Lumension Sheds Light on Social
IT security software provider Lumension has been actively using social media for about two years. “We don’t have the marketing budget of a Cisco or a Microsoft, so it’s a great way for us to amplify our message and build a two-way conversation with our customer and prospect bases,” says Ed Brice, senior vice president of marketing.
Lumension has evolved its social strategy into a listening platform to learn what is being said about the company in online chatter, says Brice. The company is also looking at social to innovate within its own ecosystem and create “content gardens” where customers can share their experiences and uses for Lumension’s security offerings.
Brice says that when considering ROI, marketers need to first keep in mind that social media is all about having a conversation.
“If you start in social media with the objective to drive leads and sales, you’re going to be disappointed. Do you start having a conversation and then immediately begin calculating the ROI?” he says. “That being said, one of the big challenges with social media is peeling back the layers to see what is the sentiment about your brand. Is social extending campaigns? Is it helping generate leads? Where are my customers and prospects, and where are they accessing my content from?”
Lumension has been using Genius’ marketing automation platform and trackable URL capability to follow where its syndicated content is going and where customers are finding it.
“Our goal was to nurture people we had come into contact with who were not ready to buy yet,” says Brice. “Thanks to tracking codes, we can see where our content has had a second life. There’s always a debate about whether business people are using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The answer is yes to a varying degree, and this helps us put a little light on that.”
Lumension has been tracking URLs in the context of campaigns, and is working to build a marketing extension into the sales side, linking the Genius URLs into its sales system to help track leads and opportunities. Often, sales reps will pull content from the Web site and put it into their own e-mails. “Consequently, we never really see how sales are extending our campaigns,” says Brice. “With the Genius URLs, we saw an opportunity to link in everyone.”
