AirClic repositioning and integrated marketing grows revenue from $1 to $14 million in four years

Mobile technology company emerges as an industry leader

With mobility an IT "hot space," AirClic was unable to differentiate itself in a highly competitive market and found itself “under the radar” of many prospective customers. AirClic’s innovative technology, which enabled enterprises to easily and cost-effectively exchange business-critical information with mobile workers, had many unique features and benefits, but this early-stage company was struggling to make itself a player. It looked to marketing to help it leap-frog past the competition and move from a position at the back of the pack to become a leading competitor in the mobility space.

A company in an ill-defined market

AirClic engaged 99GS consultant Elizabeth Herberg to overhaul the positioning of the company and its product. Herberg discovered that AirClic suffered from a common marketing pitfall: it led with the technology, and created ‘technology confusion’ with prospects. As an emerging company, AirClic could not afford to build multiple product brands. But the company had five ‘sub-brands’ plus a corporate brand, all vying for limited marketing resources.

99GS focused and simplified the brand [+] to support the company’s flagship product offering — AirClic MP — and provided a naming structure that could accommodate product changes, upgrades and additions with ease and could be easily understood by the consumer. The next step was to clarify the company’s go-to-market messaging to focus on critical buyer needs and develop unique AirClic product offerings. The messaging platform that 99GS developed ensured consistent brand messaging throughout AirClic’s principal brochure, website, sales collateral — literally every piece of communications about AirClic and AirClic MP.

Finally, 99GS helped AirClic focus its sales and marketing effort through industry segmentation. Noting AirClic’s initial success in three key industries: airlines, logistics and home healthcare, 99GS focused marketing and sales readiness programs to better leverage its investments in these three segments. Through programs including direct marketing, telemarketing, online marketing (including search engine optimization), as well as public relations and sales collateral, 99GS increased AirClic’s visibility and generated leads with new prospects including Frontier Airlines, Atlas Air, Air Serv and a host of other leading airline prospects. Within a year, airline sales contributed more than a million dollars in revenue.

Visibility to build relationships — and pipeline

With product marketing strategies appropriately defined and focused, 99GS turned its attention to other marketing programs necessary to support vital next steps — customer relations, sales enablement, partnership development and corporate visibility.

Customer relations: With a clear understanding of how central the customer is for any company — large or small — 99GS developed a process to identify, document, cultivate and communicate customer engagements and successes to a broad constituency including employees, shareholders, partners, media, industry analysts, and customers. Herberg worked directly with AirClic customers to produce dozens of case studies [+] and solicit and secure customers for additional marketing, public relations and sales support efforts — including an innovative Reference Roundtable [+], a single program that allowed multiple prospects to hear an AirClic customer’s story and ask specific product questions. 99GS also initiated user groups and online customer roundtables to help customers share ideas and process improvement stories. As a result of these efforts, customers like Alaska Airlines, Waste Management and Disney all more than doubled their business with AirClic.

Sales enablement: Completely bereft of marketing support, 99GS quickly wrote, designed and created much needed sales materials [+] — from introductory letters and professionally produced PowerPoint presentations to ROI calculators, demos and demo scripts and product sales sheets. 99GS ensured direct dialog with sales which provided the option to customize materials as required for individual sales efforts to its growing list of Fortune 500 prospects.

99GS developed clearly established lead qualification and hand-off procedures to ensure that leads produced from events, direct demand programs, partner initiatives and the web were logged and followed up on by both internal and external sales teams.

Partnership development: As a software-as-a-service offering, AirClic’s business plan relied on partnerships to contribute to business growth. Up to this point, AirClic had under-utilized its contractual relationship with wireless carrier Sprint, while competitors extracted greater value in terms of leads and business support. With 99GS’s assistance in partner marketing activities, including one-to-one briefings, Sprint helpline, consistent communications, events and co-marketing support, leads from Sprint grew from near zero to more than 45% of total leads within two years.

To grow partnerships, 99GS developed a “Mobilized by AirClic” partnership marketing plan and brand [+], and supported the partner sales team. These efforts resulted in key partnerships with ADP and Telcel in Mexico as well as dozens of other vertical partnerships. 99GS developed a co-marketing campaign with AirClic partner ADP, which included direct marketing, telesales scripting and training. The ADP partnership generated $750,000 in revenue within three months.

Corporate visibility: With a tight marketing budget, yet a huge need to stand out from the pack, 99GS implemented several strategies to grow the company’s market visibility. Tactics included search engine optimization (SEO), increased public relations efforts, industry analyst programs and partner leverage [+].

Understanding the critical importance of online search, 99GS completely overhauled the AirClic website early on to shift its emphasis toward the most sought-after benefits in the mobility market. The key communications strategies were to:

1. Switch from multiple brands to a single, unified brand and focus on the business values provided by AirClic;
2. Elevate customer case studies and successes; and
3. Employ search engine optimization tactics to improve AirClic’s organic search ranking.

99GS’s public relations and industry analyst programs yielded significant returns in industry visibility. AirClic and its customers were featured in many vertical publications including cover stories in Mobile Enterprise, Integrated Solutions and Logistics Today. AirClic was also included in the highly regarded Gartner Magic Quadrant, along with a very favorable commentary and placement against competitors like Microsoft, SAP and Oracle. AirClic soon gained the attention of other analyst groups including Aberdeen, Forrester, Andy Seybold Group, and Yankee Group.

In addition, 99GS’s co-branding activities such as Sprint’s inclusion of AirClic in its USA Today masthead advertising spot as well as including AirClic — at no charge — in many of its national and regional events, elevated AirClic’s visibility and produced a significant increase in leads and sales partnerships with the Sprint sales teams.

Results

• Revenue growth from less than $1 million in 2004 to an estimated $14 million in 2008
• Subscription/license-base growth of almost 200%
• $12.5 million in VC funding secured in 2007 (more than double the national funding average at that time, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers)
• Expansion in Mexico with the signing of a “Mobilized by AirClic” partnership with Telcel, Mexico’s leading wireless communications carrier.
• Ranked 10th worldwide in Deloitte’s “Wireless Fast 50”
• Positioned in Gartner Magic Quadrant with favorable placement against competitors like Microsoft, SAP and Oracle.
• AirClic customer Konica Minolta wins a 2006 Mobilizer Award.