National Center for the Middle Market

Key Takeaway

This case story describes our 13+ year marketing relationship with the nation’s leading research center focused exclusively on the U.S. middle market.

A collaboration between The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, Chubb Insurance and Visa, the National Center for the Middle Market is the leading source of knowledge and innovative research on the middle market of the U.S. economy. Rattleback has been the Center’s brand, thought leadership and digital agency since the Center launched in 2011. Since then, we have helped the Center grow from a fledgling entity marketing an unknown concept into a nationally recognized institution that has authored the largest body of research and insight on the critical U.S. middle market economy. Specifically, we’ve partnered with the Center to:

Phase 1: Establishing the Brand

The Obstacle

No Brand or Web Presence

The National Center for the Middle Market launched in October 2011 at the first Middle Market Summit, hosted by GE and CNBC. At the event, the Center shared the first definitive research describing the makeup of the U.S. Middle Market and the unique characteristics of high growth companies. The launch was historic, with massive national media exposure. But afterward, the Center went quiet – at least online. People could find information on the Summit, but it was impossible to find anything on the Center. The leadership team quickly became worried that it was losing much of the initial energy and momentum created by its offline launch.

The Solution

Build An Interim Web Presence and Establish a Unique Brand Identity

While the long-term vision was a robust thought leadership platform designed to attract and engage middle market executives, the Center desperately needed an interim solution. Rattleback built the interim website in just eight weeks and helped the Center launch online in January 2012.

At the same time, the Center’s leaders recognized the need to have its own independent voice and brand, distinct from its founding sponsors (GE Capital and Fisher College of Business). Having launched so quickly, the Center’s initial brand was a mash-up, combining visual assets and fonts from both its sponsors. The Center needed a logo and messaging platform that were distinctly its own and the resulting independent brand and endorsement strategy have proven to be critical steps as the Center’s sponsors have changed over time.

Phase 2: Developing a Thought Leadership Publishing Platform

The Obstacle

Introduce an Unknown Audience to Newly Available Research

From day one, the Center had an ambitious thought leadership plan with nearly $1 million worth of annual research initiatives already on the agenda. Even while recognizing the need to create a quick interim site, the Center was already looking ahead and thinking about the more substantial web platform it would need to present its research and effectively attract and engage middle market leaders.

The Solution

Develop a Conversion-Based Website

Rattleback helped the Center develop a web platform that would enable it to both build an audience for its thought leadership and learn from the behaviors of that audience. The Center wanted a data-driven solution that could deliver intelligent insight about the interests of the middle market, quantify its reach into middle market companies, and provide an indicator of its level of engagement with executives.

We created the comprehensive web platform and helped the Center launch in October 2012. With its delivery came more in-depth analytics including visibility into who was consuming what content, which content was leading to the best interactions, and insight into engagement and performance of the Center’s many forms of thought leadership, including research reports, economic indicators, blog posts, and videos.

Phase 3: Driving Thought Leadership

The Obstacle

Attraction Is High, But Engagement Is Low

From the beginning, the Center and Rattleback recognized translating the Center’s substantial research activities into elegant thought leadership content would be critical to success. Initial data from the website showed us which content was proving most valuable, and which wasn’t gaining traction. Our focus became making the Center’s thought leadership easy for middle market executives to interact with so they could put the insights to work in their organizations.

The Solution

Making Content EASIER TO INTERACT WITH

Research Publishing
Rattleback helped the Center build an “end-to-end” digital strategy around each research release with digitally-native assets that present the information in different ways to engage learners when, where and how they learn. We split each research story into a series of key findings, blog content, and social posts that all point to a long-form research report in both HTML and PDF formats. The resulting content collection engages visitors with a wide range of learning styles and formats. For the Center’s signature content experience, the Middle Market Indicator, we supplemented the story with industry infographics and an interactive trending tool.

Interactive Tools
To unlock the vast library of peer data inside each of the Center’s in-depth research studies, Rattleback helped the Center develop a variety of interactive tools that enable middle market leaders to interact with the Center’s data. To date, tools have been developed that allow leaders to benchmark their working capital management, executive compensation packages, supply chain resiliency, or overall company performance.

Overall Success