Expanding acquisition for enterprise records management software

A difficult market to reach

The company provides electronic records management software — the systems organizations rely on to capture, govern, retain and retrieve their records. The objective was straightforward to state and hard to achieve: significantly increase the client base while improving acquisition efficiency.

The buying environment made that difficult:

• the market was highly specialized, with a small pool of genuinely relevant buyers
• many buyers operated in regulated environments
• consideration periods were long
• the relevant decision makers were hard to reach through broad channels
• requirements spanned compliance, security and information management, so buyers evaluated carefully

In a market like this, broad targeting wastes budget quickly. The work had to begin with a precise picture of who buys.

Mapping the market first

Before any campaign ran, the market and audience were mapped. Target organizations clustered into a handful of sectors where records management is a genuine operational and regulatory concern:

Within those organizations, the people involved in evaluating and approving a records management system came from IT, records and compliance functions. Campaigns were aligned to the most relevant roles for each theme rather than aimed at every title at once.

Where the demand really was

Competitive and search research examined competitor websites, competitor advertising and competitor landing pages, alongside keyword demand and commercial intent — using Google Keyword Planner, Semrush and Ahrefs.

The research shaped which intent to pursue. Beyond the broad category, the campaign themes that emerged centered on specific needs — implementation, audit requirements and Microsoft SharePoint, a platform central to how many organizations manage information.

Campaign architecture

Search campaigns were organized into tightly themed campaigns and ad groups, so that each cluster of intent received its own ads and landing experience. Representative themes included:

Each theme was built from real search behavior. The SharePoint consultant theme, for example, captured queries such as sharepoint consultant, sharepoint implementation consultant, sharepoint online consultant and sharepoint intranet consultants — buyers describing a concrete need rather than browsing a category.

Messaging for careful buyers

Regulated buyers are risk-averse, so the messaging leaned on the things they needed to trust: experience, implementation quality, productivity, compliance, privacy, security and enterprise support.

• “Save time, increase productivity and achieve comprehensive security and compliance.”
• “Deliver large-scale digital transformation and compliance.”
• “Access an expert team to deploy, manage and support Microsoft SharePoint.”

Follow the evidence

Once campaigns were live, performance analysis did the steering. Three signals stood out:

1. Geography mattered. Certain regional markets substantially outperformed others, so investment was increased in the higher-performing regions.
2. Some pages converted disproportionately. Specific landing pages were contributing far more than their share of conversions.
3. Content was doing commercial work. Particular blog articles were contributing to conversions, not just traffic.

Budget and campaign structure were adjusted around these signals — more investment where the evidence was strongest, less where it was not.

What changed

A precisely mapped audience, intent-led campaign architecture, messaging built for cautious buyers and disciplined reallocation toward what was working combined to grow the client base substantially while lowering the cost of acquiring each new client.