Thanks for your message! We'll be in touch shortly.
“We recognized that content marketing was becoming more of an important strategy for a lot of different reasons, but we really just didn’t have the bandwidth or the capability to take it on our own,” said Jim Lazeroff, Director of Marketing at IDI.
Enter Brafton.
Billing isn’t boring.
Especially not when you’re a telecommunications company whose revenue depends on timely, accurate billing at scale.
Cue IDI Billing Solutions, a global provider of billing, automation and workflow solutions for Communications Service Providers.
In 2017, IDI and Brafton struck up a partnership to tackle a rather lofty goal: Create professional, polished—and often highly technical—content that helps communications companies evaluate our brand and feel confident in IDI’s expertise and capabilities.
Relative to some of the customers it serves, IDI is a mid-sized company. But thanks in no small part to Brafton, it has a huge voice in its vertical. Here’s how we’ve helped them develop that voice:
It’s not unusual for consumers to visit a brand’s website before they make a big purchase. They want to ensure they’re doing business with a credible vendor. The onus is on that vendor to leave a positive impression.
That, in so many words, is what Lynnette Regan, Marketing Communications Manager at IDI Billing Solutions, hoped Brafton could achieve for them. Except, instead of consumers, their target audience is telecommunications companies seeking an enterprise-level back office application.
“We need to be the top voice in our industry because it’s a long sales cycle, and prospects need a lot of touch points to be convinced,” Lynnette said. “The commitment level that they’re going to have to make to us is significant so we need to put our best foot forward.”
“We need to be the top voice in our industry because it’s a long sales cycle, and prospects need a lot of touch points to be convinced.”
The only problem? Building brand credibility and trust online takes a lot of time, effort and resources that IDI’s marketing team just couldn’t spare.
“We recognized that content marketing was becoming more of an important strategy for a lot of different reasons, but we really just didn’t have the bandwidth or the capability to take it on our own,” said Jim Lazeroff, Director of Marketing at IDI.
At first, Brafton mainly produced blog content. But over time, our subject-matter expertise and understanding of IDI’s brand voice developed into a more promising partnership.
“Gradually as we felt more comfortable that Brafton understood our business, we knew there was an opportunity to have them help us round out our portfolio for consistency as well as bringing in some new ideas,” Jim said.
IDI Billing Solutions’ blog.
The senior writer on the account, Jeff Keleher, became more comfortable pitching content ideas and sitting in highly technical meetings. We then began producing white papers, eBooks, case studies and IDI-focused technical documents for use deeper in the sales funnel
We even ventured into different media. For instance, Brafton worked on multiple videos for IDI, including this corporate promo:
… And this product overview video:
Our biggest project, however, was in 2019, when we completely redesigned their website.
Here’s how they’re homepage looked after we cleaned it up:
“ … Especially with our website design and the cohesion of all the materials we’re producing on the website and from a social perspective,” Jim said. “We’re pleased across the board.”
“The process is seamless and Brafton’s talented team members do whatever it takes to get projects done on time and in scope.”
In the 3 years IDI has partnered with Brafton, Lynnette has been most impressed with Jeff’s ability to synthesize technically nuanced and sometimes complicated concepts into an engaging narrative.
“Our business is technical and fairly complex, so when we’re having an interview with subject-matter experts or discussing involved topics, the details are not always easily understood,” Lynnette said. “But, every time, Jeff comes back and impresses me with how he takes this information that can be confusing and makes an interesting and compelling story. It’s not easy but he makes it seem that way.”
That word, “easy,” is also a good descriptor of IDI and Brafton’s partnership at large.
“It’s just an easy relationship,” Lynnette said. “The process is seamless and Brafton’s talented team members do whatever it takes to get projects done on time and in scope, making my job much easier.”