How Ciena Helped a Regional Carrier Reignite Its Marketing Efforts

A popular carrier had established success with small and midsize businesses (SMBs) but aspired to move up-market with sales outreach initiatives to reach more mid-market and large enterprise opportunities.

Marketing materials and strategies were available – but not enough. The existing content could only go so far to explain the new capabilities, and several content gaps were identified as the carrier’s sales team worked to build awareness and create engagement.

Further, the carrier’s existing marketing tactics were overly broad and without defined targets or initiatives. Messaging was written with only SMBs in mind, and it was product-focused, rather than customized to decision making units (DMUs) and their business challenges.

The carrier knew if it was going to find success in new target markets, new marketing materials and strategies were crucial. The carrier partnered with Ciena to tackle the project.

Through the Partnership Success Model (PSM), Ciena created a Marketing as a Service (MaaS) program to directly engage and collaborate with client partners and their marketing teams. Ultimately, Ciena wanted to understand its customer’s specific goals and objectives to create customized marketing solutions tailored for long-term business success.

Through collaboration, the carrier and Ciena team identified business goals and created a 360-degree engagement plan, deploying several tactics:

• Narrowing the target demographic: Targets at mid-market and large enterprise Tier 1 accounts with multiple locations were researched and defined. The program would specifically target near-net accounts within 1,500 feet of the carrier’s network footprint.
• Creating custom messaging: Once key roles and decision-making units (DMUs) in the sales process were identified, the group created custom, role-based materials and assets for each DMU. Then, new messaging was developed focused on pain points and considerations made by each DMU role, including technical and non-technical executives as well as engineers.
• Revising the sales outreach approach: Sales outreach methodologies were transformed from transactional to strategic by revitalizing the carrier’s sales staff training and improving the sales and marketing assets. A sales outreach playbook was created to support the sales team with day-by-day account engagement plans, and templates and scripts are now being leveraged across defined sales strategies, including LinkedIn, email, direct mail and phone activities.
• Developing a robust content library: The carrier’s sales team is now supported by a comprehensive library of new short- and long-form content oriented to all DMUs and all stages of the sales cycle.

Wielding tools from the sophisticated martech stack offered through the Ciena MaaS program, the carrier’s sales team achieved effective cross-channel engagement with key prospects at large enterprise opportunities.

The campaign resulted in:

• 5 Tier 1 accounts engaged across various sales and marketing touch points, and multiple leads delivered to the client partner.

With the new tactics in place, the carrier was able to attract a major national account that was previously impenetrable by the carrier's legacy outreach strategy, and re-energized several missed prospecting opportunities with the new campaign support.

With the right partners, you can retool your sales and marketing strategies to reach untapped business opportunities. Ciena spent considerable time in discovery sessions with the carrier’s sales and product leaders to truly understand the carrier’s story, competitive landscape, and opportunities for differentiation. By taking the carrier’s existing content to a deeper and more relevant level, Ciena was able to build multiple tracks for engagement and create helpful sales cadences to reach a variety of target audiences.

Together, Ciena and the carrier built custom content, digital assets, sales cadences, email campaigns and tactics from the ground up. Now, the carrier has a strategic sales and marketing toolbox to continue using and driving value from for long-term use – not just for a single-use campaign.

About Ciena MaaS 

With the Ciena Partnership Success Model, participants of the Ciena Partner Network can leverage a dedicated Ciena MaaS support team, resources and tailored services, and a suite of third-party sales and marketing technologies to support their unique business goals. The Ciena MaaS martech stack ensures clients get the benefit of the latest sales enablement and marketing tools and intelligence – without the heavy price tag and long-term contracts. Ciena client partners have access to unparalleled marketing strategy and tactical resources with detailed success reporting to see how their marketing investment is driving business success.

Check out these resources to preview Ciena's Marketing as a Service offering.