How a local search for marketing training turned into a global process change
In 2000, CA Technologies was a global company providing a dizzying array of software to enterprise IT buyers. It had a complex offering, with about four and a half thousand products on offer – many from acquisitions. It was also already highly profitable, with its Australian arm alone generating about 200 million U.S. Dollars.
As the dominant player in many of their markets, CA was finding it very difficult to continue to grow the business. When Jim Fisher first came on as Marketing Manager, leading a team of about 15 people, he didn’t have any specific marketing training. Coming from a more sales-based background – process and goal-orientated – he envisioned results-driven marketing, but wasn’t 100% sure what that would look like.
He did, however, see parts of their marketing that he knew couldn’t continue:
Their challenges
Raising awareness to the masses rather than targeted buyers
No consistency across campaigns
or tactics
Misaligned with the sales and pre-sales teams and goals
Heavy focus on event-based
marketing
Jim wanted to approach things differently and thought there must be a better and more strategic way to approach marketing and actually get results that would drive growth. But with limits on his own marketing experience, he knew he needed some help.
Great minds think alike
align.me’s Hugh Macfarlane was working as a strategy consultant for CA Technologies when Jim was asked to head up marketing. Jim realised Hugh had a different way of looking at marketing that matched his own, including:
Hugh helped us with the very early concept of having Marketing, Sales, and Pre-Sales all involved with building campaigns.
Jim Fisher
Together, they identified the things they could do to grow revenue:
By executing all three things together, they would get more leads in the top of the funnel, decrease the number that was slipping out, and speed up the time through the funnel.
They focused on three aspects of marketing: Demand Generation, Channel Readiness (aka ‘sales enablement’) and Environmental Marketing (branding and positioning). This foundation was necessary for successful buyer navigation through what became known as The Buyers Journey.
Environmental Marketing
Marketing to the right buyer by identifying their problem, troubling them, and positioning CA as a trusted solution provider.
Channel Readiness
Ensuring Sales and Pre-Sales were involved in campaign planning, and had the right information to engage with buyers.
Demand Generation
Using marketing campaigns and tactics to take buyers on a customised journey through the funnel.
It was something the marketing had never done before – traditionally, Marketing never wanted to trouble, only to be nice. But as soon as Jim and Hugh started putting it into action, it started working.
When they ran their first campaign, the average campaign conversion rate was sitting at about 2%. Their campaign was up at 60%.
The success was evident, so Hugh and Jim decided to stick with it instead of changing the marketing campaign quarterly, as CA usually did. They continued to run the exact same campaigns over extended periods – progressing those ready, recycling those who weren’t. The numbers stayed up, and the business grew.
Within a year, we’d grown some parts of the business from three units to 30 units… We were growing the company significantly.
Jim Fisher
Sharing success through training
Enjoying success driving marketing in a new way, Jim started thinking about how teams around the world were doing their marketing, and whether it could be improved. Upper Management was thinking the same way.
Jim was moved from his Australian team of 15 to head up the newly formed Asia Pacific & Japan market. There were 85 staff in this market, with different customers, cultures, languages, and opportunities. So, Jim once again reached out to Hugh – this time to build a training program that would teach what they’d learnt and implemented.
The same Buyers Journey logic they’d used successfully in Australia caught on in Asia, and from there Jim and Hugh took the training to teams in Europe, Latin America, and North America.
The teams we trained loved it because someone was saying, “Here’s where you fit in. It’s the most important part of the business, and here’s a logical process for you to go through it.”
Jim Fisher
What became known as Funnel Academy – a B2B-specific training program – helped CA roll out a repeatable system globally in every language and every country. The corporate marketing team was no longer just building collateral for the sake of building collateral that no one used.
What came out of that was all groups were talking exactly the same language:
The Buyer’s Journey.
They were building the buyer’s journey campaigns to go into the system for everyone to execute in the local language. It was a phenomenal thing.
Jim Fisher
An unexpected and unprecedented result
What had started as an attempt to get a small marketing team in Australia working more efficiently, turned into a global marketing overhaul that delivered unexpected results:
Global marketing & sales on the same page
For the first time, CA’s marketing was consistent across all teams globally, with not only all marketing on the same page but sales and pre-sales involved in the conversation and all aiming for the same goals.
ROI for marketing spend
In comparison to what they had been spending on marketing, the whole approach cost them next to nothing. The corporate marketing team took 80% of the spend back internally, minimising the APJ budget of $18 million U.S. at its peak, to about $2.5 million, but the didn’t miss a beat.
Increased audience & conversions
By reducing the scope of their marketing activities and only focusing on the right people, CA was actually able to increase their demand. Combining this with a more-personalised sales process, they saw what Jim estimated to be 50 times more people and a 10-times better conversion rate than before.
Long-running campaigns with quantifiable results
Years later, CA was still using some of the same campaigns – and still getting the same sort of results. The campaigns were built so well that they practically ran themselves, meaning long term continuous benefit for very little work.
We took a 500-person marketing organisation that was all at odds with each other and completely aligned them. It was probably one of the best things I ever did in my career.
Jim Fisher
Training that’s stood the test of time
With align.me’s help, Jim was not only able to improve his team’s performance, but completely change how his entire organisation thought about and executed marketing. The system they created was not only successful at the time but has continued to prove successful in the years that have followed, despite drastic market and technology changes.
“I still get feedback from the people who went on that course saying it’s the best course they ever did.” – Jim Fisher
The same Buyers Journey logic they’d used successfully in Australia caught on in Asia, and from there Jim and Hugh took the training to teams in Europe, Latin America, and North America.
The same marketing concept and training is what align.me’s current training program is built on. And it continues to work.
The training covers everything for strategy, execution, sales and marketing alignment, and business alignment. It’s a logically-sound approach built to make sense to everybody, whether a corporate branding person, field marketer, a sales leader, pre-sales person, the customer or a business partner.
Although Jim has now moved on from CA and Marketing Management, he still believes strongly in the strategy driven by Hugh and its continued value today.
“I can’t think of another way of doing it. If I hadn’t done marketing this way, I wouldn’t be here.” – Jim Fisher
Are you ready to get your marketing firing and your business growing?
align.me have helped hundreds of businesses get their sales and marketing aligned and their growth plans on one page – and helped many more get their plan off the ground and executed.
Get in touch to discover how align.me can help you reach your business goals.
