“Robert and Joe understood the time constraints. CMI developed an effective strategy so that PTC could execute against a defined editorial calendar and a set of objectives. Having this in place ensures we will continue to develop content for the Creo Site in the coming months.”
Rachel Nislick – PTC’s Director of Interactive Marketing
Description:
PTC is one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing software companies, delivering a complete portfolio of integral product lifecycle management solutions.
With more than 25,000 customers in the Industrial, High Tech, Aerospace & Defense, Automotive, Consumer and Medical devices industry, the company has a market cap of more than $1 billion.
Challenge:
The industry called it the “feature wars” of the 1990′s. CAD (computer aided design) software manufacturers scurried to battle. Their mission to bring additional software features to product designers. The problem? All of those bells and whistles made CAD software unwieldy and difficult to use. PTC, a major PLM and CAD software manufacturer saw a flattened uninspired market with no real growth.
This provided an opportunity. PTC decided to introduce Creo, a new family of design software built to solve chronic problems that have long plagued companies that use CAD software. Creo would deliver four breakthrough technologies that address the challenges long associated with usability, interoperability, technology lock-in, and assembly managementin CAD environments. Creo would reinvigorate and redefine the design market and PTC’sposition in the marketplace.
The question was – How to best tell this story?
Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose were brought in to develop and oversee the project. Joe and Robert worked closely with Rachel Nislick, PTC’s Director of Interactive Marketing and Geoff Hedges, Program Director for Creo. A successful launch would require doing more than developing a new product line; it would mean positioning the company as a thought leader, sharing the company’s vision and strategy,and sharing information about the product suite ahead of its release. This would be achievedby creating original content that would educate, engage and excite the core audience
Execution:
The initial content strategy was the first critical deliverable. This identified the pillars of content and mapped the way the content would be laid out strategically. This document guided the production of the editorial calendar, which in turn shaped thecontent development pipeline.“This really helped to align the site strategy and the content roll-out with the marketing messaging that was going out,” observed Robert. This ensured that the roll-out wasn’tjust haphazard but instead had a defined plan and strategy. The result was a smooth site launch with regular, ongoing content deployment.This was supported by a multiple-contributor blog.
The result was:
Very effective launch. PTC’s Creo microsite enjoyed a large launch at the end-of-the-monthdeadline and capitalized on the industry event. The site quickly crossed 100,000 visitors andcontinues to grow, with over 70% of the visitors new to PTC.
Continued collaboration and growth. A core team of PTC and CMI contributors continueto create original content for the microsite on a daily basis. Even guest writers havecontributed content. Managing this content requires ongoing editorial planning, but thereward is increasing web traffic and brand awareness.
Deep development of niche content. The Creo designsoftware works as apps,providing better alignment of product capabilities with users.Providing ongoing content thatexplores these specific app like options ensures thoughtleadership focused on key rolesfound in manufacturers
You can download the entire in-depth case study from the Content Marketing Institute.
