At a Glance
Challenges
- Market Misconceptions: Tipalti believed brand awareness was high in target industries when it was actually a significant weak spot.
- Messaging Gaps: Struggled to understand how the specific needs of personas like Controllers differed across different industries.
- Strategy Validation: Needed to validate audience understanding before investing heavily in expensive campaigns.
Results
- Identified Awareness Problem: Revealed that existing go-to-market tactics were not building the expected level of brand recognition.
- Informed Campaign Strategy: Enabled the team to fine-tune messaging to resonate with audiences that already knew the brand while also addressing those who were unfamiliar.
- Persona Personalization: Moved beyond horizontal titles to speak to industry-specific functional needs.
Overview
Tipalti, a high-velocity financial technology company that automates the entire payables cycle, sought to better understand their target personas for marketing campaigns. To maintain its growth, Tipalti needed to ensure its demand generation programs were reaching an audience that was truly prepared to receive its messaging.
Working with BlueWhale Research, Tipalti integrated SURVEY into its marketing strategy to gain intelligence that would move the audience further through the funnel.
Challenge
The Awareness Blind Spot
Tipalti’s marketing team initially believed their brand was fairly well-known within their target industry. However, without direct data from the field, they risked launching campaigns based on a false sense of security regarding brand equity.
Nuanced Personas
While Tipalti’s team was familiar with their primary personas, they lacked clarity on how those roles functioned across different segments. They found that while “a Controller is a Controller,” their perspective on using solutions like Tipalti differed wildly depending on the industry they served.
Solution
Tipalti utilized BlueWhale’s SURVEY product, which uses a sophisticated phone-based conversation approach to gather direct market intelligence.
This approach allowed Tipalti to ask custom questions to 120+ respondents per question, ensuring statistical significance that they could rely on for strategic adjustments. The BlueWhale team collaborated closely with Tipalti to create a tailored script that addressed their specific knowledge gaps.
Results
Identifying Critical Weak Spots
The SURVEY results were a catalyst for strategic change. Tipalti discovered that their brand name was not as well-known as they thought, allowing them to address this weak spot with new tactics and campaign elements before over-investing in the wrong areas.
Driving Audience Progression
The data intelligence gained from the SURVEY campaign helped Tipalti fine-tune their message to resonate more effectively. By moving beyond horizontal functionality and addressing industry-specific needs, Tipalti could more effectively guide their audience through the sales funnel.
Successful Team Integration
Beyond the data, the partnership was marked by high flexibility and shared knowledge. BlueWhale’s expertise in knowing how to successfully execute the SURVEY campaign and how to keep people engaged was instrumental in the program’s success.
SURVEY really helped identify a weak spot that we've since addressed, but otherwise we would have been out there thinking that we knew exactly who we were talking to and what the message needed to be.