Markies Awards Recognize 9 Leaders In Key Areas Of Demand Generation

The second annual Markies Awards were handed out in Las Vegas this week, recognizing innovative and visionary marketers in the field of demand generation. The awards were presented to winners in nine categories at Eloqua Experience ’08, with specific nods to ground-breaking campaigns and programs for sales and marketing effectiveness, lead scoring, lead management and campaign management.

The Markies winners were chosen based on a combination of metrics, innovation and demand generation excellence that drove results for their business. Award recipients included the following companies:

Marketing and Sales Alignment Award Winner: Administaff
Administaff (NYSE: ASF), a leading provider of human resources services for small and medium-sized businesses, successfully implemented the “Eloqua for Microsoft Outlook” program, enabling its sales force to directly access and track marketing collateral that is electronically provided to prospective clients. In addition, managers and sales consultants receive detailed overview reports and real-time key performance indicators, helping to measure the success of projects and initiatives. Since the implementation of this program, the Sales and Marketing departments have achieved an increase in efficiencies and productivity.


Multi-Channel Campaign Award: Comcast-Spectacor
Comcast-Spectacor, a leader in the sports management industry and provider of high quality sports and entertainment, was honored for their successful implementation of a multi-channel marketing campaign to recruit, cultivate, and retain season ticket holders for both the Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers. By leveraging the latest marketing technologies and industry best practices, Comcast-Spectacor increased season ticket renewals for both the 76ers and Flyers by 12% from the previous season.

New Media Marketing Award: Concur
Concur, the world’s leading provider of on-demand Employee Spend Management services, was recognized for its ability to creatively leverage Web 2.0 technologies to build stronger relationships and sustained dialogues with customers and prospects. The company created a viral Web 2.0 travel site, encouraging users to submit, browse, forward, rate and comment on brief travel stories. Traffic was driven to the site through the company’s homepage, print and banner advertisements, and viral distribution. The campaign resulted in a significant increase in traffic to the site, which generated increased page views and community participation through the submission of new stories and comments. The increased site traffic also drove additional sign-ups for Concur Expense - Trial Edition, which resulted in increased and measurable sales opportunities.

Best Lead Scoring Award: Forrester Research, Inc.
Forrester Research, an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology, has implemented a sophisticated implicit and explicit lead scoring program that automatically ranks qualified leads according to their buying interest, thereby improving conversion rates, more efficiently allocating resources, and improving communication with the company's sales force.

Best Lead Nurturing Award: Taleo
Taleo, the leading provider of on-demand talent management solutions, cultivates prospects through a tiered lead nurturing campaign that has improved sales effectiveness and efficiency while minimizing lead attrition. The company’s processes for educating, qualifying and honing prospects through introductory and progressively more specific campaigns differentiates Taleo from its competition and involves the use of educational e-mails, as well as case studies, demos and high-touch tools.

Global Marketing Effectiveness Award: National Instruments
National Instruments, a leading provider of engineering software and hardware, sells to more than 25,000 companies worldwide and employs hundreds of marketers worldwide that execute, track, analyze and build marketing programs in multiple languages. With more than 40 branch operations around the world, they rely on the power of marketing automation to seamlessly automate components of the company’s 2,000 highly targeted and personalized direct marketing campaigns per month regardless of language or scope. This has helped National Instruments manage its dialogue with its customers and prospects in a much more intelligent and efficient manner.

Sales Efficiency Award: Sourcefire
Sourcefire, an open source innovator and creator of SNORT(R) creator, was recognized for its advanced lead-scoring program. Designed for maximum sales impact, this program allows for the ultimate in flexibility, enabling Sourcefire to continue to evaluate and adjust the quality and quantity of its leads based on feedback from the company’s sales organization. Since deploying this implementation, Sourcefire has realized a measurable increase in revenue and the number of product demo meetings scheduled with prospects.

Interactive Marketing Award: TriNet
TriNet, a leading provider of HR outsourcing and consulting services for more than 2,000 small and medium-sized businesses nationwide, exemplifies the business value that can be gained through the successful implementation of interactive marketing best practices. The flawless execution of dynamic and personalized multi-channel marketing campaigns has enabled TriNet to maximize its campaign results, maintain and cultivate its prospect database, as well as organize, execute and measure the efficacy of its marketing programs. In a recent interactive marketing campaign, TriNet realized a 20% increase in its conversion rate and more than 1,000% return on investment (ROI) when measured against the cost of the campaign.