Plantronics

EXPLORE

Plantronics had recently launched an expanded line of Wireless Office System (WOS) products that were each designed to appeal to the specific needs of business professionals based on headset familiarity, telephone usage and mobility requirements. Research indicated that this line offered tremendous opportunity as awareness of, and interest in, wireless headsets was generally high but that actual usage was relatively low among potential users. Plantronics retained Next Marketing to develop a mobile marketing strategy that would introduce Plantronics’ WOS products to end-users in and around their workplace.

EVOLVE

As Next Marketing worked to develop the mobile campaign, it became increasingly clear that by exclusively targeting individual end-users, realizing necessary ROI would be difficult. Next Marketing instead recommended the campaign focus on impacting B-to-B decision-makers and gatekeepers whose purchase influence extended to multiple end-users. By leveraging its strong channel partner network, Plantronics could easily and immediately access these decision-makers and influencers. Plantronics’ channel partners, however, had not been properly educated as to how to match specific user segments to the appropriate WOS product – which research demonstrated resulted in greater sales efficiencies. Upon identifying this opportunity, Next developed the Plantronics Sound Coach, a turnkey mobile marketing campaign that provided hands-on, interactive training sessions for Plantronics’ channel partners.

EXECUTE

The Plantronics Sound Coach was launched to energize Plantronics’ channel partner training efforts by providing a more efficient, interactive and dynamic sales training process. In addition to the sales force training sessions, the Sound Coach supported channel partner sales & marketing efforts by bringing live product demonstrations and trial opportunities directly to their end-user customers and prospects. The fully integrated Sound Coach campaign included an on-line scheduling, reporting and invitation system, self-guided iPod tours, A/V presentations, product demonstrations and trial, on-board product specialists, lead generation and post-event surveys.

EVALUATE

Throughout the campaign, Next worked with Plantronics to evolve the Sound Coach’s processes and content so as to deliver the most impactful experience possible for channel partners as well as end-users. In the campaign’s second year, Next incorporated learnings and best practices that included stronger engagement of Plantronics’ regional sales representatives and provided additional resources to better support channel partners’ end-user efforts.