Everybody needs help sometimes.
J.D. Edwards, for example, offers enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, supply-chain management and other large-scale software and solutions for 6,500 customers in 110 countries. But it decided that an outside vendor was its best bet when it wanted to upgrade its contact management system.
“Since implementing Aprimo Marketing in early 2002, we have increased our qualified marketing leads while shortening campaign cycle times, and eliminated wasteful spending,” said Les Wyatt, chief marketing officer at J.D. Edwards. “All J.D. Edwards marketing activities carry our brand message forward in an effective and consistent manner, and we are able to keep a detailed history of every customer and prospect contact.”
Aprimo, an enterprise marketing management provider in Indianapolis, offers seven modules. J.D. Edwards uses six: Strategic Planner, Financial Planner, Marcom Manager, Direct Marketing Manager, Web Response Manager and Lead Manager.
The system replaced J.D. Edwards' legacy e-mail and marketing automation software in which customer and prospect information for e-mail and direct mail campaigns were housed in separate databases that were not integrated.
“The Aprimo solution allowed us to have a depository for all of our data, and therefore offered us a holistic view of our customer,” said Brian Ladyman, vice president, demand generation, marketing, at J.D. Edwards.
Since switching to Aprimo, J.D. Edwards has distributed newsletters to 28,600 targeted recipients and supported more than 50 Webinars that involved 25,000 e-mail invitations, registration confirmations and post-event follow-up.
“Qualified leads through this program are about half the cost of our leads through other programs,” Ladyman said. “Each Webinar on average has about 60 people register and about 30 people attend. We recently got 12 qualified leads from one Webinar with 34 attendees.”
J.D. Edwards used the Aprimo solutions in a campaign in November to 2,200 prospects promoting J.D. Edwards' construction industry solution. A mailer included a cover letter and a circular brochure promoting J.D. Edwards' e-business solutions. The piece also included an offer of a Home Depot gift certificate for those who responded before Dec. 6.
An e-mail blast went to the prospects a few weeks later, then a phone call.
“We were able to reach the prospect in three separate ways — through a direct mail piece, an e-mail message and then after that a follow-up telemarketing call,” Ladyman said. “The multiple-channel approach is important for successful communication with a customer.”
The effort achieved a response rate of 5.65 percent, which J.D. Edwards attributes partly to Aprimo's system.
J.D. Edwards is expanding its use of the modules. In December, the company upgraded its licensing contract with Aprimo to 17 J.D. Edwards marketing centers, including in Canada, Central and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia and the Pacific Rim.
This year the company plans to integrate the enterprise marketing management system with its sales-force automation system “so the marketing department will be able to get updated information about leads form the sales force in real-time,” Ladyman said.
