It takes a particular set of skills to be a CFO. You need a keen analytical mind. You need to be able to focus on minutiae and dive deep into the data.

What you don’t need — at least until recently — is to be a captivating public speaker.

But the role of the CFO is changing. Modern CFOs can take a more strategic role in the business, using their mastery of data to help steer the entire organization.

To do that, though, they need the ability to communicate their findings in a clear and compelling way. Their finance presentations need to be dynamic, engaging, and designed to get action.

Prophix, a finance software provider, is dedicated to helping CFOs do more with their finance data. They wanted to create a campaign that helped CFOs become more strategic leaders, and help equip finance leaders with presentation skills to take on that role.

They tasked our team with creating a robust, influencer-driven content piece that would reach CFOs who were interested in improving their presentation skills, simultaneously creating brand affinity and credibility for Prophix.

Deep-Dive Influencer Content for Added Value

Prophix and TopRank Marketing have a history of innovative campaigns that get results. The first was an interactive, illustrated game. The second added influencer audio and a computer-generated AI voice to the mix.

For the new campaign, we wanted to provide even more value to Prophix’s desired audience and give experts in the field a chance to share their expertise and insights. Inspired by the “TED Talk” phenomenon, we created Pro Talks, a long-form video series. Instead of brief influencer contributions, each video would be a deep dive into practical instruction, a seamless mini-lecture from a single Expert.

Content Creation Outside the Comfort Zone

We researched keywords and topic clusters to create concepts for each video. Then we recorded our finance and public speaking experts via high-definition video chat.

In our experience, many experts are more comfortable in an interview setting, rather than simply delivering an unprompted monologue. However, we wanted to ensure that our experts and their insights were the stars of each episode. So, after some research and tweaking, we ultimately chose a guided Q&A-style format to shepherd our experts into sharing deeper, more practical insights.

After recording, we edited the videos, added effects, music, and B-reel to have an amazing finished product. Now we needed to make sure people saw it.

Pro Talks Pro-motion

We built an SEO-optimized Finance Presentation Tips Page to attract an organic search audience. That page serves multiple purposes:

• Provide further value to the audience
• Highlight Prophix’s thought leadership
• Feature quotes from influencers
• House a teaser video and CTA to the series.

The Pro Talks page itself uses a single gate to unlock all the content on the page. We launched with two videos on board, then added the other 4 in groups of two as they were completed. This multi-stage rollout allowed for more influencer activation and brand promotion than a single announcement would have.

We equipped each expert with customized social media images, teaser video and messaging to make sharing easy.

We also provided Prophix with custom assets to aid in their paid and organic social media efforts. And we supported it all with additional content for the Prophix blog.

What Were the Results?

Thanks to highly-valuable long-form content, influencer activation and strategic promotion, the campaign dramatically exceeded benchmarks:

• 60% of viewers watched over two minutes per video, versus 40% industry standard.
• An average of 42% of viewers completed each 7-9 minute video.
• Video content drove a conversion rate 200% higher than benchmark, with 148% higher form fills than benchmark.
• Leads captured included multiple enterprise-level CFOs, the very heart of Prophix’s most-desired audience.

Thanks to long-form, in-depth content from trusted experts, Prophix succeeded at providing value for their target CFO audience. In addition, the experts had the opportunity to showcase their expertise. A multi-stage rollout, supporting content assets, and paid plus organic promotion all added up to performance that far exceeded benchmarks for page views, video views, and lead generation.

Ready to Drive Engagement with Influential Content?

Let us lend you a helping hand. Learn more about our B2B content marketing services and B2B influencer marketing services. Or get in touch with us today.