iLOQ’s growth leans on a strong presence and reputation
The role of things like attitude and corporate culture play a key role in achieving growth. Bold marketing and brand building has helped iLOQ continue taking major steps on their growth path. Strategic partnerships, increased digitalization and geographical focus were key marketing initiatives that have helped push business to a new level.
Building a global presence through strategic partnerships
iLOQ revels in its role of challenger and disruptor, but we will never accept being a small player. We are always thinking as a leader. This attitude and mentality is a part of the iLOQ corporate culture. Ambition is a part of our DNA. Identifying and leveraging strategic business and marketing partnerships has helped open doors for new business opportunities and build brand awareness. Aligning iLOQ with partners that have a strong presence on the global stage has elevated us to a whole new level in terms of visibility, credibility and reputation.
Aligning with partners that have a strong presence on the global stage has elevated us to a whole new level in terms of visibility, credibility and reputation.”
Joni Lampinen, CMO, iLOQ
The Kimi Räikkönen cooperation was something truly unique. Not only did he give iLOQ access to the world stage, but he also became an integral part of iLOQ’s internal culture and operations. From the very start, we knew we wanted this partnership to belong to everyone at iLOQ. The year-long internal “Race to 100 million” engagement was a great example of how something like this, when executed well, can really bring an international organization together. Ambitious business goals and strategic activities were built into a racing season, with checkpoints along the way and showstopping podium presentations held at a company-wide celebration at the Bay Arena in Leverkusen, Germany. The event at Leverkusen also served as the ideal event to wish Kimi a fruitful retirement.
The partnership with the Bundesliga team – Bayer 04 Leverkusen – has its roots in a successful business relationship that also gave rise to a marketing partnership. It will help give visibility and networking opportunities for iLOQ both in Germany and also internationally. After all, football is perhaps the most universal of all sports, and the German league one of the best in the world.
Making the most of the digital marketing realm
But as we gain more exposure and our reputation grows, it is up to us to be able to back up our claims and live up to ever-growing expectations. This means that our segment and product marketing has to be able to deliver the proof-points and information related to the added value and customer benefits we claim. This is why iLOQ has systematically continued to develop its digital capabilities in marketing and sales alike. This has meant investments into our digital marketing channels and marketing automation capabilities. The development of our ROI-based marketing strategy has even included hiring the company’s first data analyst solely for the purpose of making our sales and marketing activities more and more data-driven.
As a born-digital company we want to make sure we are leveraging all of the latest technology and opportunities in all business functions.”
Joni Lampinen, CMO, iLOQ
Building our digital capabilities has not just been about building a strong presence in social media, but we have made sure that out digital channels and platforms are fully integrated. We can follow the path of a potential customer all the way from, for example, LinkedIn to our website and ultimately into our CRM. We can check if this lead was ever contacted and whether it resulted in a sale or not. This type of intelligence will continue to help us refine our actions and make sure we are getting a true return on our investments into marketing. As a born-digital company, we want to make sure we are leveraging all of the latest technology and opportunities in all business functions, not just in product and solution development. This has meant adding the latest technology such as Microsoft Azure into our arsenal.
Developing regional marketing and sales capabilities for the future
The third big leap in iLOQ’s marketing capabilities in 2021 became a reality through some organizational changes. To ensure a stronger marketing presence with appropriate targeted content and actions in different geographical markets, iLOQ set up several Area Marketing Manager positions responsible for local activities in the Nordics, Central and Southern Europe and iLOQ’s new markets and export countries with no local sales office. These dedicated market-specific marketing operations will help support local business, and also help raise iLOQ as a whole in a way that centralized marketing from the company HQ could never achieve.
As a technology company with ambitious growth goals, we have opened multiple new country offices every year. Looking forward, we aim to keep up the pace. We have recently hired our first employee in Dubai, in the UAE, and are in the process of opening our first sales office in Poland. And to make sure we are able to continue serving a growing customer base outside of the countries and regions with iLOQ sales offices, we have also strengthened our Export Team in numbers. We are looking forward to yet another year of international growth and expansion and will continue to work on ensuring that our marketing tools, practices and efforts will support our continued success.