Xactly: Redefining a Market Category

Situation

  • Xactly Corporation is a trailblazer in Incentive Compensation Management, delivering the industry's first pure-play SaaS  solution for ICM
  • The company had little press recognition and industry awareness.  The initial communications goals were to broaden media, blogger and analyst relationships, reaching a wider line-of-business audience that included sales, SaaS, analytics and finance
  • Xactly needed to move the thought leadership dial away from industry stalwarts, like Callidus, and push the dialogue towards emerging SaaS-based offerings and the expanded market category of Sales Performance Management (SPM)

Strategy

  • Use a "road map" and new product tour to reintroduce the company, broaden reach and set thought-leadership agenda
  • Begin a series of thought-leadership campaigns to help position the expansion of ICM into SPM and position CEO, Christopher Cabrera, as the authority on SPM and SaaS
  • Continue the momentum and delivery on the road map with ongoing outreach, thought leadership execution, speaking engagements and product announcements

Tactics

  • Road map media tour hit a broad set of contacts across sales, finance and CRM/IT; follow-up phone tour held for new small business initiative
  • Delivered quarterly thought-leadership pieces to key trade, business and vertical media regarding timely issues in SaaS and SPM
  • Secured ongoing byline/podcast placements across different audiences
  • Made ongoing product traction announcements
  • Executed relentless media follow up on relevant market proof points, such as analyst reports

Results

  • Company leads the top four SPM competitors with over 52 percent of the overall "feature/mention" article coverage
  • Christopher Cabrera, CEO, leads the competitive CEO media mindshare (byline placements, quotes, etc) with 74 percent of coverage
  • Recent Gartner ICM Marketscope notes that Xactly has gained "an unusual level of exposure disproportionate to its size"
  • Company has received 12 company and product related awards this year
  • Built strong media relationships across core audiences in CRM, finance, and sales