With the objective of changing brand perception and increasing brand familiarity among mid-market decision makers and influencers in its priority international market of India, Salesforce invested in a made-for-India brand campaign that was not only tailored for the market but also personalised for its target segment: mid-market companies.
The eight-week multi-channel brand campaign ran across print, display, online video, and out-of-home channels, with LinkedIn being the only social platform in the mix.
THE CHALLENGE
To deepen penetration into India’s burgeoning mid-market segment, Salesforce recognised that its global brand campaigns — successful as they were —would not be able to address the specific needs of these customers.
Instead, Salesforce conceptualised a highly localised and personalised campaign to demonstrate how the brand understands Indian mid-market businesses, facilitates their growth, and helps them build stronger customer relationships.
THE SOLUTION
As part of the multi-channel campaign, Salesforce activated on LinkedIn to drive engagement on the social front using a powerful combination of organic and paid marketing.
Salesforce worked closely with the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions team to continuously test, learn and optimise performance within eight weeks to maximise impact. This included staying agile and leveraging LinkedIn’s objective-based advertising to optimise towards reach and engagement goals.
- Deepening localisation: Salesforce introduced a Thought Leader Ad. By featuring a local leader and voice, it strengthened resonance and drove clickthrough rates 2x higher than platform benchmarks.
- Strengthening personalisation: Through A/B testing, Salesforce discovered that engagement rate doubled when it strengthened personalisation by adding the line “Indian retail companies like yours are growing with Salesforce” to its ad copy, compared to ads that did not carry that line.
Organic Engagement & Employee Advocacy
Salesforce employees in India were invited to be brand ambassadors and campaign amplifiers by posting campaign related content on LinkedIn. They could either insert themselves into the ad creatives via a Virtual Reality tool or take a selfie with out-of-home billboards. A total of 1,400 employee posts with the hashtag #IndiaGrowsWithSalesforce added more than 40,000 engagements to the campaign while strengthening employee engagement and encouraging a stronger sense of pride and connection to the brand.
THE RESULTS
On LinkedIn, Salesforce combined paid media campaigns with an organic engagement and employee advocacy programme to achieve:
This contributed to the campaign’s overall success in shaping positive brand perception among mid-market decision makers in India. According to Salesforce’s internal brand measure results:
“It’s essential that we present Salesforce as a local player in the local market. We sought to deepen trust that we not only understand and can support mid-market companies in India, but also, that we are committed to partnering with them as they grow and scale.”
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Headquarters: San Francisco, California, USA | No. of Employees: 10,001+ | Industry: Software Development