Appinions, a small start-up, successfully engaged major strategic consulting firms by leveraging influencer insights to create impactful content, leading to a 50% reduction in sales cycle time and 100% revenue increase. They established a strategic partnership with Forbes to amplify their story, resulting in significant media engagement and the conversion of several targeted firms into clients. The initiative showcases the effectiveness of using data-driven content marketing to attract and engage key decision-makers in the consulting industry.

1. CASE STUDY
APPINIONS SHORTENS SALES
CYCLE, SECURES NEW BUSINESS
THROUGH INFLUENCE-DRIVEN
CONTENT MARKETING
Challenge
Appinions wanted to grab the attention of the major
strategic consulting firms, but as a small start-up, the
team struggled to get the attention of the key decision
makers at those firms. Over the span of several months,
all attempts to get in front of that set of influential
companies failed.
Solution
The Appinions Data Journalism Group seized a timely
opportunity to create unique content based on influencer
insights that would feature strategic consulting firms and
evaluate their growing influence in marketing and IT
services. Industry conversations surrounding recent
acquisitions by key consulting firms spurred an interesting
discussion that Appinions sought to leverage for
marketing purposes.
SHORTER SALES CYCLE
BY 50%
WITH HIGHER
QUALITY LEADS
100%
INCREASE
IN REVENUE FOR
THE QUARTER
Copyright © 2013 Appinions. All rights reserved.
STRATEGIC MEDIA
PARTNERSHIP TO
AMPLIFY
THE STORY

2. Implementation
Results
Using the platform, Appinions set up topics for
eight of the largest strategic consulting firms,
which included Accenture, BCG, Deloitte, Ernst
& Young, IBM, KPMG, McKinsey and PWC.
• The strategic partnership with Forbes served
to amplify the story (7,600+ page views;
600+ social shares).
Appinions used features from the platform to
analyze those companies through the
comparative lens of l influence on different
topics. The platform provided:
• Influence scores for comparison for each
company;
• Insights into how key acquisitions impact
marketing influence for the strategic
consulting firms;
• The most influential executives from these
companies on marketing-specific topics; and
• The data journalism piece generated 8 sales
leads.
• Of the eight strategic consulting firms
mentioned in the analysis, four converted to
clients within a 60-day window. Discussions
are ongoing with the other four firms
mentioned.
• Appinions experienced a shortened sales
cycle by 50 percent.
• Appinions boosted revenues for the quarter
by 100 percent.
• Key marketing themes associated with the
discussions surrounding strategic
consultancies and marketing capabilities.
These insights allowed Appinions to:
• Shape an interesting story for the target
audience;
• Create a sharable visual based on influencer
data to accompany the story; and
• Pitch and secure the story with Forbes, a
relevant and influential media outlet on the
topic.
“
About Appinions
Appinions is the only opinion-powered influence marketing
platform designed to give companies the unmatched ability
to identify, analyze, engage, monitor and measure
influencers. Built on more than a decade of research
conducted at Cornell University, Appinions extracts and
aggregates the opinions that generate the most reaction
from more than six million sources including blogs, social
networks, forums, newspapers and magazine articles, thus
providing a more complete picture of influence. Appinions
helps today’s businesses insert trust into the purchase
journey by converting faceless touchpoints into influential
trust points™ to optimize marketing efforts. For more
information on the science of influence marketing, visit
http://www.appinions.com/.
Forbes is pleased to be a partner with Appinions in the creation and development of datadriven journalism that informs and provokes debate among our more than 23 million
monthly readership. Our recent story incorporating Appinions research on who is winning
the influence battle over gun control drew over 200,000 readers and drove impassioned
interaction, commentary and content sharing that is the goal of every story we do and
mandatory in today’s social media driven world.
Bruce Rogers
Copyright © 2013 Appinions. All rights reserved.
”
Chief Insights Officer, Forbes
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3. STRATEGIC CONSULTANCIES INVADE AGENCY SPACE
Forbes.com
Publish date: June 10, 2013
Copyright © 2013 Appinions. All rights reserved.
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