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Business-availability specialist generates 50% increase in new business opportunities in just 18 months using CDC MarketFirst.
ICM is Britain’s leading business-availability
specialist, offering managed availability and
business-continuity services to major corporations
across the country from its 20 locations throughout the
U.K. The company is part of Phoenix IT Group plc, which
employs 2,400 people and has annual revenues in excess
of £230 million (US$470 million).
When Erick Mackay, ICM’s Group Marketing Director, took on the position in 2004, all the marketing department’s activities were managed manually, using nothing more sophisticated than lists compiled by hand and entered onto spreadsheets. “It was impossible to keep tabs on what we were doing and how we were generating leads, and tracking responses to our campaigns was unfeasible,” says Mackay. “It was clear to me that what we needed was a far more efficient way of tracking all our communications and building up an effective marketing database. What we really needed was an electronic system that could give us a clear picture of our marketing activities.”
Rapid Implementation and Thorough Training
Mackay examined a large number of marketing automation products at tradeshows and on the Internet. CDC Software’s CDC MarketFirst stood out as the most capable of managing marketing activities triggered by responses to individual marketing events or seminars—a vital feature for ICM. But CDC MarketFirst had one overwhelming factor in its favour: the fact that it could be fully integrated with CDC Software’s Pivotal CRM (customer relationship management) suite to provide a complete sales and marketing solution from initial marketing communications to prospects through to sales completion. “I felt we should go with CDC MarketFirst, as in the future we would be able to add the CRM functionality of CDC Software’s Pivotal CRM, and then we would be able to do everything that we were ever likely to need,” says Mackay.
U.K.–based CDC Software reseller TEEC implemented CDC MarketFirst for ICM in just two days and also provided training for the company’s seven-person marketing department. “The training provided by TEEC was very good, and it only took about a month for all our staff to get a thorough understanding of the new software and start putting it through its paces,” he says.
More Campaigns with Less Staff
With CDC MarketFirst up and running, the improvements in the effectiveness of ICM’s marketing campaigns were immediate and dramatic, Mackay says. “Straight away we could do far more with less staff, as all the manual activity was no longer necessary. The bottom line is we can do more campaigns than ever before, and it is practical to do smaller, more targeted campaigns, too.”
Since they implemented CDC MarketFirst, Mackay and his team have been able to send communications to prospects methodically and efficiently. “We have 150,000 prospects in our database, and we link this to information from Dunn and Bradstreet to target companies that match a particular profile; we then upload the names and contact details of the relevant people into CDC MarketFirst. We are then ready to initiate a campaign and can set up an e-mail shot automatically or export contacts to a fulfilment house that carries out print direct mail shots for us,” says Mackay.
ICM also invites prospects to seminars, asking them to register to attend online. Details submitted on ICM’s website flow into CDC MarketFirst automatically, and these can then be used in highly targeted e-mail campaigns to registrants both before and after the seminars.
CRM Integration
In 2006, ICM implemented CDC Software’s Pivotal CRM suite, as envisioned by Mackay when CDC MarketFirst was originally selected.
As expected, the level of integration between the two products significantly enhances their individual worth, Mackay says. Responses to every marketing campaign are tracked and followed up on using CDC MarketFirst, and any positive leads are sent electronically to the Pivotal CRM system and passed on to the sales teams. “This gives us a tremendous amount of useful information about our marketing activities,” says Mackay. “We have a long sales cycle between generating a lead and closing a deal, but using the two products, we have the ability to look back over the longer term and see which individual marketing activities work and which ones don’t. We can look at individual marketing initiatives and see very accurately how many leads they generated, how many sales they resulted in, and what the cost of each sale was. That is fantastically valuable information to a marketer, and without CDC MarketFirst we simply wouldn’t be in a position to know any of that.”
“We can look at individual marketing initiatives and see very accurately how many leads they generated, how many sales they resulted in, and what the cost of each sale was.”
Erick Mackay
Group Marketing Director, ICM
Hugely Successful Project
ICM’s relationship with CDC Software has been close over the past few years, with CDC Software continuously ensuring that the software meets as many of ICM’s needs as possible. “We work very well with CDC Software, and we get the benefit of upgrades and new features all the time,” says Mackay. “We have regular contact with their product managers so we can tell them what we need, and CDC Software is very responsive.”
Ultimately, a marketing automation system like CDC MarketFirst is all about generating good leads to enable salespeople to make sales and generate profits. By this measure, implementing CDC MarketFirst has been hugely successful for ICM, Mackay concludes. “We know that we have generated more than a 50% increase in business opportunities over the last 18 months using CDC MarketFirst. Needless to say, I am extremely pleased with the product.”
When Erick Mackay, ICM’s Group Marketing Director, took on the position in 2004, all the marketing department’s activities were managed manually, using nothing more sophisticated than lists compiled by hand and entered onto spreadsheets. “It was impossible to keep tabs on what we were doing and how we were generating leads, and tracking responses to our campaigns was unfeasible,” says Mackay. “It was clear to me that what we needed was a far more efficient way of tracking all our communications and building up an effective marketing database. What we really needed was an electronic system that could give us a clear picture of our marketing activities.”
Rapid Implementation and Thorough Training
Mackay examined a large number of marketing automation products at tradeshows and on the Internet. CDC Software’s CDC MarketFirst stood out as the most capable of managing marketing activities triggered by responses to individual marketing events or seminars—a vital feature for ICM. But CDC MarketFirst had one overwhelming factor in its favour: the fact that it could be fully integrated with CDC Software’s Pivotal CRM (customer relationship management) suite to provide a complete sales and marketing solution from initial marketing communications to prospects through to sales completion. “I felt we should go with CDC MarketFirst, as in the future we would be able to add the CRM functionality of CDC Software’s Pivotal CRM, and then we would be able to do everything that we were ever likely to need,” says Mackay.
U.K.–based CDC Software reseller TEEC implemented CDC MarketFirst for ICM in just two days and also provided training for the company’s seven-person marketing department. “The training provided by TEEC was very good, and it only took about a month for all our staff to get a thorough understanding of the new software and start putting it through its paces,” he says.
More Campaigns with Less Staff
With CDC MarketFirst up and running, the improvements in the effectiveness of ICM’s marketing campaigns were immediate and dramatic, Mackay says. “Straight away we could do far more with less staff, as all the manual activity was no longer necessary. The bottom line is we can do more campaigns than ever before, and it is practical to do smaller, more targeted campaigns, too.”
Since they implemented CDC MarketFirst, Mackay and his team have been able to send communications to prospects methodically and efficiently. “We have 150,000 prospects in our database, and we link this to information from Dunn and Bradstreet to target companies that match a particular profile; we then upload the names and contact details of the relevant people into CDC MarketFirst. We are then ready to initiate a campaign and can set up an e-mail shot automatically or export contacts to a fulfilment house that carries out print direct mail shots for us,” says Mackay.
ICM also invites prospects to seminars, asking them to register to attend online. Details submitted on ICM’s website flow into CDC MarketFirst automatically, and these can then be used in highly targeted e-mail campaigns to registrants both before and after the seminars.
CRM Integration
In 2006, ICM implemented CDC Software’s Pivotal CRM suite, as envisioned by Mackay when CDC MarketFirst was originally selected.
As expected, the level of integration between the two products significantly enhances their individual worth, Mackay says. Responses to every marketing campaign are tracked and followed up on using CDC MarketFirst, and any positive leads are sent electronically to the Pivotal CRM system and passed on to the sales teams. “This gives us a tremendous amount of useful information about our marketing activities,” says Mackay. “We have a long sales cycle between generating a lead and closing a deal, but using the two products, we have the ability to look back over the longer term and see which individual marketing activities work and which ones don’t. We can look at individual marketing initiatives and see very accurately how many leads they generated, how many sales they resulted in, and what the cost of each sale was. That is fantastically valuable information to a marketer, and without CDC MarketFirst we simply wouldn’t be in a position to know any of that.”
“We can look at individual marketing initiatives and see very accurately how many leads they generated, how many sales they resulted in, and what the cost of each sale was.”
Erick Mackay
Group Marketing Director, ICM
Hugely Successful Project
ICM’s relationship with CDC Software has been close over the past few years, with CDC Software continuously ensuring that the software meets as many of ICM’s needs as possible. “We work very well with CDC Software, and we get the benefit of upgrades and new features all the time,” says Mackay. “We have regular contact with their product managers so we can tell them what we need, and CDC Software is very responsive.”
Ultimately, a marketing automation system like CDC MarketFirst is all about generating good leads to enable salespeople to make sales and generate profits. By this measure, implementing CDC MarketFirst has been hugely successful for ICM, Mackay concludes. “We know that we have generated more than a 50% increase in business opportunities over the last 18 months using CDC MarketFirst. Needless to say, I am extremely pleased with the product.”
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