Cameleon Software Gets 3:1 ROI on Marketing, 39% Lift in Sales

Challenge: Break Into a New Market

Cameleon is a global CPQ market leader, with strong leadership in Europe; however, until three years ago, the company had limited U.S. presence. Cameleon decided to penetrate the U.S. marketplace, and brought Virginie Dupin on board as marketing director to achieve this. Dupin had a two-step strategy: 1) Identify a partner who could help Cameleon localize its marketing activities; and 2) find the right technology to deliver qualified leads to Cameleon's sales reps.

Find the right partners to help

Cameleon selected BlueBird Strategies, an agency specializing in lead generation, to support its U.S. strategy and messaging. BlueBird Strategies executes a coordinated effort of demand generation, lead nurturing, lead scoring and lead management to increase lead velocity, using marketing automation as the foundation. Cameleon consulted BlueBird to recommend a marketing automation solution that would best fit their business needs.

"We knew that Cameleon wanted a cost-effective solution that would integrate well with Salesforce and WebEx to support their multichannel marketing programs," said BlueBird's Ari Fefferman. "Another must-have on their list was the ability to segment lists, so they could easily drill down and target leads. Act-On was the clear choice."

"It took almost no time to build a template and begin the campaign implementation," said Dupin. Complete implementation was achieved within the first week. "We wanted immediate action and Act-On delivered."

Act-On boosts the funnel & generates fast ROI

By the second year of its North American sales campaign, the combination of sales, partnership and marketing investment enabled Cameleon to realize a 39% increase in sales. More than half the qualified leads generated by Act-On were on track to be converted into customers within one year. Return on marketing investment has been 3:1, with marketing automation as a key contributor.

Identify quality leads for the complex sale

Cameleon targets large organizations, often with global operations, which are looking to deploy its solution amongst several hundreds or thousands of users. Because these types of organizations often have long buying/decision processes, Cameleon needed quality leads that could be cultivated over time and converted into customers regularly. “Implementing a CPQ is always a strategic choice for an organization. The larger the company is, the longer the evaluation and purchasing process can be,” said Dupin. “Nurturing is critical for us, as we have to maintain a consistent stream of hot leads entering the top of the funnel.” Cameleon also benefits from Act-On's website visitor tracking capabilities. This has allowed Cameleon to readily identify who is visiting their website and whether they are a hot lead depending on pages visited and time spent on website. It has also helped their sales reps have more valuable discussions with the prospects upon outreach.

"Act-On has helped us determine who to target in the North American database," Dupin said. "At first, we believed that using industry-specific marketing tactics would be the best strategy.But with Act-On's analytic tools, we learned that leads are more responsive when our messaging focuses on the value of combining a CPQ with a CRM. This is important, and was quite surprising. Armed with this knowledge, we now concentrate our marketing efforts accordingly."

Act-On + Salesforce + WebEx = powerful performance

“We are very dependent on the integration between Salesforce and Act-On,” Dupin said. "Our sales team and most of the marketing department work entirely out of our CRM system, meaning they spend little time in the Act-On platform itself. Instead, they use the Act-On tab within the CRM platform, and can access the marketing data just as effortlessly."

Act-On's click-rate analysis indicated that webcasting should be a critical component of Cameleon's marketing strategy. "With Act-On, we integrate with WebEx and love it," Dupin reported. "It's very easy to manage a webinar in both WebEx and Act-On. The reporting is very helpful, and we can organize the marketing materials all in one place."

Results: Hot leads drive 39% sales leap

In just two years, Cameleon's brand awareness in the U.S. has boomed; North American sales were up 39% in 2012. Website traffic has been growing 50% annually, and inquiries are up tenfold from Cameleon's website, AppExchange, and corporate blog since the campaign's first year.

“We are on track with our U.S. goals,” said Dupin. "We are enjoying good lead flow and deal flow on the customer side. And leveraging Act-On has been highly instrumental to achieve this."