SailPoint
A leader in the fast-growing identity and access management industry set its sights on a public offering to acquire the capital it needed to further accelerate growth.
SailPoint disrupted the fast-growing identity and access management industry with a superior product and singular focus that contrasted sharply with the inferior and ineffective solutions offered by large enterprise software companies. Despite its position as the worldwide leader, the company began to struggle to connect with large corporate buyers, who didn’t prioritize identity management as a critical IT need. As the company’s CEO set his sight on an IPO, he sought a way to demonstrate to clients and investors alike that SailPoint occupied a unique and differentiated position in an increasingly competitive space.
We conducted in-depth interviews with SailPoint executives as well as customers, along with an employee survey and competitive analysis. We learned customers were confused by the range of terms used to describe the category—identity access, identity management, identify governance, to name a few. They viewed investing in these solutions as a necessary cost of doing business securely, and were generally content to accept the access management components provided by the major enterprise software companies as part of the solutions bundle. Competitive messaging was almost exclusively of the “fear, uncertainty and doubt” (FUD) variety.
We recommended that, rather than defining itself by the category in which it played, SailPoint tell a larger story about what it does and, more importantly, what it enables clients to do. This led to an inspiring brand built around the notion of what companies can achieve when they harness the full power of identity. By positioning identity management as a business accelerator—rather than simply a cost of doing business – the SailPoint brand brings to life the ways companies can take advantage of growth opportunities, embrace new technologies, forge new partnerships and expand to new markets with complete confidence. The “power of identity” concept informed the entire new brand, from audience-segmented messaging to a powerful visual identity and a compelling demand generation campaign that spotlight the power of identity to make security a lever for business success.
Shortly after the brand launched, Gartner moved SailPoint into its coveted “leaders” quadrant, citing the company’s new messaging as a prime cause of the shift. The company garnered more than 90 positive media mentions in the months following the brand launch, a 60% year-over-year increase. It received more than 1,000 form submissions from its website, a 275% increase in qualified leads. This positive reception led to an oversubscribed IPO, which raised over $1 billion. Five years later, the company was purchased by a private equity firm at a valuation of $6.9 billion.
We immediately saw measurable results across site traffic, search rankings, demo requests, conversion rate and brand awareness—and high praise from Gartner, all leading to a high-valuation IPO.