We are celebrating four years of delivering quality expertise and efficiency for clients around the world. Our client base has grown to include tech and telecoms companies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. We’ve seen a tremendous response to our business model and the content we create.
Co-founder of Ilex Content Strategies Matthew Whalley shares his thoughts on content marketing, business development and what Ilex has achieved in four years.
1. Why did you launch Ilex Content Strategies?
Ilex was launched to make creating content really simple and take a lot of the drama away from pitching and delivering marketing content. Lucia and I saw a lot of focus on talking about what you could do for clients rather than actually delivering for them.
Ilex’s co-founder Lucia Barbato has a lot of experience in developing public relations campaigns for tech and telecoms companies as well as managing social media accounts for global consumer brands. My background is in journalism. I was a journalist for 10 years and covered international telecoms for a long time.
We believed there was an opportunity to efficiently deliver content on the highest possible level that could be used across the board. When I was a magazine editor, I loved that all that mattered was the end product and our clients are the same way. They don’t need elaborate and excessive planning or deep-dive sessions. They care about getting excellent content delivered with maximum efficiency and that’s what we deliver.
2. How did you come up with the name “Ilex”?
We get asked about ‘Ilex’ a lot and where the name came from. Lucia came up with it. Ilex comes from the Quercus Ilex, which is a Mediterranean oak.
We liked that the Mediterranean oak is evergreen. It is lasting and its wood is hard and durable. It matched what we wanted to do with the content we create and how our clients see us.
“Great oaks from little acorns grow”, sounds nice as well.
3. What is unique about your business? Is there anything that makes you different from other content marketing agencies?
There are a lot of things that I think make us unique. One of the biggest things is that we don’t see a difference between online and offline content. We see all content as a story and as messaging with no boundaries. I don’t like traditional marketing silos and our clients are seeing these silos become increasingly irrelevant for meeting their objectives.
We believe that content can cut across all of these functions and don’t really see any limits on who we can serve with content. We have delivered print advertising in the Middle East, sales decks in Asia, animation in California, and media relations in Africa. There aren’t really any limits if the story is good and the messages are strong.
Another thing that I think really sets us apart is that I feel like we are part of the industry rather than just serving our clients. I have strong opinions of where international telecoms are headed and love to debate it with clients and friends in the industry. We feel connected directly to the industry as a whole and have great friends around the world who we see at global events.
We aren’t just buyers and sellers. These are people we’ve known for years and we love to be a part of the market and active in shaping it. The fact that we are able to listen has been key. We don’t stand up and sell products. We do a lot of listening and look for ways to help our clients succeed.
Ultimately the biggest thing is our ability to deliver to the highest possible level. We deliver things that are print ready, which may be an old fashioned term but I use it all the time. We deliver content that we believe is ready to go to print from the first draft.
4. What do you like about your day-to-day job at Ilex?
The thing I enjoy the most is the problem solving and finding different ways to develop a brand’s story and make them stand out. We do a lot of work developing messaging and brand stories and I’m really passionate about understanding where the business is today and where it is going. I like finding the connection between the products and the potential they deliver for customers as well.
In tech and telecoms developing compelling stories isn’t always easy but I like that challenge and I think that’s reflected in the content. When we are developing content, we always ask, “Would I read this?” It needs to pass that test and be creative and interesting enough that an average person could gain something from it even if it is quite techy.
5. How do you see Ilex developing in the future? What goals would you like to achieve?
We are seeing growth with clients coming from different segments. So far we work with Tier 1 global telecoms operators, cloud service providers, Artificial Intelligence software platforms, telecoms equipment manufacturers and a whole range of tech and telecoms companies.
I see even greater diversity in our future. There are so many different business models emerging and new tech being developed that can benefit from a simple, efficient approach to marketing content.
As cloud adoption continues to grow, I think there’s a big opportunity in cloud enablement and supporting the channel with content marketing. Increasingly, companies need to help their partners to sell their services and we can really help to streamline that process and give our clients’ partners and customers the tools they need to sell.
Overall, we will continue to execute at the highest level. Execution is fundamental to our business model and it drives growth. When clients choose Ilex, they know we will execute and deliver the best possible content. They can depend on us and they see the results immediately.
If you’d like to learn more about Ilex Content Strategies and how we support our clients, please email matthew (@) ilexcontent.com
