Case Study: OVH

OVH is one of the largest, most well-known brands of web hosting in Europe; however, in the U.S.A. it is far less known. OVH had plans to open up a fully owned subsidiary within the U.S.A., subject to the country’s laws, plus offering a slightly different set of products. A new management team is at the helm that has a history of offering supported products, which OVH does not offer in Europe. OVH US is set to launch into a market where it is relatively unknown, with a different product set than it is known for in Europe, so cannot lean heavily on Europe in targeting its key demographic

OVH US understood the importance of correctly positioning themselves in the U.S.A. marketplace. They hired Ernst & Young to provide a broad overview of the industry, along with a series of interviews from key decision makers within it. The overall results drew a picture of an extremely broad IT market to focus on within the U.S.A.; this information was useful for understanding the new market, but didn’t give the company an idea of where to start acquiring customers. The question became: When your target is ‘medium enterprise IT’, what does that ultimately mean? Open Eye answered this question through a deeper, data driven analysis of both those interviews, and a series of subsequent interviews that established key growth verticals within that broad segment. Those verticals could be used to do more targeted, effective market research.

Open Eye was able to take those growth verticals, and dug even deeper. We talked to influencers and decision makers within that vertical, to gather specific data on how they made buying decisions.

During these interviews, we also uncovered where people in our targeted growth verticals went for information, what messaging they responded to, and how they specifically interacted with infrastructure. From these insights, we fashioned that composite information into a series of buyer personas, which serve as a fully fleshed out picture of an ‘ideal customer’ for OVH US. When cultivating the company’s message, they can now direct it towards specific individuals. These individuals don’t represent the entirety of the target market, but rather they represent the ‘center of the bulls-eye’ that OVH US can shoot for when planning and executing communications.

OVH US is set to launch in September. They now have a list of relevant influencers, including community forums, tradeshows, and advertising targets they can use that will put them in direct engagement with the top influencers, in the most expanding sub-markets, within their target demographic. By knowing exactly who they are speaking to, they have set themselves up for quick success. They are currently engaged with Open Eye to assist with additional aspects of their launch plan