IBM & Forrester: Offering Guide

IBM Offering Management and Marketing teams engage Forrester to identify new market opportunities, drive demand, progress deals, and test and refine IBM strategy and messages. Forrester also helps IBM teams create customer-facing digital/interactive content like ROI case studies, thought leadership programs, analyst webcasts, and other marketing and sales assets. The following describes common ways IBM commissions Forrester support, ranging from studies that provide deep insight into customers, to customer-facing digital marketing assets, to analyst speeches and webinars. To see how your IBM colleagues have worked with Forrester, click the content below to view samples of recent IBM projects.

Forrester Solutions

Offering Management
Explore how IBM Offering Management teams have worked with Forrester to identify market opportunities.
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Product Marketing
Learn how Forrester has worked with IBM Product Marketing teams to win, serve and retain customers.
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Performance Marketing
See how IBM Performance Marketing teams have worked with Forrester to progress deals and drive demand.
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Forrester Solutions for Offering Management

OFFERING MANAGEMENT OBJECTIVES
  • Deep understanding of IBM’s buyer cohorts and users
  • Competitive intelligence
  • Market sizing and opportunity
  • Trend identification and analysis
  • Building a differentiated offering that addresses real market pain points and business objectives
HOW FORRESTER HELPS
  • Deep data insights on technology and business buyers and influencers
  • SWOT analyses to understand competitive landscape and IBM market position
  • Custom research to understand why buyers and users gravitate to IBM and why they don’t
  • Partner/ecosystem identification and strategy
  • Market sizing, adoption rates, and tech spending forecasts

Forrester Solutions for Product Marketing

PRODUCT MARKETING OBJECTIVES
  • Develop a compelling value proposition and narrative for IBM offerings
  • Understand buyer cohorts’ behaviors, attitudes, inhibitors, and purchase journeys
  • Develop foundational assets that support the narrative and prove the value of IBM offerings
  • Create a content platform on which Performance Marketing can execute
HOW FORRESTER HELPS
  • Message testing and frameworks to create crisp and consistent narratives that inspire and engage buyers
  • Insight into what content and vehicles influence buyers in each phase of their purchase journey
  • Creation of digital tools to engage buyers: video, audio, social, infographics, and assessments
  • Custom analyst research that supports IBM’s value proposition and position in the market
  • Customer case studies measuring the real business impact of IBM solutions

Forrester Solutions for Performance Marketing

PERFORMANCE MARKETING OBJECTIVES
  • Increase engagement with buyers by improving visit-to-response and response-to-lead conversion
  • Leverage web and digital channels to engage users effectively
  • Curate compelling content that inspires buyers at the Discover, Learn, and Try/Buy phases
  • Commission 3rd party, objective content to drive high quality leads
  • Channel mix and marketing optimization
HOW FORRESTER HELPS
  • Buyer journey data to align the right marketing content to the right buyer at the right journey phase
  • “Snackable” digital campaign content to extend the reach of foundational assets
  • Quantifying and reinforcing financial and business justification for IBM solutions
  • Partner/ecosystem identification and strategy
  • Analyst Advisory on marketing content strategy and campaign logic map

The TEI Study from Forrester allowed us to optimize our marketing effort by helping to better understand our customer install base and market. We were able to gain better insight into the benefit of our product and what it could bring to a customer. The study also contributed to $279.6M in validated lead pipeline for us and $8.7M in direct revenue.

– IBM Content Marketing Manager

When [the TEI was] used in a blog as part of a social campaign we had about 56,000 views, which is 10x the norm.

– IBM Content Marketing Manager

This would take some time to develop and I honestly don’t have the bandwidth for that. I doubt we would have done this kind of study ourselves because the study has much more credibility when the methodology and analysis is conducted by an independent 3rd party and not by IBM.

– IBM Market Segment Manager

Since we first posted the study when it became available in February and to date we’ve had 1,800+ downloads. The TEI study is the highest performing asset we have for WebSphere at this time.

– IBM Worldwide Portfolio Marketing Manager

We’re in a major transition period here. There is a lot of uncertainty and many IBMers are being pushed out of their comfort zones to think digital-first and consumer-focused… like a startup. Forrester is helping me understand new market trends and emerging technology, which makes me more valuable to our clients and essential to IBM.

– Partner, Global Business Services, Digital Strategy

I just discovered playbooks that enable a focused deep-dive into a topic of interest – thank you for highlighting those – and am now reviewing the B2B Marketing Playbook for 2017. I will gladly share these resources with my team.

– Marketing Writer, Digital Services Group

Contact Forrester

Nicholas Neves, Customer Success Manager

Sebastian Rowell, Customer Success Manager