Adaytum marketing creates market category — and successful leadership position — for hyper-growth technology company

Adaytum turns to Elizabeth Herberg to lead marketing

Having hit $10 million in revenue, business was good, but the co-founders of Adaytum Software wanted better. The year was 1999 and anything “technology” was golden to investors, but market saturation was becoming a real threat with so many over-hyped offerings for financial management software projected to hit the market. Adaytum’s growth had stretched the co-founders beyond their capacity. That’s when Adaytum turned to Elizabeth Herberg to lead their emerging company’s marketing function.

Fierce competition puts squeeze on emerging Adaytum

Not really an enterprise resource planning (ERP) or business intelligence (BI) vendor nor wanting to be classified as “budgeting software,” Adaytum found itself in a squeeze play with competitors — and without a market-recognized category that adequately described its offering. Understanding that categories are not created overnight, Herberg recommended a positioning strategy that would first meet short-term demand generation needs — and then provided a vision of how Adaytum could create and own what would eventually become a new market category: Business Performance Management (BPM). Herberg recognized that the critical first piece of the puzzle was to change the conversation [+] — from budgeting to planning.

Through market research and in-depth conversations with Adaytum executives and sales leadership, the marketing team developed a unique selling proposition and messaging platform designed to drive all communications for the subsequent three years.

Research had shown that budgeting was an abhorred task, and subsequently, there was little business value for any “budgeting” software. Therefore, Herberg instead leveraged a critical business benefit message: planning. Adaytum e.Planning tilted the conversation away from the worst parts of budgeting and focused on elements that were critical to the business success — speed and accuracy of information from the front-lines (where the knowledge is) to ensure fiscal predictability to every financial leader. It would prove to be successful messaging for both hyper growth — and fast falling — markets.

The small, international marketing team led by Herberg attacked the priority projects — from re-designing the corporate identity system to writing and designing a new corporate brochure to overhauling the website, ensuring this critical messaging was well articulated for each of Adaytum’s major markets: US, UK and Asia-Pacific.

Within 3 years, the success of Adaytum e.Planning caused competitors to shift their products from “budgeting” offerings to “planning” products. In fact, financial analyst eRaider, had this to say in a June 2000 web blog, “Of all the companies in the industry, the best website and marketing materials belong to Adaytum (a private company). If [competitor’s product] could be sold with this sort of energy and creativity, we could all get rich.”

The basics done best: demand generation

In 1999, Adaytum focused on the middle market. Therefore, demand generation plans were developed to fully support this sales strategy. Target markets and buyers were segmented based on industries and key decision authority criteria. Within a 12-month period, leads grew from less than 50 per month to 2,000 per month. Marketing also introduced extensive testing and tracking mechanisms, increasing direct mail effectiveness from an average of .003 to 1.5 percent response for business-to-business direct mailings.

Then, in 2002, Adaytum decided to take sales efforts up-stream in an effort fondly referred to as “one big objective” or OBO — win big deals with large enterprises (those with revenue greater than a billion). And while the targeted buyers — the CFO and supporting staff — remained the primary target, marketing changed its tactics to get access to the buyer and create an active exchange of information in the executive suites. Marketing also highly customized its direct mail programs [+] to include individual corporate financial savings with Adaytum e.planning. Finally, marketing focused efforts to tightly manage Adaytum’s telemarketing programs. Within six months, the marketing team generated $3,000,000 in sales opportunities at key OBO accounts.

Herberg’s marketing group also shifted the focus of advertising in key publications from an already successful fiscal predictability message to an articulation of the savings current Adaytum customers were experiencing. An independent study conducted on advertising recognition showed that Adaytum ads were the best recognized within its peer group and within the target segment CFOs.

Finally, Herberg implemented co-marketing programs with key strategic partners and value-added resellers (VARs), including Accenture, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Deloitte & Touche to better reach the OBO prospect base.

Public relations pays dividends

A key component to building visibility and establishing the Business Performance Management category rested with success in public relations and analyst relations strategies. Herberg directed efforts to firmly establish the market definition of BPM, increase media visibility for the company and category, expand analyst relationships and support the overall marketing efforts. The first component of the PR campaign was to leverage company news, customer win announcements, funding and product updates to increase Adaytum’s visibility among the technology, financial and business press.

Within the first 90 days of launching the public relations program, the company was placed in 40 articles, reached more than 29 million readers, and received placements equivalent to spending more than $515,000 in advertising.

Adaytum’s analyst relations also paid off as relationships with targeted analyst groups including GartnerGroup, AMR Research, Giga, Hurwitz, IDC, and Aberdeen Group resulted in significant favorable coverage by key analysts [+].

Customer marketing was the cornerstone of all marketing. To connect to customers and to encourage customers to connect to one another, marketing established an annual user conference, as well as orchestrated Adaytum’s Planning Leadership Awards. The award ceremony (and accompanying press release) showcased the positive success gained by Adaytum customers and the value that Adaytum continues to deliver to enterprises.

Exceptional results

• During three-year tenure, company revenues grew from $20,000,000 to $60,000,000 in 2002. Ottawa-based Cognos, Inc. purchased company for $160,000,000.
• Within a 12-month period, leads grew from less than 50 leads per month to 2,000 leads per month
• Within six months, the marketing team generated $3,000,000 in sales opportunities at key Fortune 500 accounts.
• Within the first 90 days, public relations program, the company was placed in 40 articles, reached more than 29 million readers
• Advertising supported offices in more than 12 international markets
• Business Performance Management is recognized as market category within three years of Adaytum’s naming of such category