The reasons to switch MA tool to the BowNow are 1) User friendly UI design, 2) knowledge of lead acquisition｜FutureOne Inc.
From the left, Mr. Kuwasawa and Ms. Hashimoto, in charge marketing at FurtureOne and the rest are account managers at BowNow
FutureOne Inc.
System development/IT consulting
| Location | Headquarters: Osaki West City Building 6F, 2-9-3 Osaki, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo |
|---|---|
| Number of emoloyees | 294 people |
| Establishment | October. 1. 2002 |
| Capital | 200 million Yen |
| Business Content | ERP and core business systems development and sales and support such as "InfiniOne", "MoneyOne" |
| URL | https://www.future-one.co.jp/ |
Trace the behavior of prospective customers during the study period and use them for sales activities
Please introduce your company
Mr. Kuwasawa: Our company's philosophy is to "provide high-quality IT solutions to small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the cornerstones of society, and do our best to increase the value of our client companies." We provide system solutions and IT consulting focusing on ERP and mission-critical business systems to improve operational efficiency.
The InfiniOne ERP that we have developed, sold and supported is a customized ERP that supports domestic business customs. Although it is an ERP, the strength is that it can be customized flexibly while ensuring quality and maintainability, and can be fitted to the customer's unique business. We also handle SAP ERP, and have a system in place to support both "customized" and "non-customized" ERP.
Among them, I and Hashimoto are in charge of marketing, including lead (potential customer) training and sales promotion.
【Challenges・Solution・Results】
| Tools | Knowus, BlueMonkey, BowNow, Consulting |
|---|---|
| Contents | Website（Corporate webiste), Articles, Whitepapers, Newsletter |
- Enhance promotion of 10:29:19 our brand and strengths of our company and products on the website and acquire leads.
- Better understanding of actions of leads and give hot leads to sales to customers
- Better understanding of opening rate of e-mail magazines and perform analysis and improvement activities.
- Enable to operate and improve the website etc., in-house
- While clarifying the strengths into three types, we have redefined the "service lineup that makes it easy for viewers to see the difference." Browse product page use corporate log for sales
- Improving the quality of inflows and inquiries by narrowing down the target major industries to 8 and promoting case studies and solution contents
- Send e-mail newsletters to past collection leads and improve lead nurturing (customer development) measures based on the open rate and click rate.
- Prepare an environment where pages and forms can be updated in-house, while increasing the number of seminar information and WP (white paper) leads that are CV points
- Increased the number of sales appointments by utilizing information of newly visited companies and data of companies that browsed the product page
- The number of high-quality inquiries increased from the core target by preparing a newly created key page and pages that narrowed down the type of industry
- Send e-mail newsletters to past collection leads and improve lead nurturing (customer development) measures based on the open rate and click rate.
- The opening rate of e-mail newsletters improved to an average of around 25%
- PDCA became easy to turn because it is possible to quickly create and modify customer examples, seminar pages (application form), etc.
【Selection Points】Costs and functions are the same as existing MA tools, switch to BowNow with a good UI and integrate vendors
What were the challenges you had before introducing BowNow?
Mr. Kuwasawa: In a word, it means strengthening web marketing. I wanted to make better use of the Web and acquire new leads. In addition, our ERP, which is our commercial product, is in the range of tens of millions of yen to hundreds of millions, and because the customer's consideration period tends to be long, it cannot be sold immediately. In some cases, we received orders from customers for several years.
So, I also wanted to create a system to follow existing leads as well as new ones.
To strengthen web marketing, it was necessary to renew the website and utilize MA tools.
The renewal started by convincing the upper layers. In the first place, it begins with understanding that the website is important for brand launch and sales tools, to comparison of web creators, to the perspective of how to operate after renewal, details We made a presentation with all the materials and obtained approval.。
Ms. Hashimoto, Mr. Kuwasawa
Please tell us the reasons why you chose BowNow
CMS *1 ・The big factor was that Startia Lab developed the Cloud Circus including the MA tool (BowNow) in-house. Of course, there is an advantage of being able to unify support, but more than that, "Website design, content creation and operation design for acquiring and managing leads can be done "at the same time as one company"", so I thought that the issue of "renewal and utilization of MA tools" could be solved in the shortest distance. Since the MA tool was developed in-house, I was expecting that it would also have a wealth of "know-how on lead acquisition methods."
I also tried the function of CMS/MA tool. It wasn't much different from the one I was using before. The UI was better than the existing one and it seemed more intuitive to use. Moreover, the cost was the same as the existing one, so there was nothing to say.
I also signed a consulting plan when I introduced the CMS and MA tools. Our company's representative thinks that instead of throwing anything to the subcontractor, study what you can do in-house and accumulate know-how so that you can make use of it in the future. This is in-line with Startia Lab's policy of preparing a consulting plan in order to stand alone and carry out PDCA on its own. Some vendors weighed in and said, "Please leave it all to us." Also, based on the idea of the representative, I want to have a relationship where the business partner can also do business as a partner. I asked a representative of Startia Lab to meet with the representative of our company and think about each other's thoughts. We contracted after confirming each other's thinking.
We were able to redesign the new website so that it can be used as a sales tool while improving the usability and appealing the brand image and strengths of our company and products. In addition, we are now able to easily perform operations such as new page creation/modification/simple SEO, introduction of case studies/seminar information, and form creation using MA tools. I was able to quickly respond to requests from sales departments such as page renovation and seminar postings, so I feel that I have been able to foster an atmosphere of "Let's utilize web marketing more".
※1 CMS: Content Management System, which is a system that can easily update websites without knowledge of HTML.
【Operation Structure】Disclose the data acquired by BowNow at weekly sales meetings and use it for sales
How does BowNow operate?
Ms. Hashimoto, Mr. Kuwasawa
Mr. Kuwasawa: At the weekly business meeting, we disclose the companies that visit our website and the results of our actions on BowNow. We are doing detailed utilization according to the purpose, such as extracting the companies that were browsing a specific product page and marking the companies that were not visited last week. In addition to us in charge of marketing, we also issue accounts to several people such as sales managers so that they can log in freely. Another advantage of BowNow is that there is no limit on the number of accounts.
Ms. Hashimoto: I use the mail delivery function of BowNow to publish e-mail magazines every month. We publish the newsletter. Since BowNow can confirm the opening rate of e-mail magazines, we carry out trial and error every month to increase the opening rate. If it is digitized, it will increase your motivation.
Recently, we have changed from text-based e-mail magazines to e-mail magazines with high visibility using images. Perhaps because of that, the opening rate has risen, and it is stable at an average of about 23-25%. I heard that the opening rate is usually 10 to 15%, so I am glad that the opening rate is quite good.
In addition, since we can check the access status to the e-mail magazine content on Bowownow, we also disclose that information to the sales staff and have customers follow us as necessary.
【Future Outlook】Strengthen lead acquisition and training utilizing websites through continuous consulting
Our contact person: Mr. Kuwasawa and Mr. Hashimoto have high literacy around the web, and we did not need much advice regarding tool operation. Therefore, in addition to continuing to strengthen the production of case studies, which had been a priority since the website was renewed, we also focused on expanding WEB contents and utilizing BowNow to collect and analyze the results of marketing measures taken offline, such as by linking with seminars. We will continue to consult with you, acquiring new leads, nurturing, and sending customers to sales staff. As a measure for strengthening branding, we are not limited to just web marketing, but we are planning to use mass media as a PR activity while also using a PR company.
【Customer's Voice】There is still further growth. While using consulting services we will produce results going forward.
Please tell us about your satisfaction, impressions, and future prospects of BowNow.
Mr. Kuwasawa: I am not at the stage of using BowNow yet, so I think there is room for growth. The lead acquisition method by downloading WP (white paper) has just started about two weeks ago.
Ms. Hashimoto: The content of WP was created with the introduction case as advised by Startia Lab. Our marketing staff is in a position to supervise our customers, as the sales representatives at the site obtain permission from our customers to post photographs, interviews, and create sentences. The location of WP on the website is just before the lead to the inquiry form. This was also suggested by Startia Lab.
I would like to create a case where the created case study is first posted as Web content, then converted to WP and downloaded, or deployed in catalogs and sales materials. In the past, the introduction of the introduction to the company guide, which was a bit tedious, helped the content.
Mr. Kuwasawa: On the old site, the company profile related pages were viewed the most, but after the renewal, the pages of major products have become popular. In the future, I would like to visualize not only the number of the page itself but also conditions such as the page browsing route and visualize with BowNow. Furthermore, I would like to be able to take measures to effectively connect to sales actions by entering the data accumulated in BowNow into the existing SFA.
I think that our web marketing and BowNow are still in the process of development, so it would be great if we could have a place like this time to report when the results come out again.
Thank you very much!
