When Finastra first approached Merit Mile, they had been working with Omdia and Datos Insights to develop marketing research reports, infographics, and webinars. Now they needed to “put these assets to work” and convert content into campaigns and leads, which is where Merit Mile came in.

Microsoft introduced Finastra to Merit Mile, a full-service marketing agency with experience in Microsoft partner marketing and ABM. Finastra valued Merit Mile's comprehensive ABM services, covering strategy, media buys, content development, execution, and reporting, allowing their marketing team to focus on lead nurturing and product marketing.

Solution

Merit Mile initially met with Finastra to understand their business objectives for the marketing scorecard and sales pipeline. We gathered information about their target companies and buying teams (decision makers and influencers) to create an ideal customer profile (ICP), which was essential for determining the appropriate message, tone, and content for the campaign. Subsequently, Merit Mile developed an ABM campaign and content strategy aligned with Finastra’s goals, which included selecting ABM tactics and platforms.

At the same time, Merit Mile identified the need for additional content offers to augment the analyst reports. For this, we developed a series of videos and an original piece of thought leadership content for the campaign, 6 Essential Business Requirements to look for in a Payments as a Service Cloud Solution, which provided in-depth insights into the critical elements necessary for successful Payments-as-a-Service implementations.

For the initial ABM campaign, Merit Mile used a two-touch ABM campaign, which means prospects need to engage with at least two interactions with Finastra's content before being converted to a qualified and accepted lead. In addition, prospects were asked a series of qualifying questions via email and telephone, which armed Finastra's inside sales team with account insights and intelligence to improve their post-lead delivery nurture process.

The first campaign was so successful that Finastra elected to continue with two additional ABM campaigns to generate more leads and retarget leads from the initial campaign, encouraging them to engage with additional down-funnel content from Finastra.

Merit Mile ran a total of three consecutive ABM campaigns over the course of 14 weeks, demonstrating not only consistent results, but more importantly, continuous marketplace awareness and pipeline development for Finastra.

These results highlight the efficacy of the ABM strategy in generating high-quality leads and building a robust co-sell pipeline for Finastra and Microsoft. The campaign's success underscores the importance of using a trusted and proven ABM agency to deliver personalized, targeted marketing that achieves measurable business outcomes.