CASE STUDIES
PHIL WORMS, MARKETING DIRECTOR AT IOMART GROUP PLC
GETTING THE BALL ROLLING Worms is willing to admit that web hosting, cloud computing and data centre infrastructure, the cornerstones of iomart’s business, aren’t, as topics go, natural conversation-starters. An important objective of the ‘Host Your Kit’ campaign was, therefore, introducing the brand to a wider audience in a fun and relatable way. So it partnered with sports stars to promote the competition. High profile footballers and basketball players were willing to support ‘Host Your Kit’ as they could see the benefit it would bring for local teams. Six foot ten inch GB international basketball player Kieron Achara, Celtic and Scotland player Charlie Mulgrew, Glasgow City Ladies and Scotland footballer Emma Fernon and GB wheelchair basketball star Steven Ross all signed up to support the campaign. iomart wanted to promote the initial ‘Host Your Kit’ campaign across multiple channels, but at minimal cost. “We placed some ads in football programmes which were reasonably priced. Then we blended some PPC with online banners on targeted sites such as
shekicks.net just to throw things into the mix.” The total media spend was a few thousand pounds, demonstrating that getting a simple message across multiple mediums needn’t be too expensive. The team managing the campaign
found they didn’t need to work too hard to get journalists, sports stars and the public enthused about ‘Host Your Kit’. “Sky Sport’s Saturday morning
football show ‘Soccer AM’ invited Charlie onto their programme, which gave us a fantastic on-air promotion for Host Your Kit to the exact audience we were aiming for. Robbie Savage
53 issue 20 january 2014
re-tweeted, as did Grassroots Football. Basketball Scotland was also keen to promote this year’s competition to its young teams and became an official partner. It meant that we had a major sports broadcaster and sports organisation marketing the competition for us through their communication channels.” The winning teams all get kits
which are iomart branded, so the company effectively becomes sponsors of those teams for as long as the kits last. With additional publicity in the local media this gives iomart visibility outside of the regular IT media which it targets, putting it in front of the parents, coaches and supporters who might well be looking for web hosting for their businesses at some stage. ‘Host Your Kit’ has benefited iomart on a number of levels. “From a corporate point of view it’s a real differentiator. It’s opened up new avenues and new opportunities for us. When you’re making an outbound call, or meeting someone for the first time and you start to mention IT requirements people tend to be guarded in their response. But if you say ‘have you got a child who plays football?’, then the barriers open and you can start a meaningful conversation. The great thing about this campaign is that the spend has been tiny but the number of people who have benefited is huge.”
ROUND 2 “What started out as a small idea has now become big,” notes Worms. Back in 2012, when ‘Host Your Kit’ first launched, only football teams could apply for strips. When the competition begins again in 2014 youngsters from many more activities will be able to enter as iomart looks to include some of the sports that will feature at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow where iomart has its headquarters. “Glasgow 2014 is
IT’S BEEN A REAL DIFFERENTIATOR”
going to be a huge event for Scotland, just as the Olympics were for London,” Worms explains. “As a business based in the city, we are keen to
encourage interest in sport and inspire children to take it up. Through Host Your Kit we can do that in an innovative way without having to go down the very expensive traditional corporate sponsorship route.” So what can brands interested in running similar projects learn from this campaign? Worms argues that the simplicity of ‘Host Your Kit’ is, in part, what has made it so successful. Investment in the campaign started small and has grown incrementally, in line with the strength of its performance. This approach has avoided wasted expenditure and allows campaigns to grow organically. “The less we’ve spent on the
marketing,” he says, “the more we have been able to invest in what really matters, providing much needed kits for young sportspeople.”
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