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Aiming for rapid growth

ICEYE, an international space growth company, creates contacts and supports interaction with sales and diverse, technology-focused audiences. ICEYE provides its potential customers with value-added online content and real satellite data for discoveries. This will help to accelerate the expansion and deepening of contacts with experts and decision-makers in customer organisations.

Interaction with customers produced results

Volume of online traffic

The right content increased the amount of organic traffic to the website nearly doubled compared to the previous year.

Search engine optimized content

The average ranking of a carefully selected and internationally highly competitive search term on Google rose from 80th to 4th place in six months.

Number of leads

Aggressive growth targets were exceeded in a year.

ICEYE is a pioneer in the space sector

ICEYE develops and manufactures small satellites using SAR radar technology*) and provides service products based on the data they collect worldwide. SAR satellites provide reliable and accurate data regardless of light and weather conditions. ICEYE's satellite data can be collected every few hours over both large and very limited areas with very high resolution – and from anywhere on the planet.

Satellite data is used to solve global problems (e.g. combating illegal fishing) and for various applications related to production, logistics, safety and security and damage prevention (e.g. mining, construction and oil spill response). The rapid availability of reliable satellite data is crucial for mapping, monitoring and preventing further damage caused by natural disasters such as hurricanes.

ICEYE has grown and internationalized rapidly: in three years, the number of staff has increased from 30 to 200. The company launched its first satellite in 2018, and new satellites will be launched at a steady pace - 8 for a single year in 2021. The multinational workforce is headquartered in Espoo, Finland.

*) SAR = Synthetic Aperture Radar

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A huge marketing challenge

The starting point was an interesting one from a marketing and growth perspective: the market had been around for a long time and was dominated by large international companies. Buying habits were also traditional. The technology developed by ICEYE was new and enabled the use of satellite data in new applications. The market was worldwide and it was not possible to build awareness through traditional mass media.

The target audiences also posed their own challenges. The organisations using ICEYE's satellite data and services come from public, commercial or non-commercial backgrounds. What these organisations have in common is a very deep technological knowledge and a very high level of sophistication. The decision making models, and the people involved in procurement decisions, in such organisations are numerous. Within the same organisation, there are different perspectives on the use of satellite data, depending on the mission.

Marketing to large, technology-focused target audiences has required a lot of work in reaching and serving them. Despite the highly specific nature of ICEYE's service products within niche markets, there is no shortage of potential applications, user organizations, and expert influencers. Targeting relevant and engaging content to the right individuals is labor-intensive – yet, practical experience has shown that it is not impossible.  It's feasible to reach the right target audiences in a manner that suits them.

Not marketing and sales, but working with customers

ICEYE's way of working leaves traditional roles between marketing, sales and customers behind. Digital channels, with their content and the enabling of technological dialogue, create the basis for encounters and collaboration that put customers and the value they receive at the heart of everything.

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Resources to support your team for growth

Collaborating with Blink has been instrumental in ICEYE's growth. Beyond marketing coaching, we've collaborated to design and execute content strategies aimed at fostering meaningful connections with various target audiences. Creating high-quality content requires time. With the resources provided by Blink, ICEYE has been able to boost the volume of content while maintaining its quality standards.

ICEYE's marketing and sales activities deliver direct value to the customer long before the actual sales conversations take place.

Mikko Keränen VP, Marketing, ICEYE and member of the Finland Promotion Board's Executive Committee

ICEYE sets itself apart from other players in the field by offering both information and genuine satellite data free of charge, catering to the interests of target audiences in new satellite technologies and their potential. This serves as a solid foundation for fostering discussions and collaborations, as providing concrete and contextually relevant data aims to help customers progress in their endeavors rather than simply sell.

The company also supplies satellite data of general relevance for disaster monitoring, post-disaster recovery, and communication. For instance, the rapid and accurate information proved invaluable during Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas in September 2019 as well as in the severe oil spill in Mauritius in August 2020.

ICEYE employs methods and tools commonly found in inbound marketing and sales. These facilitate rapid growth by enhancing the volume and efficiency of contact generation. Customers experience online interactions that would not be feasible if every new contact had to be established bilaterally with sales.

Close, advisory, and flexible collaboration with Blink has contributed to ICEYE's rapid growth, providing our team with fresh perspectives on marketing effectiveness and enhancing marketing precision and results with challenging target audiences. Additionally, we've been able to allocate more of our capacity to producing value-added content for our customers. With confidence, I can affirm that the outcomes from the content have been substantial.

Mikko Keränen VP, Marketing, ICEYE and member of the Finland Promotion Board's Executive Committee

The content you create must resonate with your customers' experiences to effectively engage them and provide value. That's why content is tailored to directly address the specific needs of both customers and sales. ICEYE has demonstrated the value and relevance of its content through the use of inbound methodology in customer interactions.

Additionally, the significant potential of LinkedIn in initiating conversations has been highlighted, as potential customers actively engage with shared content, facilitating dialogue.

Thorough analysis of traffic and conversions enables the sharing and utilization of information within your organization.

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Iceye Oy is a Finnish space technology company founded in 2014 that develops a service using SAR radar microsatellites to provide near real-time radar imagery regardless of time and weather conditions.

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Antti Tolonen Managing Director antti@blinkhelsinki.fi 050 348 0347