relations’

campaign. It showed that brand awareness and confidence for

Symyx Notebook had increased 23 and 22 percentage points,

respectively, and that gaps between Symyx and the leading ELN

competitor had narrowed significantly. BRAND AWARENESS BRAND CONFIDENCE 2008 2009 IMPROVEMENT 2008 2009 IMPROVEMENT

SYMYX NOTEBOOK ELN 22% 45% 23% 32% 54% 22%

LEADING COMPETITOR’S ELN 49% 63% 14% 58% 65% 7%

SYMYX DEFICIT & IMPROVEMENT 27% 18% 9% 26% 11% 15%


SALES ENABLEMENT Scientists are a special class of B2B technology customer. They are very

skeptical of advertising claims. On the other hand, they highly

value peer recommendations, and they live to publish

articles. Symyx published Molecular Connection, a high-quality

biannual journal, to take advantage of this desire. In 2009,

Molecular Connection included case studies from scientists,

laboratory managers, and information technology professionals

at pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical leaders AstraZeneca,

Bristol Myers Squibb, Elan, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer,

and Millennium.

Case studies are a very effective means of addressing a potential

buyer’s question, “How does a product or technology meet my specific

business need?” A survey of Symyx sales personnel at the end of 2009

ranked Molecular Connection as the top sales enablement tool, and

specifically cited case studies as key to closing several deals. Another highly

rated sales enablement tool was webinars, especially those that

incorporated case study presentations by customers.


OVERALL SYMYX NOTEBOOK REVENUE & BOOKINGS The Symyx enterprise sales team sold directly to top 20 (over $1 billion in annual revenue)

pharmaceutical and biotech companies. The complex sales cycle averaged 12 to 18 months and

produced 7-figure deals. Marketing’s contribution to bookings in early 2009 was primarily

through sales enablement. In July 2009 marketing launched a new program that penetrated new

markets segments and directly generated opportunities that led to bookings.

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BOOKINGS �

REVENUE �

Millions (US) �

OVERALL SALES PERFORMANCE – 2009 & 2010 �

2010 �

2009 �


NEW MARKET SEGMENT PENETRATION & BOOKINGS In July 2009, marketing launched a unified digital marketing program targeting 6-figure deals

with the 1,080 pharmaceutical and biotech companies beneath the top 20 (under $1 billion in

annual revenue). Between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010, $2.5M of new bookings was

generated (versus a projected target of $1.6M), and $11.8M of new sales opportunities was

added to the pipeline (versus a projected target of $8.5M).

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BOOKINGS �

OPPORTUNITIES�

Millions (US) �

MARKETING DEMAND GENERATION SYSTEM PERFORMANCE – JULY 1, 2009 THRU JUNE 30, 2010 �

ACTUAL �

TARGET�


A UNIFIED DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAM Between January and June of 2009, Symyx marketing developed a business case for a unified

digital marketing operation, and gained approval from stakeholders. This combined the existing

website and CRM (salesforce.com) with improved SEO and a new marketing automation tool

(Eloqua) which served as a hub for newly launched email advertising, micro-sites, banner ads,

webinars, and social media.

The unified digital marketing operation engaged global prospects from the new, target market

segment (smaller pharmaceutical and biotech companies), nurtured and tracked them through

the early stages of the buying cycle (awareness and discovery), qualified them through global

local-language telemarketing, and delivered well-qualified, late-stage prospects to sales. As a

result, the enterprise sales team was able to close the smaller, 6-figure deals within 3 months, on

average.

The following pages diagram and describe the overall unified digital marketing operation, the

workflow to generate, nurture & qualify prospects, the social media structure & strategy, and an

ROI comparison.


A UNIFIED DIGITAL MARKETING OPERATION

NURTURING & MONITORING

QUALIFICATION CONFIRMATION

& PRESALE

PROPOSAL, NEGOTIATION

& CLOSE

MARKETING ASSETS

ANALYTICS & REPORTING

AWARENESS DISCOVERY VALIDATION

SEARCH, KNOWLEDGE SHARING &

DIALOG


WORKFLOW TO GENERATE, NURTURE & QUALIFY PROSPECTS

Nurture �

Cycle �

Profile Prospect Track Behavior Score Quality Deliver to Sales

2

3

4

5

6

1

Micro-site Web Form

White Papers & Case Studies

Webinars

Global Local-Language Telemarketing

Profile & Activities

Outbound Email

Marketing automation serves as a hub to 1) send outbound emails with an offer to target prospects, 2) that click-through to the micro-site in response, 3) where they complete a Web form to access the offer. Thereafter, 4) prospects are tracked as they return to access additional assets and are nurtured through the early stages of the buying cycle (awareness and discovery). Global local-language telemarketing 5) follows up periodically to provide human contact and further qualify prospects. When prospects are qualified as approaching the purchase phase of the buying cycle, 6) sales representatives access detailed prospect profiles with a list of all their activities throughout the buying cycle.


SOCIAL MEDIA STRUCTURE & STRATEGY In Q2 2009, we audited our social media environment, and found that scientists, our target

market, used Facebook personally, but professionally they used LinkedIn, where ELN

communities already existed. Scientists followed blogs and viewed relevant videos and slide

ware from YouTube and SlideShare. Guided by the findings and best practices, we integrated

the following social media structure into our unified digital marketing strategy.


RETURN ON INVESTMENT Comparing results from a unified digital marketing program between July 2009 and June 2010

with demand generation in 2008 (tradeshows and outbound sales calls) shows that:

• Cost of demand generation programs was 20% lower

• Total dollar return of bookings and opportunities increased by a factor of 10

• Percentage return of bookings and opportunities increased by a factor of 15

MARKETING PROGRAM COST AND RETURN JAN – DEC 2008 JUL 2009 – JUN 2010

COST OF DEMAND GENERATION PROGRAM TRADITIONAL EVENTS AND CONTRACT OUTBOUND SALES CALLS $2.0M NEW B2B MARKETING SYSTEM $1.6M VALUE CREATED FROM DEMAND GENERATION PROGRAM SALES OPPORTUNITIES (SQL) $1.0M $11.8M BOOKINGS $0.2M $2.5M RETURN ON INVESTMENT SALES OPPORTUNITIES (SQL) 50% 738% BOOKINGS 10% 156%


ABOUT BRUCE PHARR I live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my wife and son. I hike in the Santa Cruz Mountains, eat good food, drink good wine, root for the SF Giants, and indulge a passion for the arts.

I serve as a strategic advisor, senior consultant, and contract corporate executive with innovative science and technology companies in life sciences, healthcare, energy storage, instrumentation, and semiconductors.

I have a track record of helping companies create competitive advantage, grow revenue and market share, and increase enterprise value. And I’ve contributed to several successful M&A events. I am a subject matter expert in basic, translational, and clinical research systems. I have led or contributed to the development of market and product requirements for biomedical, genomic, and NGS products, written thought-leader white papers, case studies, and articles for leading online and print publications, and developed and delivered presentations at major biomedical conferences.

I led development and execution of the integrated go-to-market strategy described in this case study as VP, Marketing at Symyx Technologies. The program helped position Symyx Notebook as a leading enterprise electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) for life sciences, and it was instrumental in increasing enterprise value 140% (from a low of $2.39 per share in March 2009 to $5.75 per share in April 2010) and achieving a successful merger with Accelrys in July 2010.