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Brief
Ingram Micro, Inc. is the world’s largest wholesale IT distributor and a leading technology sales, marketing and logistics company.
Ingram Micro summarised its business opportunities as:
> A need for stronger competitive advantage
> A lack of resources to maintain home-grown solutions
> The need for profiled targeted communications relevant to the customer
> Improvements needed in reporting, both internally and externally
> Increased customer penetration and yield, while reducing churn
> Centralised customer intelligence, avoiding duplication across the company
> Ultimately, increasing Sales and Gross Profit
Strategy
Ingram Micro wanted to respond more quickly to its customers needs in order to increase trading at an aggressive rate. It recognised that customer loyalty can wane when market conditions are tight and success comes down to getting the basics right.
Due to the slim profitability margin typical in the technology business customer communications need to have a personal touch and be relevant to the individual, showing a genuine understanding of the customer.
It wanted timely, relevant and effective communication around new products, special offers and deals, and automated ‘base level’-triggered campaigns such as lapsed accounts and credit availability.
Execution
The new Aprimo solution gives the marketing team greater control over its activities, the opportunity to monitor customer purchasing activity and the ability to react quickly with better tailored campaigns.
“We needed an integrated database and one that could send our emails, too,” Ingram’s Manager says.
The Aprimo solution was up and running within three months, quickly transforming the company’s B2B online marketing communications. Ingram Micro uses Aprimo to run both its own B2B campaigns, and those with leading technology vendors including Microsoft, HP, Cisco, Acer and Apple.
Results
Confirming the benefits Ingram Micro has experienced, the company’s commercial director, Bhavesh Patel, says: “We are communicating much more effectively with our customer base now. And our new targeted, responsive communications are paying off – online sales have increased by 150%.”
> 150% increase in online sales
> 3%+ click-through rate
> Consolidated view of customer touch points from multiple vendor systems
> Streamlined complexity and eliminated manual processes
> Reduced campaign cycle time
> Shortened web response times
> Provided pre-qualified leads to sales
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