SteeleBlogger

www.adx.com

Founded: 1992

Headquarters: Fremont, California

Core Business: E-Commerce Management

Target Industries: Thousands
of businesses of all sizes connect with their trading partners using
ADX, including a heavy concentration in life sciences, retail and
industrial markets.

Growth Curve: Has expanded
beyond EDI and Business Integration services to offer a full suite of
commerce management, highlighted by the recent successful launch of the
CommerceMail service.

Specializing in supply chain integration and e-commerce management, a key service Advanced Data Exchange
(ADX) provides to its clients is Business Integration services.
Therefore, the company’s management team realized having an integrated
approach to sales & marketing would be critical— as it prepared to
launch a new service designed to open up EDI to millions of buyers and
suppliers still relying on faxes and the post office for supply chain
management.

For the introduction of its CommerceMail service in late October 2008, ADX decided to deploy the Genius
platform for real-time marketing and sales analytics and the results
have been fast and dramatic—enabling ADX to capture 60 qualified leads
for their new service in the first 90 days.

“When we implemented
Genius, we made the commitment to working together as a team, keeping
checks and balances on each other, and jumping in to help each other
when necessary,” says Heather Steele, senior marketing specialist at
ADX.

ADX utilized the MarketingGenius product
to send out a series of four automated and personalized emails to
prospects.  Depending on their response (if they asked to see a demo),
the ADX sales team received an instant alert via the Genius Tracker.
As part of the alert, the sales reps also received immediate insight
into their interest and could then immediately reach out to the
prospect.

“Genius has had a huge impact on the sales and
marketing efforts at ADX. In addition to ramping up our email marketing
efforts, it has allowed us to make the impact of a very large sales
organization with only a small sales group,” Steele says. “The tool is
very efficient and makes the most out of sales’ time.  It also allows
to quickly measure ROI and campaign effectiveness on
various different lead sources and marketing efforts, which in turn
allows us to makes more informed decisions with regards to marketing
strategy.”

The company has integrated the Genius tools with its
Salesforce CRM platform, which has also furthered the organization’s
alignment to track and measure results within the funnel. “We use our
integration with Salesforce CRM to set and monitor our common goals,
which is makes a significant difference in how closely we all stick to
those goals,” Steele adds. “We’ve found that transparency is absolutely
mandatory to stay accountable and realistic about our common and
individual goals. At any time, any one of us can check in on others and
offer encouragement or help when goals aren’t being reached.”  

Peter Grace, vice president of sales at ADX also notes the big impact of Genius. “It has allowed us to systemize our email marketing efforts and develop a very efficient and cost effective
lead generation program. Although we have a small sales team, this tool
makes the most out of our prospecting time and has generated a strong
pipeline.”

In addition to Genius and Salesforce, ADX has recently utilized the VistorTrack
application from NetFactor to capture information on web visitors.
Steele says VisitorTrack and Genius both help to quickly identify a
lead’s exact needs and interests and approach them with the most
appropriate solution, which greatly reduces the sales cycle and
increases win rates for new deals.

Ultimately, Steele attributes
much of the success of the CommerceMail rollout to the sales and
marketing automation tools they deployed and she anticipates it will
have a long-term impact on their corporate approach. “In the past our
sales and marketing teams did not work closely together. As a result
plans, schedules, campaigns, and goals were rarely in line,” says
Steele. “The launch of our new service, CommerceMail, definitely helped
establish a common goal for sales and marketing.
We were all able to rally around the new service, get excited about it,
and work together to spread the word and sell CommerceMail.”  

Grace
notes the impact resulting from better collaboration with sales &
marketing. “When we implemented Genius it gave both teams instant visibility into what messages were resonating
with customers and what messages need to be modified,” he says.
“Through this collaboration we have become much better at reaching our
target audience and creating meaningful dialogues.”