Challenge
VCCP Business was challenged to take Qualtrics from a little-known, Utah-based startup to a global cloud leader. Originally, Qualtrics was set up to make sophisticated research simple. But in the 18 years since its founding, it dramatically expanded its capabilities. The company created an entirely new category – experience management – which is changing the way businesses operate and understand their customers, employees, products, and brands. Some journalists were still referring to Qualtrics with a vastly outdated lens, and talking about the experience management company as a “survey provider.”
Solution
Qualtrics worked with VCCP Business to orchestrate a shift in understanding by building relationships with key media to paint the broader vision and strategically reinforce what the company does to ensure accurate representation. The team strategically built a network of journalists, creating pitches and hustling to strengthen Qualtrics’ experience management positioning with every interaction. They also utilized Qualtrics’ XM Platform to develop studies around trending news and drive timely, relevant coverage, as well as place popular culture stories about Qualtrics’ employee perks. As the team reached out to journalists with these pitches over months and years, journalists began to shift their description of the company from a survey provider to an enterprise category leader.
Results
After extraordinary business success and strategic positioning in the press, Qualtrics cemented its position atop the experience management category – an effort further validated by its $8 billion acquisition by SAP, the largest ever acquisition of a privately held SaaS company. Raising the profile of the company also paid dividends in other ways, as evidenced by Qualtrics’ ability to secure President Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Sir Richard Branson as keynote speakers in its 2019 X4 conference.
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