How a thought leadership strategy transformed Blu Wireless into a defence market leader in the UK and USA

Blu Wireless, a specialist in millimetre wave technology, wanted to enter a new market to them: defence. And not only that, they needed to grow reach in the US market, as well as the UK.

Director of Marketing at Blu Wireless, Ciara Barron, chats with EC-PR Senior Account Manager, James Young, about how they’ve used a customer-centric communication strategy and executive thought leadership to accelerate growth.

Ciara relays some of the challenges and successes in running an impactful thought leadership strategy from within a ‘deep tech company’. This will be relatable and insightful for other B2B tech firms looking to maximise their marketing impact.

A full video transcript is available below.

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A transcript of the interview

James Young: We’re very fortunate to have with us. Ciara Barron, the Marketing Director of Blu Wireless. Welcome, Ciara.

Ciara Barron: Thank you very much, James

James: Did you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Ciara: Sure, I’ve been working with Blu Wireless for seven years. I’m the Director of Marketing there, and Blu Wireless is a specialist in mmWave technology. We’re based out of Bristol. We also have an office in Florida. Any applications that need quite large amounts of data, we create systems to serve connectivity needs of those applications. We work into some complex markets that are quite niche, across defence, high speed transport, a little bit of motor sport, and the design testing validation is also done in Bristol. And recently, we’ve rolled out alongside Nomad Digital and Alstom, gigabit internet network to Caltrain running through Silicon Valley in California. So that’s quite exciting! If you’ve travelled on a train in the UK recently, you’ll know the need for reliable internet on a train. So that’s quite big news for us recently.

James: Indeed, that’s good stuff. So during this session, you’ll be sharing some of your journey, your insights and some of the strategies that have really helped you position Blu Wireless as an industry leader. So, we’ll jump in. Tell me, can you share a specific moment or a situation when you realised Blu Wireless just wasn’t getting the visibility that it deserved? I mean, was there a trigger that made you think we need a change in our PR approach?

Ciara: Well, specifically with defence, we were targeting an entirely new market. We knew that the traditional routes to market weren’t going to really cut the mustard. Our understanding from the sales team and the commercial team was that this sector is a very tightly knit community, with a really long sales cycle and procurement cycle sometimes. It was all about gaining trust and providing value to these customers. We needed to figure out how we were going to connect to them globally. That was where we started to think, okay, we need to change our focus. And, yeah, we need a new route to achieve that.

James: Understood! Thinking back, what was the initial approach that EC-PR took you through to understand Blu Wireless positioning and objectives? How did they really ensure that the approach was truly aligned with your business goals?

Ciara: Well, firstly, Lorraine and I had an initial kind of discovery call to understand the business strategies and the goals. We spoke about Blu Wireless’s challenges and the fact that we were relatively unknown in the defence sector. It was an entirely new sector to us.

Firstly, we needed to catch the attention of this audience, then try to make them listen to us and also trust that what we were saying is what they needed and wanted to hear. No mean feat, having never worked in that sector before. Once we covered the overview of what we’d been doing up to that point, then we needed to really focus our attention on the specific markets that we were going after. We set up a workshop with the wider team, including my six month old baby, as I was nursing at the time. In between nappy changes and a few cuddles, we split our markets out. We highlighted the key people that we wanted to speak to within each sector. Then the focus was really about digging in to what made them tick in their day to day roles, and what kept them awake at night? What are their key challenges, concerns? That’s where we might spend probably most of our time.

And then EC-PR probed us continuously to get to the crux of what those pain points were. By the end, we almost knew what they’re eating for breakfast. That was quite a long, laborious, not laborious, but just a long, detailed, I would say, process. It definitely does really help you get an understanding of who you’re speaking to. After that, we had enough material to work out a proposition which is really important, because obviously that needs to resonate, and then that’s where we would hang all our messaging from.

It needed to be a very concise positioning statement. We had to be very disciplined in what we wanted to say, because the temptation is to say, and we do this, and, and, and, but actually you’re just diluting the message by doing that. We needed it to be very direct and really connect with the personas that we were creating on that day.

Following that, it was fairly easy to build out the messaging, and that’s where I kind of focused my attention to flesh out that messaging. I spent a lot of time writing, refining and testing these messages. Not only testing them within our department, but also testing them with the commercial team and with customers as well. Validating, just to make sure that those statements connected with them. A meaty piece of work, but really worth it, because it’s the foundation for all of our communications. Then we go back on a regular basis to refine and review and to make sure it is still working.

James: Okay, good stuff! Thinking about those barriers, the internal barriers, many marketing leaders really struggle with senior managers skepticism around the value of PR. My question is, did you face any resistance when presenting the initial idea of thought leadership?

Ciara: I think the best approach is baby steps. Often, when you decide or think of somebody in your business that would be suitable to become the thought leader, the idea of being in the spotlight often sets off alarm bells because it really puts them out of their comfort zone. I would say, start slowly, ensure that you’re asking the right questions, but at the same time, when you are speaking with thought leaders, just allow them to have enough space to really flow and kind of open up all of the ins and outs of their experience. Just be willing to listen to that, because often in those conversations the little nuggets of information you could hang your title of, like a really engaging blog or a white paper can trigger something that’s quite inspiring for your next piece of content. It’s in those kind of conversations, not always trying to rush your own agenda, to answer a lot of questions, but allowing that space to kind of have a discussion and really get an understanding of that thought leader’s experience. I think that’s quite important.

James: How did you overcome things? Was there something specific that helped you convince them?

Ciara: I think by taking the influence and experience of the business with the products, first and foremost, then understanding the customer and the customer’s challenges, doing our own research, researching the markets, the investors, putting all of that intel into a melting pot, stirring it all up through constant conversation and questions, really brings your team along on the journey so they fully understand your approach, what they’re feeding into. They’re a part of it. I think that really does help to bring everybody along the journey. And there’s no surprises at the end.

James: Agreed! Okay. Every PR journey has its ups and downs. What were some of the unexpected challenges or those obstacles that you encountered while you were implementing a thought leadership strategy and and how did the team help you navigate them?

Ciara: Blu wireless was a startup, and we’re scaling up right now. Obviously, when you’re starting out, you don’t have any concrete use cases. And the ones that we did have, we couldn’t talk about. So you’re talking about hypothetical-use cases all the time because you can’t give away too much information. We really have to make sure that the messaging was absolutely on point, showing that we really understood our target audience.

There are challenges. We regularly reviewed and refined the messaging to ensure that was on point. Quarterly workshops, that kind of thing, and open conversations where we were just really involved in and listening into weekly sales call. You’re really a close-knit kind of team, but just also being quite limited. We knew we had to capitalise on the expertise within the business because obviously they know the products and the customers and their challenges inside out. So capitalising on that was essential to share their knowledge. We had to obviously ensure that our messages were going to land with target publications.

Again, using the expertise was a good workaround from a budget point of view, and it paid dividends because we have never paid for advertising…yet! That may change as we’re scaling up. But up until now, everything has been around our messaging and landing. That’s really powerful. Being not afraid to try things – I would say just learn from mistakes, or not even mistakes – but just if they don’t work to what your expectations might be, just learn why they didn’t and move on. Try something else!

I think not being afraid to try things. Managing different personalities. So you think, oh, great in theory, thought leadership is a great approach. But again, it goes back to that point that you are pushing people outside of their comfort zone. Some people are more used to public speaking or having their name to a piece of content than others. So choosing the right voices and the ones that are okay with being put at the forefront.

James: Also imposter syndrome creeps in.

Ciara: Yeah and we’re a deep tech company. It’s an engineering-led business, so it’s not everyone’s cup of tea to be rolled out to be the face of a piece of content or an interview or webinar or anything like that. Pushing somebody in that direction where the fit isn’t kind of being too natural, I think you need to tread carefully with that. Then use the people who are maybe reluctant in the beginning, but then with a little bit of training and encouragement, they come out of their shell and get used to it. Like anyone, I suppose. Ensuring an open line of communication is important and working together on it so they eventually get into that comfort zone when being interviewed or recorded.

James: Absolutely. What do you think they would say about PR these days?

Ciara: I’d say the proof is in the pudding – when you’re receiving sales enquiries via our website and people area asking to set up demos. And the fact that we’ve never paid for advertising. That publications are coming to us to feature us on a repeat basis – is a real sign that what we are bringing is of value and it’s resonating with the readers in those sectors. So I would say the proof is in the pudding.

James: Thinking about impact. Can you share a story about how thought leadership helped Blu Wireless stand out against the competition?

Ciara: Sure! At the beginning of the year so – two years ago- we were given a target to get featured in a top defence publications, Janes. It’s high profile military publication. By the end of the year, we weren’t only featured in their editorial, but we were also asked to be interviewed for one of their reports. And they wanted to feature our technology. That was a big surprise and a big positive for us. By using the experts and the high profile people within the business who know our solutions, you’re naturally adding value – as you’re educating target customers about the benefits of the technology while also telling them you understand their needs and their challenges. Maybe not their needs, but certainly their challenges. You know what your solution is bringing to to meet that challenge. They’re the conversations that our commercial team have on a daily basis. Tapping into those and sharing them further afield reiterates the understanding of those challenges and builds the trust we set about building in the first place. It’s win-win.

James: Absolutely. Have you noticed a shift on how customers and the industry perceive your company?

Ciara: Yeah, it’s been a slow process, so patience is definitely key to this process. But now we’re really seeing an increase in enquiries coming through the website and downloads of our content. The quantity of enquiries and demos is starting to really build momentum. So yeah, it is quite a noticeable shift.

James: Talking about yourself and your personal growth now as a leader – what personal insights or lessons have you gained from your work with the team on such an extensive PR campaign?

Ciara: I think I mentioned patience already. This is probably one of the key things that it’s made me be. I think you can’t be all things to all people, and really understanding that. And knowing that you sometimes might feel like you’re not doing enough – you need to do more, but actually just having conviction and trust in the process and know that eventually it will pay off, is is one of the key things I’ve learned. Obviously you need patience for that to happen. Conviction in your strategy, constantly validating the messages and know that what you are saying is resonating, and just repeat, repeat, repeat, consistently.  The hours speaking to the key voices within the business also helped me understand their day to day challenges and the wider business as well. It’s given me a fuller picture of what it takes to run the entire business and the objectives and goals of lots of different personalities with different functions within the business. I feel like it’s given me a broad understanding of and a better understanding of what we do as a as an organisation.

James: Thank you. They say that you can’t manage what isn’t measured. What KPIs or success metrics did you establish to track the efficiency of the effectiveness of a PR strategy?

Ciara: Specifically with defence, we needed to establish ourselves in the US market and with limited budgets as I mentioned, we had to be really selective in our approach. In particular, we needed to increase our site visitors from the US, because UK was always our key traffic source. To help with that, we use one of the key voices within the business, our president and CEO in our American office, Macy. We created a campaign around thought leadership from his many years in industry, and built his personal profile on LinkedIn. We called it an exec campaign. He is ex military, so he had a really targeted and wide reaching network of key customers. We knew he would have the reach. We started in 2022 and by the end of 2023 our US traffic took the lead from the UK. 31% of total users were from the US. We increased website visitors from social referrals by 24%. Organic impressions from December 23 went from 7000 to 13,000 in three months, that was a 68% increase. And interactions rose by 63%. Our followers increased as well – on top of that – 14%. So there’s quite strong stats there. That was focused on just the defence market. It was a very detailed exec campaign that we set about for Macy and for the US and it worked.

James: Some impressive metrics! Was there a turning point where you saw clear results from your strategy? Maybe a media mention, an event, or a piece of recognition that made you realise this is really paying off.

Ciara: Yeah. We had a podcaster reach out to Macy, well, out to us and wanted to interview Macy. He’s a tech influencer with a really strong audience. His name is Evan Curso. The interview alone, had over 1000 views on YouTube to B2B professionals. It had over 100 interactions and over 45 reposts on LinkedIn . Because we’re B2B and quite niche, the level of interactions is never about quantity for us, it’s all about quality. These numbers were very strong. He has 81,000 subscribers, so it was really getting the brand name in front of a very influential audience. So that was good.

At the beginning of our rail campaign, the Times got in touch with us to cover an article that they were publishing on on UK Rail. It was called “High Speed Rail, the Train Boasting 50 Times Faster Wi-Fi”. Obviously that has huge amounts of reach. It’s a over 14 million monthly unique web visitors. It’s a very, very sought after publication. So that was quite a good win as well.

And then there was another. COTS journal is a publication that we were looking at for defence. We were featured as one of the COTS picks in August 2024, showcasing our technology. It reaches 58% of the military and defence electronics market every month so that’s a really targeted, perfect publication for our content. So, that was really good.

James: Some big wins! If you had to define one of the most impactful outcomes from your partnership with EC-PR what would that look like? Is it about the industry influence? Is it about the customer engagement, or is it the internal perception?

Ciara: I think working together with EC-PR so closely, and them being an extension of the team and getting to know the broader team, the commercial team and the wider business, I think a natural bond started to form and rapport started to develop. I think the biggest change is internal perception, because by being so closely integrated into our own team, our own marketing team, and getting to know the other voices, key voices within the business – that relationship started to develop quite quickly. And the team have been brought along and educated about the power of PR and communications, and without really kind of pushing it too much. It’s been just a very natural process.

James: Looking behind the scenes, you mentioned an extension of your team and how EC-PR operated like that. What was it that they specifically did that made you feel confident that they truly understood your business well?

Ciara: Our president, Macy, who I mentioned, is ex military. He’s highly experienced in his field. He’s hugely influential, a really high profile network of people on his LinkedIn. So quite rightly, he felt a little bit nervous handing over his LinkedIn to us and to me and the team. Through many hours of conversations, EC-PR got to the crux of the messages we wanted to get across, and allowing that time to chat and getting to know Macy, and getting to know his background, and asking the right questions and having a genuine curiosity about what it is we do as a business and him as an individual, and what the technology does and the problem itself. That curiosity really came through when writing and sharing his knowledge on LinkedIn. He very rarely had any amends to what we were proposing to write and the content that we were posting on his behalf. That understanding, taking the time to understand him as a person, his approach, his tone of voice, and overall objectives as a business, it really worked, because he was happy to hand over the key to his LinkedIn profile.

James: That trust is there, right? Marketing leaders often look for partnerships that deliver consistent value. What has EC-PR done to ensure that your working relationship remains productive, and that Blu Wireless continues to see those long term benefits.

Ciara: I think we’ve spent a good portion of our time planning at the beginning of each quarter – understanding what’s coming down the line, any good news to share and where we want to be focusing on. With defence, we’re keeping the momentum going, or with rail, we really want to kind of up the communications on that. So it’s what we want to achieve over the next three months. And it’s a very honest, open workshop. We discuss what’s working, what’s not working, and I think that open line of communication does ensure that we remain productive and keeps the relationship going strong, and the odd Christmas drink thrown in helps!

James: For those that are watching this video, what kind of advice would you give other marketing leaders in tech companies who aren’t necessarily using thought leadership at this time as part of their marketing strategy?

Ciara: If you want to build trust and capture the attention of your audience and your target customers, sharing the conversations and the expertise of the people within your business who have these conversations, day in and day out, the people who are the nuts and bolts of your business, really does grab attention. It really builds trust. People listen to authentic voices and authentic storytelling, and that’s what’s needed to really resonate

James: Absolutely. And with that in mind, what should marketers be looking for in an agency when partnering up?

Ciara: People who you get on with, is probably one of the most important things, because then it allows you to have open and honest conversations. People who really do feel like and want to become a part of your team and an extension of your team, and have that genuine curiosity. I think that’s key, because with that curiosity comes time and effort and listening and all that is a key skill. So then you can go away and make your plans together and you feel like you’re in it together so you want success.

James: I would agree with that. Thank you very much. It’s been really good talking to you this afternoon.

Ciara: And you.

James: Thank you for your time.