Neolane’s enterprise-ready lead management capabilities, commitment to security and integration with Salesforce.com are key to supporting Sophos’ increasingly sophisticated marketing strategies

1. Sophos Increases Lead Management Sophistication and
Improves Engagement with Perpetual Prospects
Customer name: Sophos
Industry: IT security and data protection
Neolane’s enterprise-ready lead management capabilities, commitment to Business Need: Sophos sought an advanced,
security and integration with Salesforce.com are key to supporting Sophos’ enterprise-ready marketing technology
solution that would support its marketing
increasingly sophisticated marketing strategies department’s evolving campaign and lead
management requirements
More than 100 million users in 150 cycle and ultimately generate revenue,” “Neolane proved to be
countries rely on Sophos (www.sophos. said Andrew Hall, Director of Marketing the only enterprise-class
com) as the best protection against Operations, Sophos.
marketing automation
complex threats and data loss. Sophos is
committed to providing complete security Sophos had always benefitted from basic solution that could help
and data protection solutions that are marketing database centralization, but the us manage a number
simple to manage, deploy and use. Sophos downside was that everything – every of different campaigns
offers award-winning encryption, endpoint touch, every lead - went into the CRM with varying levels of
security, web, email, cloud, mobile and system. That process hampered Sophos’
complexity on a regional
network security solutions backed by legacy system and made lead follow up
SophosLabs - a global network of threat more inefficient. and global level.”
intelligence centers. Sophos sought an Rob Schlansky,
advanced, enterprise-ready marketing The Solution: Multi-Touch IT Director – Marketing,
technology solution that could support Reporting and a Security Mindset Sophos
evolving campaign and lead management Sophos spent several months evaluating
requirements, and one that was also marketing technology vendors against a
flexible enough to align with the transition specific set of criteria that included the TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT
to its new Salesforce.com CRM system. ability to handle its multi-touch reporting • Salesforce.com for CRM, Sitecore for
requirements and manage tiered campaigns web CMS
The Challenge: Traditional Sales on a global level.
Cycles Don’t Apply RESULTS
Sophos sends approximately 200 email Additionally, Sophos knew it would • Increased campaign efficiency, cutting
cycle times and supporting increased
campaigns globally each month, with two eventually transition to a new CRM system, activity with no additional headcount
to three variations for A/B testing. These so the marketing solution had to be flexible
• Automated response handling for
campaigns include license renewals and enough to not only integrate with Sophos’ hundreds of global and regional
security alerts as well as invitations to existing IT infrastructure, but with whatever campaigns each month
webinars and regional events. As Sophos system the company eventually selected. • Improved insight into which activities
grew its customer base and expanded effectively move prospects into the
buying cycle and generate revenue
into new global regions, the marketing Being an IT security company, it was also
• Supported smooth transition to
department needed to be able to scale very important that Sophos work with a
Salesforce.com, with seamless
and improve lead management processes, vendor that was conscious of security integration and information flow
without adding more resources. and could demonstrate a commitment to between the two systems
data protection and privacy. As a result of • Future-proof platform can effectively
“Traditional sales cycles don’t necessarily its evaluation, Sophos selected Neolane’s support Sophos’ growth and
increasing marketing sophistication
exist at Sophos. Our marketing needs are conversational marketing technology. over time
unlike typical B2B organizations due to the
nature of our subscription-based solutions. “Neolane proved to be the only enterprise-
Our multi-touch campaigns use several class marketing automation solution that
metrics to track which activities effectively could help us manage a number of different
move prospects into the pre-buying campaigns with varying levels of complexity

2. “The ability to seamlessly plan, target, execute and measure
communications with prospects is critical. Neolane allows us to better understand what messages and
offers are most effective, if they’ve reached our target market, and whether the information provided is
of value to our customers, partners, and prospects.”
on a regional and global level,” said Rob information prospects find to be of value as the value of security, and I’m not saying
Schlansky, IT Director – Marketing, Sophos. they move through the buying cycle, as well that just because of the business we’re
“Neolane stood out based on its ability to as allowing Sophos to make more informed in. The ability to protect customer data
clearly articulate strong value propositions business decisions about where to allocate and privacy is incredibly important given
and establish best practices associated with time and budget to deliver the greatest value it is often the primary target of attacks,”
data protection and privacy. The platform is to prospects, partners and customers alike. said Schlansky.
also UTF-8 compliant, providing support for
Japanese characters, not something every “With Neolane, we will be able to better Sophos chose to take advantage of
vendor is capable of.” determine logical next steps for accelerating Neolane’s highly secure Software-as-a-
discussions – like when to offer a free Service (SaaS) model, not only for the
The Results: Automate Response software trial following the download of a cost advantages it provided, but also
Handling and Ease Saleforce.com whitepaper, versus triggering a call from the because it was a low-risk approach
Transition sales team,” said Hall. to evaluating the effectiveness of the
With Neolane, Sophos can automate response solution. In fact, Neolane was the first
handling for hundreds of campaigns each Another substantial result of the Neolane external vendor solution to be deployed
month. Leads are cleansed, deduped and deployment was Sophos’ ability to take in a SaaS model at Sophos. Neolane’s
quickly processed in Salesforce.com. Sophos advantage of the Neolane connector for ability to offer the option to move from
is now applying the benefits of automation to Salesforce.com. Today, Neolane provides a SaaS-based model to an in-house
the customer lifecycle process, streamlining the centralized marketing database and, hosted model, should evolving business
the ability to stay ahead of customer based on a set of qualification criteria that needs warrant this in the future, was
communications like sending renewal notices Sophos has established, automatically also seen as a positive by Sophos.
associated with upcoming license expiration. determines what detail is shared with the
new Salesforce.com platform. Over time, Sophos plans to expand
Just as important, the Neolane platform to other communications channels in
is flexible enough to support Sophos’ “We were really pleased with the Salesforce. addition to email. The company will
increasingly granular multi-touch reporting and com integration offered. Using the latest also look to evolve its approach to lead
attribution requirements that track and analyze Salesforce.com connector, Neolane scoring to continue to improve lead
the last prospect touch (called a “hit”) and the ensured the transition from our legacy CRM quality, while decreasing the amount of
steps immediately prior (the “assists”). environment to Salesforce.com was a smooth human intervention.
and seamless one. We were able to function
“The ability to seamlessly plan, target, in a hybrid environment for a short period of
execute and measure communications with time, where Neolane interacted with both Neolane, Inc.
prospects is critical. Neolane allows us to Salesforce.com and our legacy CRM solution 275 Washington Street
Third Floor, Newton, MA 02458
better understand what messages and offers without conflicts, and were able to get the
Office: +1 617 467 6760
are most effective, if they’ve reached our Salesforce.com integration up and functioning Fax: +1 617 467 6701
target market, and whether the information very quickly,” said Schlansky. info@neolane.com
www.neolane.com
provided is of value to our customers, partners
and prospects,” said Schlansky. Neolane also supports Sophos’ distributed
global marketing teams. Neolane has become a United States
Neolane enables Sophos to adjust campaigns development tool that is used to implement best United Kingdom
and focus marketing spend on high- practices for more effective campaign execution, France
tracking and measuring, and eventually to Nordics
value activities that are most effective in
transforming a touch into a lead. Over time, encourage more self-sufficient teams.
Neolane and the Neolane logo are trademarks or registered
Sophos will rely on Neolane to support trademarks of Neolane Inc. in the United States and other
increasingly sophisticated lead nurturing and Lessons Learned: Security Must countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the
property of their respective owners.
scoring strategies. These strategies will allow Align with Marketing Operations
© 2012 Neolane, Inc.
the marketing team to better understand what “Marketing vendors simply can’t underestimate