Cisco opens up $5.8bn digital marketing pipeline up to channel with campaign

New online marketing campaign focusing on the benefits of partners launched

Cisco has launched a new digital marketing campaign dedicated to promoting its work with partners, claiming the channel can cash in on the $5.8bn (£4bn) pipeline associated with it.

The technology giant's Never Better campaign is running across digital channels, including videos and social media interaction. The campaign aims to promote the benefits customers can enjoy when working with Cisco through one of its partners and is the first of its kind.

Angela Whitty, Cisco's UK and Ireland partner organisation managing director, told CRN that ensuring customers are familiar with Cisco's partner-centric strategy is essential.

"We are in the middle of the fourth industrial revolution which is all about digitisation and the challenges that brings," she said. "The ethos is about how we embrace Cisco technology along with the reach, intellectual property and market knowledge and all the experience of our partners."

She added that digital marketing campaigns are extremely effective, and that partners will be able to cash in from its efforts.

"When Karen Walker [Cisco's chief marketing officer] came into post, one of the things we struggled with was how we quantify what our marketing campaigns generate for us as an organisation, and how can we use digital marketing to be more effective.

"We are now able to quantify that this year alone, our digital marketing campaigns have generated a pipeline of $5.8bn and we expect bookings to be in the region of $1bn. Using digital marketing and our own tech, we are able to quantify how successful we are being.

"Everything we sell - product or service - goes through partners. So it's pipeline that will flow through to our partner base.

"Most customers have already made some sort of buying decision before they ever talk to us. That's what our customers are doing so we need to make sure our campaign is setting up the combination of Cisco and its partners as being core to that buying decision. From a Cisco perspective, there has never been a better time to harness the partner organisation."