Work Stories

Oracle: People-first campaign hits the ABM sweet spot

#ABM, #B2B, #Strategy, #ExperienceDesign, #Tech

In B2B demand gen, it’s important to remember that no matter who we’re targeting, how big or small the organization, or what technology is at our disposal, we are still people talking to people.

A recent award-winning account-based marketing (ABM) campaign for Oracle HCM Cloud took this lesson to heart—threefold. It inspired the strategy and creative hailing human resource (HR) professionals. It informed the technology used to identify contacts in a 1:Few play. And it motivated consistent alignment between Oracle Sales and Marketing teams.

Sound strategy. Emotionally resonant creative. Savvy MarTech selection. Some call it a trifecta. We call it the ABM sweet spot.

Let’s get personal, personal, we wanna get personal

Power to the “People” People featured a diverse mix of hyper-personalized tactics. A series of emails drove prospects to a personalized landing page with content based on vertical and subject interest, derived from Bombora intent and surge data.

The lead asset was a dynamically personalized, printable white paper. Readers were presented with messaging that not only featured their names and organizations, but highlighted their verticals, reinforced with dynamic imagery based on job type. That way someone working in healthcare didn’t see images of people working in retail.

The direct mail gifts were carefully selected with the intention that they would resonate with the ‘people’ people.

We supercharged the campaign with a series of direct mail (DM) gifts strategically tied to the messaging. Kelvin Gee, Senior Director of Modern Marketing Business Transformation at Oracle, said: “The message still needs to seem like it’s coming from a human to another human, and with empathy. The direct mail gifts were carefully selected with the intention that they would resonate with the ‘people’ people.”

Unifying Sales and Marketing

Consistent alignment between Sales with Marketing throughout the campaign was a strategic priority. On top of scripted sales calls supported by campaign messaging, Oracle implemented 1:1 pre-campaign and launch training, 1:1 follow-up reminders, prospect engagement notifications and shipment notifications.

Consistent alignment between Sales with Marketing throughout the campaign was a strategic priority.

Props for the “people” people

The campaign exceeded its pipeline goal of $5M by over $1M in pipeline actuals and achieved an impressive 38:1 agency ROI. Plus, the feedback we’ve received from Oracle on hitting the ABM sweet spot has been nothing but sweet: “We saw a 38:1 return from working with Quarry. This means that for every dollar that we spent, we got $38.00 in pipeline. I feel like that’s a good investment of our money,” said Lynn Barnhart, Senior Director of HCM North America Marketing.

We saw a 38:1 return from working with Quarry. This means that for every dollar that we spent, we got $38.00 in pipeline. I feel like that’s a good investment of our money.

Power to the “People” People is a proven use case for strategy, creative and technology working together to deliver extraordinary, people-centric B2B experiences.

This campaign was a real team effort. Just a few of the Q teammates who took the field and played their hearts out were Frances Ranger, Chad Krulicki, Jordan Gabriel, Carolyn Neibel, David Chirakal, Boris Jovic, Larysa Wood, Marci Geisler, Matt Habermehl and Tristan Holmberg.