Johan Terve arrived at Aptilo with a vision – to transform the company’s sales and marketing department into a data-driven, revenue-generating machine.
The opportunity was obvious. Aptilo relied on disconnected tools such as a dedicated newsletter system separated from the customer database, that was holding the company back. A modern CRM and up-to-date marketing automation tools would revitalize sales and marketing and bring the company much closer to its customers.
As VP of Marketing, it was Johan’s responsibility to find this solution.
The answer seemed obvious – it was time to upgrade to a powerful enterprise-grade solution.
But Johan had had bad experiences implementing these types of solutions in the past. Too much unnecessary functionality that can create as many problems as they solve.
There were many potential complications to consider – integration issues, poor adoption rates, and inflexible software, to name just a few. But Johan was worried about their combined impact. Adapting to the new system could seriously hamper his team instead of helping them.
That’s why Johan chose to work with us.
Speed and flexibility
We were able to offer Johan a flexible, easy-to-deploy solution that delivered results, fast. There was no bloatware, no unexpected costs, and no time-consuming disruption.
We started with his most pressing needs – establishing marketing automation workflows and pushing web interest forms data to sales.
Our dedicated account people worked with him to solve his problems, visiting his office, and tuning the platform to his users’ specific needs.
This hands-on, hyper-focused approach helped us slash time to deployment. Where an enterprise platform would take months to get going, we could be ready in weeks.
And while Johan started small, his requirements grew. Soon, we were helping him refine his newsletter campaigns and add new functionality to the platform.
Today, Aptilo uses Upsales for website tracking, email marketing and advanced audience segmentation with targeted e-mail campaigns. Pipeline forecasts are built within the system and any lead left out of the platform isn’t considered an opportunity.
Having one platform for both sales and marketing has also helped Johan bring both teams together. Everyone now works from a single source of truth and workflows are more transparent (and less confusing).
Marketing can now develop campaigns based on up-to-the-minute sales data and sales people can engage prospects confident that their interest is genuine.
This integrated approach has generated, in Johan’s own words, “too many leads”.
“Upsales is unbeatable when it comes to speed and flexibility,” says Johan. “I was able to start small and expand quickly. I only ever paid for what I needed and when my requirements changed they listen and were more than happy to add specific features to their platform. You just don’t get this standard of service with enterprise-grade sales and marketing platforms.”