0x
Site engagement – average visitor time on site doubled, 8 weeks after launch.
0%
Conversion rate — above B2B industry average.
0
months from kick off to re-launch.
What we did:
Rapidly evolve Ontopical’s market message to build a credible foundation for partner and financing dialog.
- Market positioning and messaging evolution
- Website update
- Social marketing: LinkedIn, Twitter
- PR partnership press release
Our strong platform was catching notice. In order to support our next partnership and financing conversations, our message and marketing needed to catch up to how the business had evolved. Material Insight had a fiercely efficient process to hone our message, evolve our site and support PR to aid with our rapid growth.
Clayton FeickPresident, Supplier at SOVRA, Formerly CEO of Ontopical
The challenge:
Clarify current technology focus and value, years into the business.
At launch, any startup is testing assumptions about buyer needs, which technology capabilities are valuable, and discovering ideal buyer and product fit. Four years into Ontopical’s journey, the company was now crystal clear on its story and needed the website and sales tools to align.
Ontopical enlisted MI to help define their updated message and rapidly evolve marketing.
The solution.
First, we huddled with the leadership team to understand their vision, buyers, why they win, and defined the core message elements to consistently tell their story.
We used April Dunford’s Obviously Awesome B2B technology positioning method to ensure the brand story would hold up in competitive enterprise sales.
From there, we applied the updated message to Ontopical’s website, social profiles and starter emails for sales.
Soon the team was signing a new major partnership and we helped with PR to further position strongly in the market.
Website refresh, reusing design for economy.
Admittedly, we started by proposing a full site redesign and rewrite to best the updated story. But the practical team at Ontopical challenged us to think faster, and more economically.
We opted to refine the site structure, overhaul the content, and focus on clear calls to action – all within the existing design to save time and cost. The website goal was to be credible, clear and persuasive enough to support critical partnership conversations with distribution allies and investors. It did the job.
New partnership. PR improved visibility.
Soon after the new marketing was in play, Ontopical established an important new distribution partnership. MI assisted in developing a press release and media plan to gain market awareness and support the new partner in offering Ontopical technology to their thousands of US customers.
While trade and mainstream media pitches didn’t land coverage, the news contributed to a growing impression of growth momentum alongside announcements of launching in AWS Marketplace, and releasing next gen AI capabilities.
Demand gen tests. No silver bullets.
With momentum building, we turned attention to ramping up lead generation.
We ran a LinkedIn series tagging qualified prospects around real early government work opportunities, and tested Google ads with an improved landing page enterprise design.
Both drove brand awareness and some pipeline warming — but didn’t generate the leads we were after. Worthwhile experiments. Not worth scaling.
The result: Evolved marketing assisted Ontopical in achieving strategic goals.
Eighteen months after the marketing refresh was underway, Ontopical announced it was being acquired by North America’s leading public sector procurement platform, SOVRA. SOVRA unites the strengths of trusted brands like Bidnet Direct, Periscope, MERX, and now Ontopical under one platform.
While strong leadership and differentiated technology were the real drivers of Ontopical’s success, marketing got the assist. The focus ahead is to add to SOVRA’s breadth of government procurement tools and continue contributing inspired leadership to growth in North America and beyond.
0x
Site engagement – average visitor time on site doubled, 8 weeks after launch.
0%
Conversion rate — above B2B industry average.
0%+
Growth in site sessions from organic search.
When building critical relationships with partners, investors, and in the technology community – a clear vision, a confident story and proof of continuous progress are essential. MI understood our ambition, worked at our pace, and was unafraid of being economical and resourceful which survival is based on at the early stage.
Clayton FeickPresident, Supplier at SOVRA, Formerly CEO of Ontopical