Gaining a consistent approach to marketing & branding.

// BACKGROUND

Iken is the knowledge management platform that brings everyone and everything together to enable organisations to work more effectively. Providing market-leading case and knowledge management software to in-house teams in the UK and abroad, Iken is a proudly independent software house.

Before working together, Iken were struggling to identify and define their brand positioning. Instead of highlighting their solution benefits to attract customers, Iken were using wordy, outdated and unengaging techniques in an attempt to explain who they were.

Part of the issue was that Iken had worked with a number of marketing managers in a short time, resulting in messaging that lacked a long-term vision or infrastructure.

“Our branding, messaging, imagery and consistency in approach was an issue,” says Tanya Corsie, Iken CEO. “Despite having a great product and great ideas, we didn’t have an established brand, and couldn’t clearly and concisely portray our product to the market.”

Iken were looking for a marketing team that not only understood their business, but also understood technology.

Positioning Iken as public sector specialists.

The team planned to define Iken’s brand, effectively message their solution’s selling points to the external market, and enable growth into vertical markets by implementing an underlying strategy for their marketing.

First, we took time to comprehensively understand Iken’s product and personality, providing perspective on their strengths. And it was Iken’s status as public sector specialists that was emphasised in their positioning. Iken’s niche product was also re-examined and given the tailored definition of knowledge management software.

After three months of deep analysis, the presented strategy involved a rebranding of Iken’s messaging, website and logo in order to succinctly symbolise their positioning of specialism and established roots.

What we delivered.

• Messaging that represents value
• Established company identity
• Improved performance of internal operations
• Better targeted budget spending

Staying connected.

In contrast to previous marketing agencies, the team succeeded in providing Iken with a supportive infrastructure for marketing that was clear and consistent. “Marketing often has a bad reputation for being intangible, but their approach includes a lot of research, data analysis and statistics, which ultimately creates an effective marketing strategy that does your business justice,” says Tanya.

This has given Iken a solid marketing foundation on which they can grow their brand, enabling them to continue their marketing in-house. “It has been a rewarding journey with them,” Tanya continues.

“We’ve grown together and now, because of their help, we’re capable of taking the marketing into our own hands. We will stay connected, and we’ll seek their advice on important strategic decisions in the future.”

The heart of Iken has finally been captured.

Our methodical approach wasn’t lost on Tanya, either: “The team got to know our company and our personality really quickly. They used an authentic approach to navigate and define the company, and to pinpoint and display the value we were already providing.”

Iken already had a successful product, and now the team had created the right messaging that accurately represented its value and established the company identity in the market.

The new branding improved internal and external reception of Iken dramatically. “The heart of Iken had finally been captured and validated in a concise, understandable way,” adds Tanya. “Our team had something definitive that they could be proud of and invested in; and the clients were extremely positive about the new imagery and website.”

With a defined positioning in their niche market, Iken were also able to be more targeted when spending money and attending events which improved performance of internal operations.