Using Marketing Automation to Boost Employee Brand Awareness

DemandGen Helps Accela Change Company Culture—and Win an Award to Boot

THE CHALLENGE:

The marketing department at Accela, a leading provider of government automation software solutions, was tasked with getting employees on-board with the Accela brand and focused on company goals and objectives. They had a great idea—Accela Pursuit, A Game of Company Knowledge—but they needed to bring it to life.

The requirements? The program had to be automated, easy for employees to use and have minimal impact on the marketing department’s regular responsibilities. In addition, the marketing team needed to show the company management the full value of their investment in Eloqua.

THE SOLUTION:

The team turned to DemandGen to help make their inspiration a reality.

Using Eloqua, DemandGen created a 10-week long automated email campaign consisting of weekly surveys with questions specific to each internal department at Accela.

Accela’s executives helped champion the game and even created the game questions for their respective areas.

However, executive sponsorship and a clever idea could only take the program so far. For true success, the marketing team had to keep the employees engaged. Weekly and grand prizes for respondents with the highest scores helped. So did a series of email touches throughout the week that kept the game at the top of employees’ minds.

• On Monday, employees received an invitation to play that week’s game
• Once employees completed each survey, they received thank you emails
• On Wednesday, those who hadn’t played were reminded
• On Thursday, results were announced

Survey scoring was completed in real-time and the program prevented employees from playing more than once.

Throughout the program, the marketing team was able to measure success with a custom results dashboard that DemandGen created.

THE RESULTS:

The results were astonishing—enough so that Accela was awarded second place in the national Creative Excellence Awards competition, hosted by the Employee Management Association.

90 percent of Accela’s employees participated at least once during the course of the game and 63% played every week on average. In a post-program survey, the vast majority (89% and higher) said the game was a valuable learning tool, fostered better understanding of other departments and better communication among employees, was valuable for expanding their knowledge about Accela and its products and services, and helped changed the way they thought about the company. 73% said they’d want to play again.

The Power of Automation Of 165 employees… 90% played Accela Pursuit at least once 63% played weekly 100% rated the game as a valuable learning tool

 

“DemandGen was integral in the success of this campaign,” says Accela Marketing Director Cici Arabian. “They understood our goals and worked with us closely to build in as much program automation as possible as well as creating the reports we needed to measure success and show clear results to company executives.”

LASTING IMPACT

A modified version of the program is now used by the Human Resources department as orientation tool for new hires.

What’s more, the Accela team was able to showcase the value of Eloqua to company management, gain additional ROI from the system, and get ideas for other ways to leverage Eloqua for both internal and external marketing.

“Because we used this tool in a unique way from the beginning, we are more inclined to use it in unconventional ways,” Arabian says. “For example, we now use Eloqua to manage and track reference activities for our customer base—this is also something DemandGen built!”

About DemandGen
Founded in 2007, DemandGen is a global team of marketing automation and lead management experts, with centers of excellence across North America and Europe. Best known for its award-winning lead scoring and nurturing methodologies, DemandGen has helped hundreds of clients establish best practices, implement effective lead management programs, and produce measurable results.

To learn more, call 925-984-2103 or visit www.demandgen.com.