Firefly fuels PR campaign with analyst relations insight

Task

Analysts are an important stakeholder for technology companies. There are over 40 technology analyst firms in the UK, with around a dozen covering the IT infrastructure space.

The likes of Gartner, Forrester and IDC are the power-house analyst houses, with thousands of staff covering a global IT market. More specialist and/or boutique analysts, such as TechMarketView and Quocirca offer a strong independent view and are equally sought after.

Having undergone a name change, CenturyLink Technology Solutions wanted to increase awareness amongst the analyst community in EMEA, communicating its proposition as a comprehensive global IT managed services provider, working across virtual, dedicated and colocation platforms.

Execution

After previous web-ex briefings, Firefly planned a breakfast event for analysts at London’s Langham Hotel with speakers from both CenturyLink Technology Solutions’ EMEA executive team and also corporate head office in St Louis, Missouri.

Analysts were carefully selected from all major UK analyst houses to attend a two hour briefing where they would be taken through a company update and solutions roadmap. Analysts would also be offered one-to-one briefings following the event if they wanted to discuss a particular topic in more detail with one of the speakers or a chance to ask their own questions.

A CenturyLink Technology Solutions customer joined the briefing to speak on the importance of partnering to achieve goals such as business transformation.

impact

Five analysts attended the event and four follow up briefings were scheduled for those who couldn’t attend, meaning eight analyst houses were briefed overall. Firefly organised the event from start to finish; booking a venue, compiling the presentation deck, managing the invitations and ensuring the speakers were fully briefed on the attendees.

A number of analysts committed to incorporating elements from the presentation into future reports. The analyst event was incorporated into the ongoing PR plan and activity for CenturyLink Technology Solutions, helping to strengthen analyst relations and their understanding of the business and all the latest news.