Securing Top-Tier Media for C-Level Influence
Challenge
OVERVIEW Moogsoft, a leading provider of artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps), engaged BLASTmedia to strengthen its brand position through media coverage. CHALLENGE The concept of AIOps is highly technical and speaks predominantly to an IT audience. While Moogsoft’s end users are IT practitioners and technical roles like CIO/CTO are often involved in the purchase decision, CEOs are often the final decision makers. Non-technical executive stakeholders need practical examples and relatable use cases to understand the benefits of AIOps holistically. Moogsoft challenged BLASTmedia to position the company and its product in the national media without leaning heavily into technical jargon to reach executives making purchasing decisions.
Solution
STRATEGY BLASTmedia is well versed in guiding clients on how to work with customers to help tell their stories and understands the power a customer story holds with the national press. After uncovering the goal and buyer Moogsoft was looking to influence, BLASTmedia set out on a strategy to leverage a Moogsoft customer. Customer Identification BLASTmedia worked with Moogsoft to audit its customers and landed on targeting leading mortgage financing company Fannie Mae as a major customer willing to participate in media opportunities. Moogsoft had deployed AIOps to cut IT issues and ensure system uptime for Fannie Mae and, wiithin the partnership’s first year, Fannie Mae saw a 35% reduction in IT incidents like application failures and cut the time needed to resolve incidents by 25-75%. BLASTmedia also helped define Fannie Mae/Moogsoft success metrics that pointed to an overall decrease in IT issues and issue resolution response time due to Moogsoft’s AI or IT Operations capabilities. These data points were strong and would assist in pitching a compelling customer use case to reporters. Story Pitching With a goal to reach C-level executives, BLASTmedia focused pitching efforts on national business outlets, such as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Insider and Fortune. As part of this outreach, BLASTmedia pitched the exclusive story angle and interviews to a targeted reporter at The Wall Street Journal who covers the convergence of AI and the enterprise. The pitch highlighted key aspects of the Moogsoft/Fannie Mae partnership: Framing what Fannie Mae’s operations looked like without AIOps Outlining specific success metrics to point to the overall shift in Fannie Mae’s strategy/operations Offering Fannie Mae and Moogsoft spokespeople to provide additional context around the benefits of AIOps Interview Preparation and Staffing The Wall Street Journal reporter expressed interest in the angle and requested an interview with the companies’ spokespeople. BLASTmedia prepared Fannie Mae and Moogsoft spokespeople with talking points for the interview via briefing documents and prep calls with Fannie Mae’s spokesperson and communications team, and Moogsoft’s executive spokesperson. BLASTmedia also facilitated the interview to support the spokespeople and provided follow-up information and fact-check confirmation afterward.
Results
BLASTmedia’s singled-in approach to pitching resulted in a Wall Street Journal feature story in the publication’s Pro Artificial Intelligence section. The story, “AI Cuts IT Problems at Fannie Mae by a Third,” defined Moogsoft as a leader in the AIOps space by linking its brand to a recognizable name and positioned Fannie Mae/Moogsoft spokespeople as innovators in their respective fields. In the week following the story’s publication, Moogsoft hosted its annual user conference where several customers asked to participate in future public-facing marketing because of the WSJ coverage. The company also leveraged the article in promotional conference materials, in sales campaigns to move conversations forward and spotlighted the article on its press page to demonstrate credibility.
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