Tag: Kofax

How a Global Brand Integrated Its Marketing Strategy

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With great power comes great responsibility. When Lexmark acquired Kofax—an automation software company—in 2015, the now-global business was burdened with the task of streamlining its marketing functions. Kofax CMO Grant Johnson was tabbed for the job. It was Johnson’s duty to institute a centralized marketing plan that the company’s worldwide sectors could follow.

Grant Johnson talks about his formula for creating a unified, global marketing strategy in part two of his interview on the Renegade Thinkers Unite podcast (You can listen to the episode here.) Host Drew Neisser, accompanied by Inc. magazine author Bill Carmody, ask Johnson about his trials and triumphs. If you missed part one of this episode, you can listen to it here.

Here are some sample questions and answers from the podcast:

Drew: What’s your proudest accomplishment as a marketer at Kofax?

Grant: Bringing everyone together into a single, global marketing organization working with a common purpose to deliver a truly integrated marketing plan in 2017. I’ve been at Kofax for three and a half years and I started the process of uniting a very diverse and distributed organization in October, 2016 and then aligning all marketing functions, including channel, product and industry marketing, digital marketing and social media, demand generation, corporate marketing and communications to this new integrated approach.

Drew: What were the key steps in bringing that program to fruition?

Grant: To understand how this program was brought to fruition, I need to first provide a perspective on the organizational structure I inherited before this program idea came to mind. Lexmark purchased Kofax for about $1 Billion in May 2015. They had an existing enterprise software group comprised of Perceptive Software, purchased in 2010 and ReadSoft, purchased late in 2014, as the two primary brands. A few months after the CEO of Kofax was made President of Lexmark Enterprise Software, I was asked to take on the entire global software marketing organization.

The first step was to meet the various leaders and teams and review global marketing programs to understand what I had, what was similar or different, and what gaps existed.   Kofax is based in Irvine, CA, Perceptive is based in Lenexa, near Kansas City and ReadSoft was headquartered in Sweden, and each company had somewhat divergent approaches to marketing, along with some natural cultural differences you would expect.

We already had a division-wide integration process underway to unify systems, processes and procedures under a consistent approach, so I just added a new work stream entitled “marketing best practices.” This became a great way to gather the people, review the work processes, systems and programs and inventory what we had across the three initially disparate groups.

Drew: What were some of the biggest hurdles to overcome?

Grant: Because people were used to doing things in different ways, they had to learn as well as “unlearn” certain habits or practices. A key step to getting this new process going was actually creating a blueprint for how integrated marketing would work at Kofax. We consulted with a few outside firms like Sirius Decisions to ensure we could leverage insights from how others are doing integrated marketing successfully. In putting together the various functional components of the plan, I came up with the idea to put our entire 2017 plan on a page. There were a few reasons to do this. One was to break down the functional silos, say in channel, field and product marketing, so everyone could see how their part was connected to a holistic approach. I had observed what I call “random acts of marketing,” not necessarily intentional, but nevertheless, discrete and disjointed in their impact in the market. This integrated approach improved our collaboration and cohesion – so integrated marketing became the glue for the organization.

We’ve all know the phrase “getting everyone on the same page.” In this case, that fact that every group could see how they were contributing to and impacting the integrated plan helped literally get them on the same page they could refer to, communicate and understand.

Drew: What is great work and how do you know it’s great work?

 Grant: It connects, it responds, it resonates. People shout about it in the halls, they forward it to each other, customers comment on it. It’s so easy to do something that just works. You have to be willing to take some risks. I have to have the ability to say yes or no. What’s it’s like is taking a beautiful distinctive object and every person who touches it sands it down and what you get is something that nobody can object to and nobody likes.

Last Thoughts

When getting many moving parts to work together, simplicity is the way to go. Complications—whether they’re between branches or within your own office—can hurt your business. Coordinating your efforts, however, will give your organization a greater chance to thrive.

How Kofax Clicks with Its Digital Community

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If one phrase could be used to describe the philosophy of marketing in 2017, it would be “customers come first.” Gone are the days of product pushing as a surefire advertising strategy. Consumers want to find solutions to the problems they encounter. Marketers have to address those needs from first contact to have a shot at a sale. And really, that’s how it should be—marketing brands as answers and showing that there are people behind the brand who care about the consumer.

Kofax CMO Grant Johnson is leading the way in putting the customer first. His team speaks its clients’ language, delivering an authentic persona at every buying stage.

Below, you can listen to part one of Grant Johnson’s interview with Renegade Thinkers Unite host Drew Neisser, and Bill Carmody, entrepreneur and Inc. magazine author.

If you don’t have time to listen to the whole podcast, check out these sample questions and answers from this episode:

Drew: What is one non-traditional technique that you have used with success? Why do you think it worked so well? 

Grant: I think we are a bit nontraditional here at Kofax in that we follow an “aim-ready-fire approach” vs. the traditional “ready-aim-fire.”   Over 3 years ago I determined that we had to get to best-in-class in our digital marketing capabilities, but I didn’t have a completely baked plan on how to get there. I hired a very strong leader and we crafted the vision and started the journey together. Since then, we’ve doubled in size from just over $300 million to more than $600 million in revenues, and as we’ve integrated several companies, we’ve taken the best aspects and brought together the best people from each to become much better across the board in digital marketing. We also do a lot experimenting and iterating, and not everything works, so when we strike a rich vein, like some of our PPC or retargeting efforts, we pour gas on those fires and smother the less successful endeavors as fast as possible.

 

Bill: Once you’ve mapped out that journey and you really thought through the content strategies, how are you measuring the effectiveness of the content in each of those individual prototypes?

Grant: One of the ways that is a good proxy, is through social media. We have very active social media. We do something called go social. We encourage any field-facing staff to try to engage and share content. We have this great tool called push-button content. I just published my second blog on a 4-part serious about a step-wise approach to digital transformation. As people share that, they say “I’ve got this problem, can someone contact me?” It’s not a perfect science, there’s always art, but it helps.

 

Drew: It’s hard to get our marketing messages to stand out…what is one thing you do to make sure your marketing cuts through?

Grant: We take great pains to avoid the one-size-fits-all approach or what I call random acts of marketing. Instead, we work toward truly integrated marketing campaigns that encompass print, digital, social, etc. Part of cutting through effectively is a relentless focus on delivering consistent messaging across every touch point and element of a given campaign. Like many companies, our customer base cuts across a range of verticals – from Banking and Financial Services and Insurance to Healthcare, Government and BPOs. For some of these verticals, like banking, we frame the message around their primary concerns, e.g. how we can help enhance the customer experience (faster account openings and easier loan applications through mobile apps, etc.). We call that “customer speak,” instead of techno speak, and it really helps us stand out from the cacophony of competitors touting their offerings.

 

Drew: What is the toughest lesson you’ve learned when it comes to marketing?

Grant: Marketing never stops. It’s impossible to ever become complacent in anything I do or my team creates and delivers. In the past, you could sort of get the plates spinning, say your public relations and field marketing were going well, you could just let them run and focus on say bolstering digital marketing or fine tuning product marketing. Now, however, not only is the rate of change relentless, the mandate to continually improve is stronger than ever. We celebrate the little victories, but we can never rest of any achievement, we have to continually strive. Now this may sound daunting to some marketers, but to me it’s actually invigorating. I chose this career because it was dynamic and I’m restless by nature, so I love the disruptive innovation and measurability of modern marketing and all the challenges that presents. The only constant is change, and if you are adaptable and can thrive in what has become a very accountable function, there’s never been a more exciting time to be a marketer.

Final Thoughts

You can never have too many friends. Staying in touch with your digital community will keep your brand fresh and relevant. If you play your cards right, you’ll get plenty of referrals. All you have to do is maintain an active social media presence. (These show notes were prepared by Jay Tellini.)