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Valid in conversation with around 60 of the 150 target housing associations after one year

After one year in conversation with around 60 of the 150 associations on the target list.

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Valid

Valid provides IT consultancy and outsourced IT management. The commercial challenge: getting in at housing associations where several people share in the decision and a change of supplier rarely happens. Just waiting for search traffic or asking directly for a meeting was not enough.

We chose structural visibility with a defined group of associations, combined with personal invitations to in-depth sessions. Not constantly reaching new people, but staying relevant to the same organisations.

  • Mapped decision makers and influencers per association.
  • Developed different questions and topics per decision layer.
  • Translated sector research and interviews into pages, articles and campaigns.
  • Had sales send invitations from the same target list.
  • Linked responses and attendance to the target organisations.
Selected associations
Relevant decision makers
Sector-specific content and personal invitations
Conversations

The decision moment is rare and barely visible from the outside

According to Valid, organisations usually switch suppliers for outsourced IT management once every five to seven years. For consultancy that is different. Anyone relying solely on search traffic has to be present exactly when an association is exploring options.

At the same time, IT managers are approached constantly. Yet another sales message gives little reason to respond. Valid had to show it understood the sector, both to the technical specialists and to the people who decide on continuity, risk and governance.

Not just the IT manager, but the entire decision process in view

Valid chose housing associations based on its own strategic plan. We then researched how that market could be reached and which people influence the choice of an IT partner.

We also mapped supervisory board members, alongside directors, IT managers and specialists. Sector sources such as the Corporatiegids and the VTW Academy course catalogue made their agenda concrete. Per role we recorded questions, concerns and information needs. A director was therefore not served a technical story, but content about, for example, risk management and continuity.

01

Director

Highest decision maker. Looks not at the technology but at the business outcome: governance, risk management, continuity and the strategic roadmap.

02

IT manager

Content decision maker and technical gatekeeper. Bombarded daily and wants to conclude for himself that he wants to sit down with you.

03

Supervisory board

Board of commissioners or chair of the supervisory board, a very topical body at housing associations. This layer came out of the research.

Approach

STEP 01

First decide what the market needs to know, then interview your own experts

The knowledge is already in the company: interviews with in-house specialists produce content a copywriter cannot make up.

We researched how competitors presented themselves and which information Valid itself needed to offer to be compared properly. That analysis partly shaped the structure of the sector page.

Next, we wrote interview questions for consultants and analysts, aimed at the gaps in the research. Their practical knowledge fed the articles and content calendar: not posts about new software features, but about decisions and problems at housing associations. The interviewees checked the content. This created a stock that was still not exhausted after a year of publishing.

STEP 02

One target list for visibility and personal contact

With a defined list of 150 to 200 associations, every addition counts; an IT manager will soon be at a wishlist account.

We linked the selected associations to their LinkedIn company pages and mapped the relevant people per organisation. This let ads and personal outreach target the same organisations.

The content stayed visible through several ads at once. Well-performing ads kept running, even when nothing new appeared for a while. Besides the company page, content was published by Nancy, an experienced IT specialist at Valid who was already known in the sector. That gave the content a recognisable sender.

STEP 03

Give sales a substantive reason to invite someone

It is not about the number of webinar attendees, but about what happens with those people afterwards.

The contact list was used for personal invitations from sales, via email and LinkedIn. Webinars and round tables offered a reason to talk without immediately asking for a change of supplier. Valid organised the sessions and provided the content; we supported with audience selection, promotion and invitations.

Our role did not stop at registration. When phone follow-up after a webinar sometimes took longer than fourteen days, we raised it. Especially with this hard-to-reach target group, follow-up is part of the commercial challenge.

STEP 04

Seeing which organisations respond, not just how many people click

Measure what can be measured: signals from target organisations, not proof of buying intent.

We built a report that linked paid and organic LinkedIn engagement to the target list. For webinars we looked at new and returning attendees and the associations they worked for.

We also added tracking codes to campaign links. This made it possible to link visits to the campaign contact when company recognition only showed an internet provider. That gave activity commercial context: which target organisations are responding? That is information to work with, not proof that someone wants to buy.

STEP 05

More enquiries was not always the right outcome

When you open the tap, you sometimes have to mop. Follow-up capacity determines what makes commercial sense.

In an early phase, a broad campaign generated more enquiries than sales could handle during internal changes. We paused that campaign.

That was no reason to buy even more traffic or scale the campaign further. Follow-up capacity determined what made commercial sense. By taking that limit into account, we steered not only on what marketing could deliver, but also on what Valid could do with it.

STEP 06

The second sector did not start from scratch

Build the first vertical as a blueprint; the second then takes a fraction of the effort.

Once the housing association approach was running, we chose industry as the next market together with Valid. The broader commercial goals called for expansion beyond the first sector.

We used the existing approach as a blueprint: the same setup for audience analysis, content and targeted distribution, filled in again for the other market. So we did not have to rethink how research, content and campaigns should connect. The process was in place; the sector content changed.

Result

Conversations with the target associations, with an approach that keeps running

After a year, Valid was in conversation with about 60 of the roughly 150 associations on the target list. At a later housing association webinar, eleven associations attended; this led to at least one conversation about working together. Valid also said it was more often seen as a sector specialist.

Something lasting was also in place: mapped decision layers, sector pages, a large content stock and an approach that had already been extended to industry. The source case describes ongoing conversations and processes. The commercial meaning is concrete: Valid spoke with organisations that are hard to reach and are not constantly looking for a new IT partner. The approach brought visibility and personal contact together within the same target group.

~60of around 150 target organisations in conversation after one year
21associations attended a later webinar
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