The small and mid-sized opportunity is big

Canada’s economy is driven by small business. Over the past five years, more than 70% of private workforce growth was generated by 1.2 million small and midsized businesses (SMBs).

Positioning Microsoft to win SMBs

Microsoft is known as a leading technology brand for 'big business’ which has pushed start-ups and scale-ups to competing cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform.

To combat this shift, Microsoft built a 30-person team of field sellers to win SMB customers and get them running on Microsoft’s cloud services (Azure). For the sales team to succeed, they needed a smart marketing strategy to generate high-quality leads.

Setting the business objectives

The business goal was to generate new revenue – a lot of revenue. Five million of additional cloud spending on Azure coming from SMBs, which meant a staggering 30% year-over-year growth.

Showing another side of Microsoft

To reach this new SMB audience, we needed to show up differently.

Our hero tagline was “Think big. Act bold.” Our creative was inspired by a series of data nodes that created a visual illusion that drew our audience in.

Driving customer demand through four pillars

1: LinkedIn – We targeted high-growth digital native companies and legacy businesses ripe for transformation. We reached them through Conversation Ads and LinkedIn Carousel Ads.

2: Industry Partnerships – With a high volume of scale-ups operating within healthcare, we partnered with the CAN Health Network which helps businesses connect with industry partners.

3: Sales Enablement – We equipped Microsoft’s SMB sales team with email templates and program collateral to power their prospecting efforts and spark conversations.

4: Member Advocacy – Innovation Mavericks members were given a member promotional package including virtual meeting backgrounds and a LinkedIn badge.

SMBs don’t want the ‘small treatment’

Research told us that small businesses want to be treated like big businesses. They expect personalized communication, relevant offerings, and useful insights.

Big businesses are ‘managed accounts’. Account teams are dedicated to understanding their needs and delivering high-touch experiences, which makes sense when the revenue potential is big.

Our challenge was to design a ‘managed account experience' for SMBs that could function at scale and be cost-effective.

Getting to market quickly

Rather than building new offerings, we took stock of Microsoft’s existing ones, selected top offers most relevant to SMBs, and curated them into this connected journey.

Meet Innovation Mavericks

We launched Innovation Mavericks. It paired SMBs with innovation investments, technology consultants, Microsoft engineers, and training resources to help scale business growth.

Step 1: SMBs applied to join. Once accepted, they completed an assessment to help them understand where they might be stuck, why, and how to break free.

Step 2: Working with our Innovation Concierge, SMBs connected with industry, product, and engineering experts to build innovation strategies.

Step 3: SMBs ready to explore proof-of-concepts were presented with different offers, from cloud credits to funding.

Step 4: SMBs were given access to industry thought leaders, training content, and workshop experiences to inspire their next breakthrough.

Step 5: SMBs could connect with fellow Innovation Mavericks for network building, peer support, and co-innovation projects.

The result – 14 million dollars of business impact.

In our first year, Innovation Mavericks empowered nearly 100 businesses.

The business goal was to drive five million of incremental cloud spending on Microsoft Azure. The result? Fourteen million in revenue. That’s 280% of the target, representing an 80% year-over-year growth!

This program was one of the most successful pilots in Microsoft Canada’s history, proving that marketing can do more than generate campaign impressions and qualified leads. It can net real revenue. The success of this project was a contributing factor to the project owner-winning Microsoft Gold Club.