How SAP Implemented a

Successful Lead Generation Strategy with NBT Growth Services

SAP is a leading multinational software corporation that provides integrated product sets for large enterprises, mid-sized companies, and small businesses for their business applications. Since 1972, SAP has been providing innovative solutions for 25 industries and six industry sectors (process industries, discrete industries, consumer industries, service industries, financial services, and public services). The company works with over 425,000 customers across more than 180 countries, resulting in 77% of the world’s transaction revenue applying an SAP system.

Goals and Challenges

In order to maintain its leadership position and achieve sustained growth, SAP’s overall goal was to improve its lead generation strategy by increasing leads and achieving qualified leads through long-term operations. Moreover, the company also was aiming to generate more awareness and traffic on its project-based marketing activities.

The Solution

In accordance with SAP’s principle of “using the power of technology to transform lives,” the use of data-driven technology was a necessity to building and maintaining a successful Growth Marketing Strategy and achieving SAP’s overall goals.

That’s why SAP partnered with NBT (Next Big Thing) and utilised NBT’s Marketing Machine Platform — an end-to-end Growth Marketing Suite.

Our Approach

At NBT (Next Big Thing), we believe that achieving an efficient Growth Marketing Strategy is only sustainable by implementing the right growth structure. By being able to constantly track, measure, and optimise marketing activities, businesses can gain and retain growth. At this phase, our Marketing Machine Platform comes into play, linking every process to the next and enabling users to track and iterate even large scale data. We have used our Marketing Machine Platform at every step below.

Phase 1: Growth Marketing Check-Up

In our partnership with SAP, we first started with the “Growth Marketing Check-Up” where we carried out:

An internal analysis (covering the 4Ps: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion)
Competitor research and analysis (covering the 4Ps)
Current and potential customer insights In collaboration with SAP, at this step, we defined the products and solutions explicitly and gained a clear picture of SAP’s brand positioning.

Phase 2: Growth Marketing Strategy Development

When SAP’s products, solutions, and positioning were established, our growth marketing team completed the following:

Created Personas and identified the goals & challenges for each product and solution
Built Growth Funnels according to each persona, product, and solution
Defined Targeted Metrics for each funnel

Phase 3: Funnel-Based Planning

On the Marketing Machine platform, we generate growth tactics in 4 growth areas: Reach/Attract, Engage/Convert, Nurture/Close, and Retain/Grow. At this stage, we created Growth Marketing Plans and Growth Tactics -where we established the marketing actions to be taken- associated with related growth funnels and personas.

Phase 4: Growth-Driven Management- An Ongoing Process of Monitoring, Measuring, and Optimising

Our AI-based platform correlates and links data, and provides users with valuable insights at each stage. SAP used this technology to monitor the complete customer journey covering all components in one dashboard (such as how many visitors become leads and how many leads are qualified or become customers).

Moreover, the Marketing Machine allowed SAP to compare all active funnels according to the Product/Solution, Persona or Landing Page, and see which funnel worked better. This enabled SAP to iterate tactics according to the insights.

Results

Increased Qualified Leads

The solid growth structure built by the NBT growth marketing team resulted in relevant communication with potential customers and enabled SAP to generate more relevant leads.

Generated Traffic and Awareness

We have generated significant traffic and brand awareness (exceeding our lead generation target) in project-based campaigns.

Maximised ROI

Our advanced Growth Funnel Report allowed adesso Turkey to track and compare various metrics for each funnel, positioning or persona in one dashboard. This enabled adesso Turkey to adjust the marketing budget, decide which funnels and campaigns work best, and iterate their marketing strategy accordingly.

*Our partnership with SAP continues, therefore we continue to iterate SAP campaigns and optimise our growth marketing strategy according to the insights we gain from the Marketing Machine Platform.

We have been working with NBT (Next Big Thing) since 2018. The NBT growth marketing team doesn’t just provide us with digital marketing support in daily operations but also guides us with valuable insights and effective strategic action plans. We are very happy with the wonderful synergy between both teams regarding our lead generation activities. It’s great how easy it is to access valuable data through the Marketing Machine’s real-time reports.