Bluewolf

BACKGROUND

Could you briefly describe your company?

We’re a solar solution provider, a solar panel manufacturer as well as a large-scale power plant and large commercial solar developer. It’s a multinational company. There are roughly 5,000 employees. We’re publicly listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

What is your position?

My title is equivalent to an online marketing manager. I manage most of our digital campaigns, marketing automation systems, and much of our analytics and dashboards.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What were your company’s business goals for initiating the project with Bluewolf?

With Bluewolf, we weren’t working with them previously. We were working with another marketing automation service provider that wasn’t working out for us. We were looking for a new solution provider. With Bluewolf in particular, we were looking to gain efficiencies with their deep Salesforce knowledge. We needed one provider able to not only to design our marketing automation tools based on the platform we’re using, Eloqua, but also extend it if need be into our Salesforce CRM system. That was one of our initial criteria.  We were looking to reduce our retainer and the hourly rate we were paying. Those were two of the big drivers for us. But overall, it was a quality issue. We were having some overall project management and quality issues with our previous vendor.

Why did you select Eloqua as your preferred solution over some of its counterparts?

That was prior to me really managing the system. I don’t have a great background there. But I can tell you at a high level. We’re selling to consumers directly, so homeowners interested in going solar. We’re dealing with very large commercial customers like Apple, Walmart, etc.  We’re dealing with power plants and working with utilities. We have very distinct segments. Our Salesforce setup is somewhat complex because of that. My understanding is Eloqua was one of the few if not the only marketing automation tool that could meet all of the integration requirements we had. That’s how it ended up there.

SOLUTION

How did you select Bluewolf as your solution partner?

One of the big reasons was they were actually already working with us on our Salesforce environment. I would say that’s probably the biggest reason. Not under the marketing team, but with our IT team. They were working on a few different projects for them and had a retainer in place. And so I was able to piggyback on that. They met all of our needs. So we ended up extending the relationship to cover marketing automation.

Can you describe the scope of the project in terms of the components: did it include design, development, support, training, etc.?

It was really less of a traditional project. I view them as our managed service providers. We have a set number of hours with them each month that on a needs basis. There are ongoing needs related to campaign design and execution. We handle the simpler campaigns internally. When it’s a new feature that we want to add or we want to initiate a complex campaign, that’s when I’ll involve Bluewolf.

We’re using Eloqua and Salesforce together. We all tap into their Salesforce development skills as well for certain features that make more sense living in the CRM environment rather that in our marketing automation tool. That’s a huge value add from the Bluewolf side. They’re able to bridge the two systems, which are so closely integrated, and design custom solutions for us.

They also provide consultative best practices as well. That work on things like lead account management and lead nurturing.

They’re also responsible for training. For every tool, system or campaign that they develop, there’s heavy documentation involved. They have all these cheat sheets and best practices that they handoff to us once they’ve completed a component.  We have a small microsite that we’re managing in order to catalogue all of that documentation.

Could you give me a sense of the size of this initiative in either monetary terms or the number of personnel dedicated to the project?

It’s not really dedicated personnel per se. We have a fixed number of hours with them each month. We currently have 125 hours per month. There are a few different resources that we work with. Then they tap into their pool of consultative marketing automation specialists. At certain times they’ll bring in developers for customization, too.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics that would demonstrate the effectiveness of their work so far?

I’d have to think about it a little bit. Their work isn’t so all encompassing and broad ranging. It’s hard for me to say on a high level. I can tell you that we’ve definitely reduced costs. They’ve performed very well overall.

When working with Bluewolf, is there anything that you would consider unique or special about them compared to their competitors?

It really comes down to their Salesforce expertise. In my mind, that’s their bread and butter or their core competency. It’s really where they’ve built their practice. Now they’ve come into marketing automation. In my mind, that’s been a large value add for us, because what we found with our previous vendor and some of other vendors out there is – I mean, there’s always multiple ways to design a campaign, or there’s just a significant number of ways you can formulate a campaign.

Their added value for us has been that they have a good handle on both of the tools we use. They also design brilliant campaigns that are easy to manage. That’s one of my biggest challenges. You can really design anything, but when it comes down to managing it and replicating it, then it becomes an issue. We had so much complexity previously that we couldn’t effectively manage our campaigns and our integrations. Bluewolf came in and made that a thing of the past.