Tag1: Technical Crisis Management Brand Communications

Tag1: Technical Crisis Management Brand Communications

SUMMARY

Tag1 provides expert Drupal architecture development and support, often rescuing Drupal projects when critical performance and project delivery issues arise.
 The rise of commoditized nearshore and offshore Drupal development services challenged the status quo for pricing, and while some agencies don’t deserve the price point, Tag1’s exceptional technical architecture and leadership skills demand a premium. Our task was simply to reposition the offering in terms of business value rather than technical details—and the rest was earned one byte at a time.

Roles

Brand Strategist
Copywriter
Marketing Strategist
PPC Manager
Recurring Process Engineer (RPE)
Solutions Architect
Swag Designer
Technical Project Manager
Virtual CMO
Web Producer

Challenge

For over 10 years Tag1 enjoyed steady growth through word-of-mouth referrals.


In mid-2017 Tag1 struggled to justify their top-of-market pricing with new customers. Facing the commodification of Drupal development across the marketplace, Facet was brought in to reposition Tag1 to communicate their value at a high quality consistent with their services.

Insight

Tag1’s leadership in the Drupal space is underscored by the content management system’s adoption over the past 10 years. As the community has grown, so too has the competition. Enterprises have moved towards commoditized development and continually challenge teams that exclusively offer on-shore pricing. 

To counteract the commodification of development resources, we took a look at how Tag1’s services were positioned. To better demonstrate Tag1’s value as team leads and technical architects when companies would need them most, we took on the position of Technology Crisis Management in the marketplace. Enterprises, universities, agencies, and nonprofits turn to Tag1 when critical business operations are at risk.

Solution

Analytics. Intelligent and data-informed campaigns.

Transitioning a company from a word-of-mouth acquisition strategy to paid acquisition always requires lots of testing.

  • To monitor our various campaigns, Facet built a KPI Plan to tie revenue goals with sales and marketing campaigns. 

  • To validate that our campaigns were getting the returns we wanted, Facet performed financial analysis and risk assessment across marketing campaigns before prioritization and implementation.
 

  • Facet operationalized the prioritized campaigns based on their clearly attributable conversion models and projected ROI.


Marketing. Overhauled for consistency.

During the course of Facet’s role as a Virtual Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Facet: 

  • Overhauled Tag1’s core marketing positioning—their brand and messaging—to better communicate their Technology Crisis Management position in the marketplace.
 The results of Tag1’s repositioning in the marketplace was highlighted by a DrupalCon co-presentation between Tag1, Pantheon, and the ACLU, where a developer from the ACLU said “...Tag1 was known to be performance masters and for their crisis management.” [Link to YouTube Timestamp Clip]

  • Ideated new annual subscription Technical Architecture and Leadership (TAL) service offering to position Tag1 as an architectural staff augmentation for direct clients and agencies.


  • Wrote all service pages to drive conversions around technical leadership and differentiation. Security, performance, and infrastructure audits, all wrapped up into tight, effective messaging. 

  • Developed segmented messaging and pricing strategy for TAL service to better align offering with strategic goals of key customers.


  • Developed strategy for email marketing and sales automation to consistently communicate key value propositions through the marketing and sales funnels.


  • Rebuilt proposal and contracts in tokenized formats to easily communicate personalized value proposition and scope, while reducing sales production effort.

Process. Business process optimization.

  • Introduced internal marketing strategy reporting and management to provide transparency on growth with stakeholders.


  • Standardized case study best practices, gathering testimonials, copywriting, and designing case studies to communicate value delivered to customers.


  • Recommended a contractor bench management process to hire and more easily manage talent to expand delivery pipeline.


Automation. Brand Familiarity at Scale. 

  • Built an Account-Based Prospecting strategy with data mining, account enrichment, and account scoring for targeted account prioritization.

 

Results

The results of Tag1’s repositioning in the marketplace was highlighted by a DrupalCon co-presentation between Tag1, Pantheon, and the ACLU, where a developer from the ACLU said “...Tag1 was known to be performance masters and for their crisis management.” When the battle for the right position in a prospect’s mind is won—the only thing left is to reach more minds. Tag1 now publishes a regular vlog podcast discussing Drupal core and other technologies—driving forward the expert content and conversations that has always set them apart as technology leaders.