Axceler Finds Success in Lead Generation

When it comes to lead generation, quality should trump quantity, and Postwire, a sales enablement software that bridges the content divide between marketers, sales teams, and their prospective customers, promises to deliver quality.

Before turning to Postwire, Axceler, which specializes in administration, governance, and migration software for Microsoft SharePoint and LotusNotes, focused on Google Ad Words and pay-per-click efforts to support demand generation. While this generated a lot of leads, they were of low quality. To address this, Claudine Bianchi, Axceler's chief marketing officer, instituted a new content marketing program, including a social media focus to bolster business development and SEO efforts.

Bianchi concentrated on getting the right content to prospects at the right time in the sales process to best meet their needs. Axceler started using Postwire, which lets businesses organize, share, and track content in a visual and engaging way. "Postwire provides one place to collect content, connect with prospects [and customers], and engage in an ongoing dialogue," she says.

Axceler began using Postwire to provide presentations, white papers, collateral, and data sheets at the start of the sales process; ROI calculators and buyers' guides at later stages; and social media blog posts, articles, videos, etc., as supplements. Postwire enabled the sales team to pull the most appropriate content for their prospects and share it directly with them on a prospect-specific Postwire page, Bianchi explains. Each salesperson could update prospects' personalized pages with new content whenever necessary.

"Postwire brings marketing and sales [together] in such a streamlined way. Marketers, for example, are always wondering what sales teams are telling prospective clients. With Postwire, they can ensure they are conveying a consistent message by providing them with an organized and easy-to-use way of sharing content," Bianchi says. It can even integrate with a marketing automation system, she adds.

On the sales end, Bianchi says Postwire helps sales teams avoid spending hours writing emails filled with links, attachments, photos, and text. "Instead, it's so much simpler to use Postwire to create custom pages filled with targeted content for your prospective clients," she says. "By using Postwire, you can educate your prospects, inspire them, and provide an easy way for them to interact with the content you provide."

As a result of the overall program, Axceler's cost per lead has been greatly reduced, and the quality of the leads has increased significantly. Since November 2012, Axceler has contacted more than 21,000 people through its lead nurturing campaigns. From those, Axceler closed 341 deals for $16.5 million in business. "Postwire was the vehicle for our success, and we're looking forward to working with them further," Bianchi says.

Postwire's clients include Fuji Xerox, LinkedIn, Forrester, SAS, PitneyBowes, and SAP.

"Gone are the days of cold calls, ignored emails, and hassling leads with marketing automation systems," Postwire founder and CEO Cliff Pollan says. "Here are the days of personalizing content to educate and nurture prospects and clients with information that is most relevant to them.

"Since our launch...in spring of 2012," Pollan adds, "we have aimed to make sales enablement and client education a breeze with content personalization that is simple, beautiful, and effective."

The Payoff

Since implementing Postwire to increase the quality of its leads, Axceler has:

• generated more than 21,000 leads;
• closed 341 deals; and
• added more than $16.5 million in business.

  ---

Related Articles

Nurture Your Leads for Successful Outcomes

Emphasize quality over quantity.

The Other Dimension of Lead Scoring

Why it can be worth the effort to "hunt the elephant."

LogMyCalls Releases Conversation Analytics

Conversation Analytics tracks what happens on the call and extracts marketing and sales data.

Don't Write Off Outbound Marketing

Social lead targeting offers new opportunities to find qualified prospects.

Simplify360 Announces Integration with Salesforce.com

Update will let companies create leads or cases from social media conversations.

SugarCRM Teams up with HootSuite

The SugarCRM app for HootSuite helps sales and customer service teams engage and create new leads and cases directly from social media messages and profiles from within the HootSuite dashboard.