A month ago, one of Voxus PR’s startup technology clients, QuotaDeck, was knee-deep in the mentoring/learning process in the Techstars Boulder accelerator program, but was seeking positive editorial coverage. Because of the company’s infancy (and therefore, perceived lack of credibility) and a dearth of hard news, getting the technology media to pay attention to QuotaDeck would have been very difficult and a foolish waste of valuable company resources.
Yet, the company was desperate to create some media noise and attention leading up to its October 10 Techstars Demo Day.
There was a solution, thanks to inspiration from the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. It premiered on October 2, 1992, with a stellar cast that included Alec Baldwin, Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, and Ed Harris. While it was not a huge blockbuster success, Glengarry Glen Ross evolved into a cult film amongst a select demographic — salespeople – the same demographic audience that QuotaDeck’s B2B sales platform is designed to assist. Tying into that date was our inspiration.
In an effort to generate the type of social sharing that moves the needle, an artist assembled a cool infographic that explored two eras in the history of sales that share a common name: social selling. The infographic was posted at Inc., where we had recently established QuotaDeck’s CEO and co-founder, Bubba Page, as a regular contributor.
Simply posting a cool infographic designed for a specific audience is a losing strategy, so we employed our trusted recipe for success in a situation like this:
1. Cool content – the artist we worked with on this assignment is not your average infographic creator, but rather an artist who specializes in caricatures and understands the broader technology landscape. Dare to be different.
2. Influencer effect – while two of the influencers featured in the infographic are dead, the other two are very much alive and considered two of the top social selling experts in today’s market. Sharing this content with them on Twitter and Linkedin turned into a sharing bonanza in all social channels and drove readers to the post.
3. Timing is everything – the anniversary of the premier of Glengarry Glen Ross may not seem like a big deal to some, but to American salespeople, this is a seminal date on the calendar. When self-publishing, or seeking publication of content, timing is everything. It is the hook that drives initial social engagement.
The results of our efforts? 4.6 thousand social media shares! Not only has this piece of content generated more social shares than 95 percent of the content published on Inc. in 2014, it also:
• Generated influencer meetings for the founder at the Salesforce Dreamforce conference held a week after its posting
• Boosted investor conversations leading up to, and following the Techstars Demo Day on October 10
• Created trust with the Inc. editorial team in Page’s ability to attract readers
• Was the most shared piece of content on Inc.’s Facebook page the day of its posting
And best of all, one of the featured influencers, Koka Sexton of Linkedin, called it the “best infographic he has seen in years,” on his profile.
Click here to view the placement on Inc., and here to review an enlarged version of the infographic.
