Microsoft

Building a world’s worth of content for the Microsoft Partner Program

Johnnie Studio works as a content strategy and creation vendor for Microsoft’s GPE (GTM Programs and Experiences) division, which serves more than 600,000 technology partners across the world. From landing pages and emails to advanced attribution strategy, blog domain builds, and usability testing, the Johnnie team works with more than 100 Microsoft clients across nearly every aspect of the company’s global partner experience.


Meeting the challenge

When we first began our work in mid-2019, the obvious challenges were scale and complexity. The GPE Partner program has dozens of unique content needs every single month, ranging from one-off push notifications to highly complex automated content personalization frameworks—most of which are tied to firm engineering deadlines and require precise, coordinated launches. That’s where our Microsoft strategic leads shine: How are we able to best serve so many client needs, across so many products and programs, on such short timeframes?


Custom solutions

Reaching that kind of output—especially across a wide range of unique content disciplines—doesn’t happen with off-the-shelf solutions. That’s where our unique approach to content production comes into play.

    • For starters, we follow our mantra of avoiding an account layer in our staffing model. Instead of shuttering strategic minds behind a top-level account messenger, we embed high-level strategists and creatives directly into Microsoft’s flow of business without moving them off of executional work. That way, clients always have direct access to the individuals who can quickly update copy, talk through design standards, or troubleshoot a newfound strategic initiative. This drastically reduces review timeframes and expedites the overall creative process.

 

    • Next, we double-down on our core operational methodology: We source a deep network of contract content producers who specialize in the technology industry and business audiences. That way, as work intensity ebbs and flows, we seamlessly flex with it by overflowing into a broad pool of talent on standby for exactly those moments. This ensures that when the client is overwhelmed with internal needs, vendor management doesn’t have to be one of them.

 

    • Part of controlling for scale is advanced process tracking. Our project management team operates a custom workflow, combining agile and traditional methodology, that is tailored specifically to Microsoft’s needs. Our project management team tracks every single deliverable, complete with an automated client-facing schedule that pulls real-time project status data. Working in Microsoft’s existing ticket-tracking tool, we report on deliverable status and volume based on mutually agreed upon custom success metrics.

 

    • Lastly, we own the complexity of the GPE organization’s unique audiences and niche programs. Today’s audiences—be it individual consumers or businesses—can sense a lack of topical mastery. So we work to build messaging frameworks and content strategies that take months of research and a deep understanding of the common (cloud hosting services) and the arcane (edge technology we won’t make you read here). This audience demands content on their level. We give it to them.


Measuring results

The result of all this hard work? Over the course of our partnership, we have produced over 900 unique content deliverables. That’s an average of 2.6 finalized deliverables every single business day, across a wide variety of disciplines. We have become an engine of efficiency: in one three-month span, our flexible model helped us produce 172 percent more deliverables than we were scoped for. Backed by our wide network of industry and format specialists, we remain able to constantly flex to meet a wide variety of content needs:

  • A/B testing strategies and master testing frameworks
  • Multi-email nurture strategy, copy, and design
  • SEO strategy (keyword research, competitive analysis, content recommendations)
  • Messaging and positioning frameworks
  • Original site CMS component design
  • Editorial calendars and publishing cadence
  • Original video production and animation
  • Design usability studies
  • Media performance plans
  • Internal sales guides and documentation
  • Monthly newsletter strategy, copy, and design
  • Webpage rebuilds and updates
  • Embedded web conversion forms and trigger comms
  • Community forum posts
  • Blog copy and original domain design
  • Social media content (paid and organic)
  • Paid media content, including original animation
  • Infographics and white papers

 

Our work with the GPE organization is more than just a large-scale content operation—it is a content engine worthy of the largest technological supply chain in the world, and has since embedded us with additional clients and workstreams all across the world. It’s the kind of work we were born to do. And our clients would agree.

“The team at Johnnie Studio is extremely dedicated to their work and have illustrated a keen ability to help our team drive business results through their strategic creative execution,” said Emily Hendrickson, Senior Partner Content Strategist. “They have been able to quickly and successfully navigate the scale and complexity of our work whilst still somehow raising the bar on the quality of creative delivered. Hands-down they are one of the best creative agencies I have had the opportunity to work with.”