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Ad Hoc Helps StarTek Execute Market Penetration Strategy
StarTek, Inc. (NYSE: SRT), Denver, Colo., was getting little recognition from analysts or from industry press despite being a $250 million dollar organization and one of the leaders in the field of Business Process Outsourcing and Optimization (BPO) services for outsourced customer interactions.
StarTek's services fall into three main solutions. Customer management consists of predominantly inbound calls -- including sales and bundled sales, up-sell/cross-sell services and traditional customer care elements. Back-office support services include support for various back-office functions. Contact center optimization services, which can be standalone or bridge across multiple environments, and include workforce management, call management, and professional services.
The Challenge
Recognition by analysts and industry press was critical for the company to expand in its current business and to expand to new vertical markets, so company officials decided they needed the help of a new public relations firm to gain more public recognition than they could with the current public relations firm and a one-person internal marketing staff. Competitors have larger in-house staffs and extensive public relations budgets, spending about twice as much on marketing as StarTek.
"We were reducing our seven-person marketing team down to one so that we could better utilize best-in-breed partners to help us achieve our marketing goals," says Matt Brekke, Director of Marketing.
StarTek looked locally first, but didn't find any public relations companies that had the expertise to work with a BPO services firm.
"It's a very specialized field," Brekke says. "Previously we were using reactive public relations, we were not able to focus on a proactive outreach."
The Solution: Ad Hoc Communications
An internal colleague referred Brekke to Ad Hoc Communications Resources, Omaha, Neb. The colleague had worked with Ad Hoc in the past, with exceptional results. So Brekke contacted Ad Hoc and held several telephone discussions to discuss the firm's public relation expertise and how Ad Hoc could help StarTek.
When Ad Hoc flew in for an in-house strategy session, Brekke was sold. During that session, Ad Hoc impressed Brekke and other StarTek officials by identifying niche markets the company needed to target and identifying public relations strategies the strategies to handle the company's other challenges.
Specifically, Ad Hoc helped StarTek conduct industry analyst tours, developed a comprehensive pro-active media outreach strategy and coordinated solution branding and packaging. Ad Hoc was instrumental in helping brand a service that the company has been offering for eight years for the back-office space: complex BPO and provisioning, now known as StarTek's "Intelligent Enterprise Solution."
Ad Hoc also helped develop corporate message as well as sales support and marketing materials for StarTek.
"The analyst tours have been effective for us," Brekke says. Where analysts were largely unaware of StarTek in the past, now a handful of analysts follow the firm. The analyst coverage helps legitimize the firm in the market.
"We weren't on the radar of our targeted companies," Brekke adds. "Ad Hoc helped us with our strategy of increasing our overall strategy of increasing mind share."
The Results
The return has been outstanding. The internal perception of marketing went from what StarTek executives called an ineffective cost center to one of the most productive and efficient departments in the company, according to Brekke.
Since hiring Ad Hoc, StarTek achieved an amazing 1,200% ROI on the analyst tours Ad Hoc facilitated, has had hundreds of articles in the media resulting in over 5 million impressions and nearly $1 million of publicity gained. The value of the publicity is based on what it would have cost StarTek in advertising dollars to gain the same media space. This is significantly higher than the entire marketing budget for 2006.
StarTek's corporate reputation tonality score of 4.3 in 2005 improved positively to 8.7 (10 is the top score) as a result of the 2006 outreach.
By re-branding and re-releasing services that StarTek provided for a major communications client, the company was able to secure a new, million dollar plus contract with Comcast, the largest cable company in North America, and fill its pipeline with potential new business prospects projected at $10-$20 million.
Success breeds success. As a result of the Comcast contract, StarTek has "countless" new opportunities, according to Brekke. "The ROI is ongoing.
"Ad Hoc has surpassed our expectations not only from a Marketing/PR perspective but from a company as a whole," Brekke says. "They have been able to work one on one with each department adding value and strategic thinking that translates into results. They are able to adapt to a company culture and become a seamless extension of the business with a great understanding of the market for which we reside in and the industries for which we serve. We couldn't be more pleased with this relationship."
Therefore, Brekke expects to see the relationship expanding as StarTek continues to grow in its market.
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