Following the latest merger of Vodafone and Three, Vodafone Enterprise is shifting techniques and shifting to an always-on social-first mannequin aimed toward “empowering” UK SMEs.
The enterprise has partnered with Steven Bartlett’s FlightStory Studios on the launch immediately (4 August) of month-to-month social-first podcast and content material collection Enterprise.linked, aimed toward equipping SMEs with enterprise information. Vodafone’s B2B arm beforehand skewed in direction of longer-form content material on its V-Hub platform, making this pivot in direction of digital movies a departure for the model.
“We’re seeing the whole lot turn out to be extra digital,” notes Maria Koutsoudakis, chief model officer at VodafoneThree. “Companies are constructing themselves digitally.”
Launched within the pandemic, Vodafone’s Enterprise.linked initiative has already supported greater than 800,000 small companies via free on-line coaching and workshops.
Following the latest merger of Vodafone and Three, Vodafone Enterprise is shifting techniques and shifting to an always-on social-first mannequin aimed toward “empowering” UK SMEs.
The enterprise has partnered with Steven Bartlett’s FlightStory Studios on the launch immediately (4 August) of month-to-month social-first podcast and content material collection Enterprise.linked, aimed toward equipping SMEs with enterprise information. Vodafone’s B2B arm beforehand skewed in direction of longer-form content material on its V-Hub platform, making this pivot in direction of digital movies a departure for the model.
“We’re seeing the whole lot turn out to be extra digital,” notes Maria Koutsoudakis, chief model officer at VodafoneThree. “Companies are constructing themselves digitally.”
Launched within the pandemic, Vodafone’s Enterprise.linked initiative has already supported greater than 800,000 small companies via free on-line coaching and workshops.
The choice to concentrate on social-first got here after the merger of the Vodafone’s enterprise and model groups in December, which Koutsoudakis explains led to a overview of what the corporate provides SMEs. This concerned analysing how a lot time prospects have been wanting on the web site and going via the full-funnel journey. The group found “lots of site visitors, however not lots of depth”.
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“[Business.connected] was by no means about driving site visitors. The purpose of this was all the time to teach companies on digital advertising and marketing and digital expertise,” Koutsoudakis explains.
“By flipping our KPI and specializing in the tip goal – which was schooling and making a significant influence to those companies – there was the technique to take information and knowledge to the place the companies are, somewhat than drive them to return onto an internet site and undergo a self-learning journey.”
The podcast will likely be pushed throughout TikTok, Instagram, Fb, LinkedIn and YouTube, choosing a “bitesized” format centered on “self-education”. By this, Koutsoudakis hopes to get “extra companies studying from Vodafone”.
“Our method to enterprise advertising and marketing must be as versatile,” she explains.
Merging the B2C and B2B advertising and marketing groups has supplied “extra alternative to experiment and be taught”, Koutsoudakis provides, notably across the optimisation of artistic, media shopping for and sponsorship. Making use of the buyer group’s relationships with the likes of YouTube is one other profit.
Vodafone Enterprise can also be growing its influencer technique with assist from the B2C group, notably round the way to get its branding throughout to make sure the community is given credit score, however the content material remains to be genuine to the influencer.
Acknowledging that it’s more durable to indicate a model that doesn’t have a particular product, Koutsoudakis says Vodafone Enterprise “will most likely go a little bit bit slower than a number of the extra visible manufacturers” with regards influencer advertising and marketing, though it’s nonetheless a “large agenda”.
General, the capabilities learnt from the buyer group are strengthening the B2B arm.
“We’re simply richer, not due to functionality, however due to alternative to experiment. So now what we’re in a position to do is take lots of these learnings of what makes nice content material and we’re making use of the identical learnings onto enterprise content material right away,” says Koutsoudakis.
Constructing popularity
Whether or not it’s a 30-minute episode or a single social media clip, the hope is the Enterprise.linked content material conjures up SMEs to “do one thing otherwise within the enterprise”. This method was knowledgeable by Vodafone Enterprise’s earlier tie-up with Steven Bartlett on Digital SOS, a documentary movie collection aimed toward small enterprise house owners, the place the “journeys weren’t designed in a digestible, accessible manner”.
As a substitute of a speaker and host, the unscripted podcast is bringing collectively a rotating panel of entrepreneurs and specialists discussing a collection of subjects, the primary being ‘Learn how to be artistic in digital advertising and marketing’. Vodafone hopes every episode will likely be “relatable”, from tackling the loneliness small enterprise founders expertise to serving to with the challenges they face.
Georgia Gibson, co-founder of .tbc, Marisa Poster, co-founder of matcha model PerfectTed, and Will Little, founding father of espresso model Little’s Espresso, will characteristic on the digital advertising and marketing episode.
Vodafone is utilizing FlightStory’s FlightLab testing framework to form the work and guarantee content material is as related to the viewers as attainable. Of the partnership, Koutsoudakis says it’s beneficial as podcasting “isn’t essentially” Vodafone’s space of experience.
“They [FlightStory] know the way to produce, check, optimise and market podcasts end-to-end. So, we’re studying all that functionality from them,” she explains.
Success and effectiveness will likely be measured via model uplift research, analysing consideration of Vodafone as a future supplier.
[Business.connected] was by no means about driving site visitors. The purpose of this was all the time to teach companies on digital advertising and marketing and digital expertise.
Maria Koutsoudakis, VodafoneThree
Future subjects for the podcast embrace constructing a enterprise as a solo entrepreneur, AI instruments for small companies and promoting on-line.
As a part of the restructure, Koutsoudakis created a content material group to “concentrate on constructing the popularity of Vodafone shoppers” and create optimistic conversations across the model to construct belief and, finally, result in gross sales, whether or not that’s within the brief or long run.
This additionally includes the group listening to what shoppers are saying, utilizing social media and one-to-one conversations to get suggestions on how initiatives, just like the podcast collection, are working. Suggestions may also be thought of from throughout the enterprise.
“I’m hoping all the best way from the rational gross sales aspect to the hotter hearts of name, there’s a chunk in it for everybody and the wager we took in establishing the group, placing a spotlight, shifting away from the normal V-Hub mannequin will begin to pay dividends,” Koutsoudakis provides.
