Helping Network Managers Sell to Business Managers

Strangeloop Networks is a start up that builds acceleration appliances that automatically optimize web applications in real time without the need to add code to the website or make infrastructure changes to the network.  Stangeloop’s appliances dramatically improve user response times, increase application performance and server throughput, and reduce bandwidth requirements.

The small marketing team lacked content development resources.  They needed better sales tools because their target customer was no longer the technical pioneer enthusiast – they were now selling to larger companies who needed business justification, and needed collaterals to help their champions (the network managers) make the business case to line of business managers. 

I wrote two white papers that highlighted how a slow website could impact business, especially for e-tailers.  The first white paper required finding data – reports, statistics and analyses – that could quantify the cost of downtime and poor response time.  To accompany the white paper, I also developed a spreadsheet that could be used as a sales tool to help customers calculate the cost of lost business opportunities and open up business level discussions.  In keeping with Strangeloop’s new strategy of selling to business managers, I also updated their web site content to emphasize business benefits rather than technology.