A wish list item of every modern company is for software that will free up workers from having to juggle between all of their applications [up to 15 siloed App tools] just so that they can communicate with customers.
This was a reality CEO Tomas Gorny (KM) was aware of 20 years prior to launching that solution. He has even been calling his products Connect over the decades too, as in Connected Communications. Unfortunatley by the product launch date all this had changed as a much larger competitor, Hubspot, paid $10 Million for the URL Connect and a new name was needed. The most strategic solution in the short term was the new Nextiva. Shortly before the product launch date, they changed the name to NextivaONE.
NextivaONE is a brand new 'digital workhub' bringing communication, team collaboration and customer engagement together for the first time. Businesses could finally work seemlessly from a single view. Phone, email, chat, video and SMS that captures and fully integrates communication applications with business software along with AI and workflow automations.
The Connect launch offered a new era of business communications as it transformed Nextiva overnight into an innovative tech company and they needed to tell that story to potential and current customers. Their antiquated approach to marketing lacked a growth marketing plan, advertising or a brand strategy as they focused solely on a Demand Generation funnel and promotional discounts. Leadership was obsessed with weekly sales data which resulted in leads their sales team had to convert by phone through undefined messaging. Beyond these sales calls there was little insight into the consumer journey, interactions or long-term relationship strategy.
“The marketing funnel can give marketers funnel-vision. In focusing on the transaction over the relationship, marketers can lose sight of the actual consumer the funnel was designed to reach.” ~ Tom Fishburne
Their quirky owner / CEO gave the brand a creative opportunity - through digital advertisting, remarketing, social media, retargeting, trade shows, email, newsletters, sales decks, video and animated brand storytelling campaigns - for a fun, 'breakthrough the clutter' approach which was true to their core beliefs. Nextiva was not another stodgy B2B company, but a corporate mentality became the norm internally and they weren't telling the world they were a tech challenger brand. Thinking beyond daily or weekly sales numbers was a struggle internally, but eventually developing value based propositions vs product features told an integrated brand story and showed how the product could improve users’ lives. Nextiva then needed to think holistically through a central benefit based idea and a differentiating position statement.
Nextiva had implemented a "pivot strategy," a structured course correction to the product and engine of growth, but had not defined this to their current or future customer base. Solidifiying Nextiva as a tech challenger brand vs a small business VOIP company with bells and whistles would be instrumental to their success. Strategically articulating the new Nextiva brand and product while simultaneously attracting, converting, and retaining customers through digital channels was an obvious starting point. We created original content to boost paid and organic media with an increase sales goal of 25% for Q1. Along with a comprehensive, integrated inbound marketing, sales and service strategy. To accomplish this there was a need to challenge partners, to inspire and inform the brand vision, raise the quality of all communications and for the first time implement marketing inside the product itself. Pushing the team to simplify and refine the design, brand guidelines and uplevel the work across all touch-points with a proactive vs reactive philosophy took time. It wasn't so much a rebrand by any means, but a refinement as the products price point increased so would the look and feel of the brand.
Lastly an intentional sales enablement strategy would need to be established. This was the most difficult aspect as Nextiva did not have core marketing competency or foresight. Through incremental steps we achieved unification between sales, marketing, and customer service teams into a single entity known as 'revenue operations.'
Top-line data for the campaign:
Optimized metrics:
Nextiva only tabulates short-term sales data.
Sales impact:
25% increase in revenue per month.
