Could possibly be one of the most successful social marketing campaigns during Dreamforce 2012. As InsideView was ramping up for the event I was charged with putting something together that would be better than the Metallica Axe social campaign during Dreamforce 2011. It was going to be hard to be with all the buzz around the signed Metallica guitar giveaway but I can accept a good challenge. The Marketing team came up with the King of Saas as a character for our social promotions.
The initial strategy around the King of SaaS was to make him the “wrong guy”. Data alone is not enough and if all a sales person gets is contact data then the King of SaaS would be a good prospect. He had an executive title, ran a successful business but in reality he was a slob and would never actually be a good prospect for a company. If your sales team had Sales Intelligence then you would know more about Marcus Price and that he was just a bum.
That strategy shifted when we started running the @kingofsaas campaign and he started getting engaged by the Dreamforce community. People liked him and were engaging with conversations, sharing his content and even asking to meet him at Dreamforce. He wasn’t a pleasant person when we started tweeting, he complained a lot and seemed pretty ignorant to any technology. That forced us to make an adjustment and turn him into more of the figurehead around our presence at the Dreamforce event. A full court press was made to create as much content for the the King as possible leading up to the event and to carry us through and beyond Dreamforce.
Marcus J. Price AKA. @KingOfSaas became a celebrity at Dreamforce and even became a trending topic during Day 2 of the show.
The King of SaaS was the character created by the marketing team at InsideView to build awareness and engagement during the Dreamforce 2012 event.
