Voxus helps Cimpress’ Director of API Management gain recognition as a thought leader
From making key decisions about whether to create or buy technology, to building out new APIs that help its multiple mass customization businesses, Cimpress has lots of technology stories to tell. With a well-established thought leader – Chief Technology Officer, Maarten Wensveen – the company had already been offering insights on a variety of technology topics. However, with a plethora of additional subject matter experts (SME’s), there was a big opportunity to potentially expand the company’s thought leadership with media.
The first step was to evaluate their bench of SME talent and identify individuals that could best meet the requirements of a thought leader to tell a broader range of Cimpress technology stories for more technical publications. To help surface these new stories and the spokespeople to tell them, Cimpress turned to the Voxus team.
Setting the stage
The Voxus strategy had two primary pillars:
- Create a model for success by selecting one SME within the company who was well-versed in technical topics.
- Establish that person as a thought leader to increase coverage in developer publications and to highlight the company’s technical expertise.
Securing the coverage
In listening to the company’s internal podcast, Voxus identified Ryan Breen, Director of API Management at Cimpress as an SME with the ability to offer insightful observations that were understandable to both technical and non-technical audiences. To Voxus, it was clear that he would make a great technical spokesperson for the company.
To establish him as a thought leader, Voxus targeted DZone, a publication with an average of five million monthly visitors (mostly from the developer community). Voxus first secured a contribution for Ryan in the ‘Executive Insights’ section of DZone’s annual API Management Trend Report. Those insights were then turned into a 10-part series that ran in DZone from June-July and repackaged as a bylined article for DevPro Journal.
Building on the foundation of his DZone and DevPro Journal contributions and insights, Voxus pitched Ryan’s biggest API predictions for the coming year to key technology and developer publications. As a result, Ryan’s predictions were included in eWeek’s cloud computing predictions roundup, as well as a DevPro Journal article. He was also invited to submit bylined articles to VMblog and JAXenter. In total, Voxus secured 16 pieces of unique coverage and established a strong foundation for Ryan as Cimpress’ next thought leader.
About Cimpress
Cimpress invests in and helps build customer-focused, entrepreneurial, mass customization businesses for the long term, including Vistaprint, National Pen, and BuildASign.