Endeca’s software helps people explore, analyse, and understand complex information, guiding them to insights and better decisions. Its global client base includes blue chip companies in a diverse range of industries including ABN AMRO, Boeing, IBM, Marriott International, Nike and Wal-Mart.
Since 2005, expansion of this enviable customer base has been assisted through the use of Eloqua’s demand generation platform. Justin McLaughlin, marketing manager at Endeca, has been a passionate advocate of the solution and enthusiastic champion of its benefits from the moment dialogue between the two organisations began, long before implementation in 2005. As he puts it, “I’ve been closely involved with our implementation right from the very beginning.”
McLaughlin explains that initial conversations between the two organisations were focused on the email functionality of Eloqua’s web-hosted solution. But he says that when the full potential of the system – and the opportunities it presented for Endeca’s marketing – became apparent, discussions moved to an entirely different level.
By automating and integrating the key demand generation functions of direct and interactive marketing, prospect profiling, nurturing, scoring and distribution of sales leads, Eloqua improves the quality and quantity of sales opportunities, increases efficiency, and accelerates the entire selling process.
Eloqua’s solution is designed to centralise reporting for all marketing activity into a single platform, enabling dramatic improvements in transparency of marketing activity and consequently measurability. McLaughlin says this functionality was critical to marketing’s success at Endeca. “We wanted a solution that would enable closed-loop reporting on all our activity. And we wanted to track our prospects to see how they were responding to our marketing and follow their activity.”
If Endeca could understand where key decision makers were in the buying-cycle, it could potentially influence their behaviour, or at least provide relevant information that would help them reach conclusions. Eloqua’s platform promised to enable them to do just that.
Two-way dialogue
Eloqua went live at Endeca in North America in 2005, and McLaughlin says it quickly became central to its marketing activities. “It’s very user-friendly,” he comments. “It’s functionally rich and extremely robust.”
He explains that the functionality is continuing to improve. “We’ve seen ongoing improvement, particularly in recent years. It hasn’t been overnight growth, but a steady extension of functionality. They are matching our aspirations.” McLaughlin is particularly enthusiastic about the new Dashboard application. “This allows us to do major end-to-end campaign-based reporting.” Crucially, the web-hosted nature of the application has removed the potential for conflicts with the IT function – a common and sometimes insurmountable obstacle for marketers seeking to implement new technology. As McLaughlin puts it, “There’s been no reason for IT to get involved.”
Growing user-base
Eloqua is primarily used by the marketing function, although McLaughlin explains that the user base is growing. “We have three ‘power users’ in marketing – myself, Ken Evans, senior marketing manager and Emily Trolio, marketing manager – and we also have 12 users who are involved in sales conversion.” This latter group do not use the platform’s full functionality, but do leverage its integration with Microsoft Outlook to monitor interaction with email campaigns. “We find this valuable,” he says. From a board-level reporting perspective, Eloqua also integrates with Endeca’s Salesforce.com CRM system, which provides it with the information theyrequire to understand marketing’s activities.
“Senior management sees the value that resides in Eloqua,” says McLaughlin. Endeca began to use Eloqua globally in 2006 and McLaughlin – who is now London-based – describes it as a key tool in the company’s international expansion.
Endeca currently operates in four countries in Europe, with plans to expand further.
“We could not do the things that we’re doing today on another application,” says McLaughlin. “The system operates in multiple languages, handles different legal requirements and has localisation management. It understands the nuances of operating in lots of different environments.
Eloqua will be critical to our future growth. Marketing must be able to support and drive our global expansion and we can’t do that without Eloqua. I’m continually excited about what this system can do, and how I can do my job better because of it.”
