How Schneider Electric leveraged AI to target key decision makers

Schneider Electric (SE) set out to identify and engage technology leaders battling these daunting challenges within their organizations – approximately 3,600 companies across the region – and reposition critical IT infrastructure as a catalyst for broader business impact.

With a limited budget, SE needed to generate demand - discover and develop 1,000 net new opportunities and increase pipeline coverage 3x across mid-market businesses.

Strategy

Identifying key personas across the buying journey revealed a critical oversight. Data Centre Managers were often bypassed in conversations about business transformation due to a disconnect in language. This gap meant a vital segment of the decision-making ecosystem was overlooked, diminishing the potential for comprehensive engagement and insight.

To address this, it was essential to move Data Centre Managers from the shadows into the spotlight as Impact Makers. Recognizing their crucial role in strategic dialogues was paramount, as they are key yet previously marginalized stakeholders. Their expertise in overseeing the physical and operational intricacies of data centers positioned them as indispensable influencers.

Our objective was clear: widen our audience beyond CIOs and traditional ITDMs and transform our engagement approach across an extended Decision-Making Unit. This required tailoring media outreach and content to resonate with Data Centre Managers’ specific challenges and perspectives, fostering a richer, more inclusive conversation. However, ensuring our engagement was impactful and broad required an extensive amount of data. How could we achieve this? The answer was AI, guiding us through the complexities and enabling precise execution of our strategy.

The key components of the strategic roll-out:

At the core of our campaign approach were three strategic pivots, each integral to transforming the campaign's engagement with the target audience. These were the core tenets of the program to achieve a connected, resonating and hence, effective marketing campaign.

1. Leveraging AI for Deep Insights

The process started with utilizing a Customer Data Platform (CDP) & Custom Predictive Neural Network Modelling. Leadspace & Transmission’s Audience Intelligence tool, analyzed and enriched first-party customer data with third-party firmographic, behavioral, and technographic signals to create a comprehensive Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) training model. Next, we developed Predictive Neural Network models from the ICP training data, enabling the identification and segmentation of accounts with the highest conversion potential and revenue uplift.

This enabled the establishment of more complete customer profiles, which unified 40+ intelligence signals to establish a complete view and deeper understanding of each potential customer.

2. AI-driven Psychometric Profiling for Empathetic, Personalised Content

With the accounts identified, we shifted our focus towards the personas.

In the past, despite a wealth of high-quality content, such as eBooks and whitepapers, conversions were stagnant. The problem was clear: The content attempted to address everyone but didn’t effectively resonate with the key persona groups critical in decision-making.

We embraced a 'personalized resonance' strategy, leveraging AI-powered psychometric profiling and content generation using custom AI algorithms developed by Transmission. The AI analyzed persona data from the CDP and powered a content personalization engine based on personality attributes and archetypes. This approach enhanced customer experience, leading to a significant improvement in engagement and conversion rates by aligning messaging and positioning with the cognitive motivators of the audience.

3. Broad yet Targeted Activation

Our final strategy emphasized broad outreach and deep, meaningful engagement, creating impactful connections that spurred action. We aimed to reach a vast audience and make each interaction significant through targeted engagement.

By leveraging AI and data analytics, we created a series of interactions, navigating complex, personalized engagements and leading to customized journeys based on unique needs. From LinkedIn's professional networks to programmatic advertising's precision targeting and content syndication platforms' expansive reach, personalized experiences were orchestrated. This optimization of engagements based on each persona and accounts' needs and stage in the journey improved conversion rates.

Integrating segmentation with personalization meant that our reach was broad and intelligently focused. We delivered messages that sparked interest and interaction, reaching decision-makers across industries with content that spoke directly to their needs and aspirations. This strategic use of media was about creating a narrative for each segment of our audience that aligned with their specific journey and encouraged them to take action.

Our campaign's execution turned our strategic vision into action, ensuring every aspect of our media strategy was aligned and effective. We didn't just distribute content; we created a series of interactions, using AI and data analytics to navigate complex, personalized engagements.

Results

The outcomes of Schneider Electric's campaign vividly illustrate its strategic approach's profound impact and effectiveness. Beyond just achieving impressive numbers, the campaign exemplified the power of transforming mass media channels into a humanized marketing engine, leveraging data and insights to make meaningful connections.

The campaign was planned to maximize efficiency and impact. The Return on Investment (ROI) achieved can be attributed to audience strategy, data analytics, and delivering not just personalization but humanization at scale. Investing in AI and data analytics enabled effective resource allocation and precise audience targeting. This approach yielded returns in financial terms and trust, engagement, and loyalty from the audience.

The staggering growth in prospect account engagement reflects the campaign's success.

Key achievements of the campaign include:

• Achieving a 77% increase in Average Opportunity Value
• Attaining an outstanding 39:1 ROI

The results are a compelling testament to the power of precision and personalization. They serve not only as a proof of concept but as a bold declaration of the effectiveness of our hyper-personalized, AI-informed approach in a market known for its skepticism and unique challenges. We went beyond the mere achievement of objectives; we redefined them, crafting a new paradigm for future marketing endeavors within Schneider Electric and setting a benchmark for the industry. This campaign demonstrated how blending the art of creativity with the science of data can lead to unparalleled success, proving that in the world of business-to-business marketing, personal touch is not just valuable – it's transformative.

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