Ricoh

Problems that the marketing team faced before using Meltwater

“We had limited visibility over marketing activities across the region, a highly manual process, and no structured approach to understanding the market.”

The APAC marketing department is a digital marketing communications organization. We focus on public relations, digital advertising, and website management. These activities help us effectively communicate what Ricoh is and what we do.

Historically, in the Asia-Pacific region, our offices worked independently, managing their own local social media, PR, and any brand monitoring or competitor analysis.

While individuals and different teams may have used a mix of free and paid tools, there was no centralized platform — nothing unified or connected. As a result, it was difficult to coordinate activities, share best practices, derive mutual benefits, or understand our position in the market, including what people were saying about us or the topics we were interested in.

Reasons for selecting Meltwater

“Meltwater has everything we need in one platform.”

We went through a robust procurement process, evaluating several different platforms, each with unique selling points or features they claimed to excel in. However, for our needs, we would likely have needed two platforms to cover everything.

Meltwater stood out because they offered everything in one platform, and we were convinced they were the perfect partner for us.

Coming from a PR background, I was initially most excited about Meltwater’s media relations features. But as we continued exploring its capabilities, I became increasingly impressed with its social media management, brand monitoring, and social listening features. We quickly understood this was the right choice for us.

Favorite features for the marketing team

The media and the PR features are just fantastic. It’s incredibly valuable to have access to a full media list, drafting and sending press releases, and managing outreach. More importantly, being able to learn more about the journalist you're communicating with is a game-changer — it's effectively a CRM for PR.

I also love the reporting features. It’s invaluable to be able to connect different data sets, visualize, analyze, understand, explore, and share them with my colleagues. Meltwater lets us do all of that.

For my day-to-day work, I use the social media management solution to gain an overview across all our operating companies and channels. The preview of upcoming posts is incredibly helpful.

Additionally, the API is helpful when building Power BI reports. It gives us easy access to data and enables us to build our own dashboards more efficiently.

The AI Search Assistant is another helpful feature. In addition to the AI integrations for content writing, the search assistant simplifies the creation of unique and detailed research while monitoring reports in the social listening and analytics solution.

Our team is also responsible for most of the content creation in the region. Being able to customize dashboards to view activity across different channels and countries is fantastic. We can see which materials are being used and which are most effective, helping us steer content production by making decisions based on what works.

Share the learning across the region and the entire organization

One unique aspect of our use of Meltwater is that we've granted access to the marketing communications teams across the entire Asia-Pacific region. This means that my peers and colleagues leading marketing strategies in Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries all have access to this single, shared platform. That’s incredibly powerful.

We are focused on deepening the benefits, learning, and experiences we gain to maximize value and ultimately share that value across our entire organization.

How can Meltwater help Ricoh further in the future?

Our goal is to be the best possible partner for our customers, and the best way to achieve that is by listening. By monitoring online discussions and media coverage, we gain critical insights that inform not only our strategy but also how we communicate our solutions and services. Meltwater is essential in this process.

The next step is to connect this information with our salespeople and customer relationship managers. This way, when they interact with customers, they are not just discussing products or solutions; they are engaging with a deep understanding of what the customer is experiencing and what’s happening in their country and industry.

To potential Meltwater users

“The more you commit to using Meltwater, the greater value you’ll receive.”

The best piece of advice I can give is to dive in and get actively involved. You get out of Meltwater what you put into it.

The more you engage with Meltwater, stay updated on its developments, and utilize the resources available through the Academy, the more you learn. This increased engagement helps you improve how you use the platform and maximizes the benefits you receive from it.

Looking forward

We will continue investing in product and AI development to further utilize consumer insights.

In addition, we will do our best to continue satisfying our customers with our tools and our services by focusing on improving and enhancing our support system even more than before.