Andrew Buckley, vice president of global marketing and strategy at American Express, doesn’t shy away from a challenge. Having taken the decision a couple of years ago to ‘globalise’ marketing in the organisation, he’s now working on the company-wide implementation of Eloqua’s lead nurturing software – and the concomitant upskilling of staff in the organisation.
His team deals with ‘tens of thousands’ of leads per year – and Buckley ‘manages’ 240 people in 18 countries, so this is no mean feat. “I’m passionate about sharing best practice and resources where appropriate, leveraging specialisms and producing models for the rest of the team,” he says.
“Virtually every region has something they do well. In France the team is very effective in their dealings with travel agents; in the US they are sophisticated with regards to how to target clients; and in Mexico we operate some strategic partnerships which work very well.”
An eye for detail
The fact that UK-based Buckley’s secretary is based in New York could be taken as proof that such international claims are not hollow. In fact, given that he is regularly visiting the teams in their respective countries, you could be forgiven in thinking Buckley might spread himself a little thinly. But chatting to him, his attention to detail and steely focus on success is soon evident. He’s not just a man with a vision – he’s into detail, too.
“We are trying to build what I like to call a ‘marketing machine’, with globally consistent metrics,” he says. “We need to evolve our channels. We are looking at what works in one market and implementing it in another.”
One thing found to have worked pretty well in Australia is Eloqua’s lead management software. Having seen the results that the team there had had with this technology, the decision was taken to buy Eloqua in order to support American Express’ marketing operations on a global basis. Strategy talks ended in June and implementation is planned for December.
Buckley is confident that, as a “volume business”, he will see a good return from this investment. He believes payback should take less than two years, but is hopeful of seeing a result within “less than a year”.
Embracing digital channels
“We’re also moving from traditional channels to full digital marketing within six months,” he adds. “We will be employing new marketing channels – or we won’t get ROI. We can’t approach this in piecemeal fashion.”
Buckley hopes that the new system will enable the marketing team to release its creativity, and is keen to promote American Express as a thought leader, with a programme of sophisticated content marketing. He plans to introduce email marketing for the first time, and to promote online seminars, whitepapers and sophisticated landing pages, further positioning American Express as an “innovative and trusted” partner.
Buckley also claims a “laser focus” on outcome metrics. He says that his team works with tens of thousands of leads per year. “We track lead volumes, win/loss rates, dollars of marketing spend versus dollars of profit, country by country,” Buckley says. And he believes that the perception of the marketing department within American Express itself as a large, global team helped to secure the funding for the new software: “It’s much easier to justify when you can talk about propensity models. Before, we didn’t have any globally accepted metrics or definitions of a lead.”
Focusing on the numbers
But buying software alone, as Buckley freely admits, will not assure brand success. Teams are currently being trained on the system, and in the newer digital marketing techniques. “It’s all about modelling and analytical skills,” he explains. “We want to improve our win/miss conversion rate ratios, and to keep the team motivated. We don’t accept the status quo.”
Buckley hopes that digital techniques will enable American Express to nurture the right people at the right time. “American Express has a good record of innovation and organic growth,” he says. “If we can find the right person, we have a good track record of long-term partnerships. Many Fortune 500 companies have been with us for over a hundred years.”
The key, as Buckley points out, is to understand your customers. Having used telemarketing widely within the marketing strategy, he claims that the team models the profit impact of every call. He admits that it’s a ‘fairly structured, very analytical and outcome focused’ environment.
Chatting to Buckley, his passion for the brand is evident. “The benefit of the downturn has been thinking about what we can do differently. We need to be relevant and we need to talk about value.”
It will be interesting to see how much Eloqua’s platform can help with this challenge. “If you find the right person at the right time, it’s very rare that they won’t talk to you,” he adds. He hopes that new digital techniques will enable American Express to do just this.
Buckley does admit that the investment was a ‘major decision’. He warns that, before investing in lead management software, it’s necessary to ask: “Is your organisation ready to think about metrics in stark terms?” Buckley, for one, has been doing so for some time.
