Act-On Success Story
ProLabs is the largest global supplier of compatible networking and optical solutions, with more than 15 years of experience in the industry. The company has offices in the UK and US, and supplies products and solutions — such as transceivers and DAC cables — that help support IT infrastructure for large enterprises and service providers.
ProLabs stands apart from larger Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) like Cisco, Juniper, and HP in that it provides high-quality compatible products at a more competitive pricing. The company prides itself on the first class quality, compatibility and choice in comparison to OEMs and other competitors in the industry.
Challenge
Haley McPherson is the Global Marketing Director of ProLabs and is in charge of strategy, planning, and overseeing a global team of 6 people dispersed between the UK and the US. Her team is charged with executing on all activities related to analytics, budget management, campaign planning, and more.
Haley knew that the right marketing automation platform was just what she and her team needed to make ProLabs stand apart from other competitors in the industry. Haley wanted a cost-effective solution that would enable her team to enhance their marketing efforts and improve the company’s ability to communicate with and educate customers.
Solution
When Haley came on board as Global Marketing Director, ProLabs was using Eloqua. However, she didn’t think the company was getting enough value from the platform. “We are a growing business, but we were still probably just scratching the surface in terms of level of usage for the amount of money we were paying for Eloqua.”
Haley was also unhappy with the user interface and the level of customer support Eloqua was providing ProLabs. She and her team experienced difficulty gaining access to Eloqua’s customer support team and, as a result, were not leveraging the platform as much as they could. “We always had to email them and wait, and the response times weren’t great. Although we were trying to learn and get more out of the platform, we just weren’t succeeding.”
All these factors convinced Haley to search for a platform that would possibly replace Eloqua once the new fiscal year came around. She wanted an easy-to-use solution that would allow ProLabs to effectively manage leads and gain visibility into customer data and insights. Haley also wanted to partner with a vendor that could offer her team training that could be completed at their own pace, as well as excellent customer support.
Haley became acquainted with Act-On early in her search after receiving a chance call from a UK sales manager. At the time, Haley was considering two other vendors, including Eloqua. She chose Act-On because she had a positive experience getting to know the platform. “I probably had three or four meetings with Act-On as we were moving closer to the decision-making process, while I probably only had one or two with the other supplier we were looking at.”
In addition, Haley felt that the platform was easier to use and had a better user interface than other solutions ProLabs had considered. “I felt more comfortable with the Act-On software because I had received more training and even had an IT guy walk me through how to use the platform.”
Results
Since implementing Act-On, ProLabs has been using the platform to send emails, automate its social media efforts, and improve the way it tracks inbound leads. ProLabs has seen an increase in open and click through rates, and hopes to see even better results and improve their lead management efforts once they integrate Act-On with Salesforce.
Thanks to Act-On, ProLabs is also better equipped to comply with GDPR, which Haley states is very important for the company. During the implementation process, Haley and her team worked with Act-On to clean up their database and ensure the company was following all guidelines related to GDPR. In addition, ProLabs uses Act-On’s compliance form templates and segmentation capabilities to ensure that all new contacts are properly opted in to receive communication. “We now have the double opt-in built into our contact forms on the website, and the fact that Act-On automatically segregates contacts who opt-out is very, very helpful.”
In addition, ProLabs marketing team has been able to take advantage of resources such as Act-On University and customer support to make the most out of the platform. This, along with Act-On’s excellent features, has empowered ProLabs’ marketing team to be more effective and creative with their marketing. “The ease of use for me and my team has allowed us to be more creative. When you have a platform that is easy to use, you actually want to spend time experimenting with what you can do in it. So I think it has been great for us in terms of creating a great customer experience.”
In the future, Haley believes Act-On will help ProLabs reach more customers more effectively as the company continues to grow. She plans for the ProLabs marketing team to increase their email marketing initiatives and take advantage of Act-On’s segmenting capabilities. “I’ve seen how easy it is to do some of the automation and segmentation of data within Act-On, so we’re going to start pushing out more campaigns and newsletters to the databases that we have.”
