Today I’d like to introduce Kasey Bayne of Javelin Technologies. She is the Marketing Manager at Javelin and is a very enthusiastic NetSuite user. She’s at the controls day to day, rolling up reports and planning campaigns. She’s also helped other NetSuite customers with tips and advice on how to get things done in NetSuite.
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Kasey, before we talk about NetSuite, could you describe how the marketing team did their work before NetSuite? What systems did you use and how did everything come together?
Hi Rob, and thanks for meeting with me today.
Before NetSuite, it seems now like we were living in the dark ages! We ran our marketing team on a number of systems – one for sending out campaign emails, one for creating emails, one for our customer database, and one more for managing our budget.
We used GoldMine, Mach5, some accounting software I don’t even know the name of, and more Excel spreadsheets then I could count (or would ever want to). None of the systems talked to one another. This made it difficult to track results of our campaigns, in terms of campaign performance and tie them to the sales cycle. It also made visibility across departments very difficult. We were constantly emailing documents around.
In one word – it was a mess.
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When you were first introduced to NetSuite what was the thing that changed the most for the Javelin Marketing team?
The greatest (and most beneficial) change to the Javelin Marketing team once we started using NetSuite was the metrics. Marketing success can be tough to measure, and Netsuite has given us the tools we need to track the data to make good decisions. Things like click-through rates, ROI, close rates, and even down to what happened with each individual lead we dig up are easy to find and help us make better, more strategic, decisions.
Previously we only had vague ideas of what was working and what was a waste of time.
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Change doesn’t happen overnight. How long did it take to get using all the functionality and reporting in NetSuite? What phases did you go though while learning NetSuite?
It didn’t happen overnight, but nothing worth it happens that quickly. We had a great NetSuite consultant (that would be you!) who helped us get set-up. I was nervous at first, especially about the email campaign portion. You don’t want to mess up when you’re sending out 20 000 emails! But you helped us get set-up quickly, do some testing, and that made me 100% confident in how NetSuite could work for us. I’d say we started using it on day 1, and it was about 4 weeks to having everything up and running (we kept adding new features as we discovered them!).
There were a few phases in our NetSuite implementation – we first took some time to map out our current processes, from lead generation to close. It was important to see what happened to a lead, from the time it was created to the time it closed. We were able to see where we wanted to make changes, and mapped those out BEFORE we started implementing the system. Taking this time out before hand was a huge benefit to setting up our system to work the way we wanted our business to run.
We had a good week of training, and then worked with our NetSuite Consultant to set-up and customize things as we got the system into place. We did some more advanced things with our Consultant once we had the basics down and were ready to take full advantage of some of the more advanced features. Now, things are working great across the board, and we are able to make better decisions because of it.
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What’s your favorite NetSuite feature?
There are so many, its hard to pick one! My absolute favourite has got to be the Campaign ROI Report, and really the reporting features in general.
Why did I pick the Campaign ROI report? In the past, to get these numbers was a HUGE ordeal. I’d lock myself in my office for a week straight, with a pile of spreadsheet printouts, and a pencil and ruler for cross-referencing by hand. Since it was such an undertaking to pull this all together, we’d only do it once a year, to wrap up the year’s events.
Being able to see this information at the push of a button is amazing! I can see the data often, and make quicker decisions to better run our marketing team. The change from one week to immediate is unbelievable, both in terms of time saved and in increasing my ability to make timelier, more strategic decisions. I can’t imagine running a successful department without it, its become that valuable to how I run my department.
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You’ve helped a few other NetSuite customers. What are some typical questions you get?
The main questions I get were in regards to setting up campaigns. That is one of the fundamental parts of any marketing program, and it is important to have it set up from the start. Its the most common area of questions, because it can be difficult for a non-marketing person to understand how campaigns work, so its important to have someone who understands the process there to help you get set-up right.
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Looking back, are there any recommendations you would make to other marketing managers out there who are just starting up?
The best recommendation I have is to take the time to get set up RIGHT at the start. Make sure you fully understand your own processes. There’s nothing more frustrating then having to go back and re-do something because it wasn’t set-up for the way things actually work in your organization. Take the time you need, and get some help! There are SO many functions in Netsuite, to help not only marketing, but every department, so get someone to help you out and take the time to really dig into things and take advantage of all the system has to offer. Trust me – it’ll help your business.
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Thanks very much for your time Kasey. It seems like you really are a fan of NetSuite Campaigns! I appreciate you taking a moment out to chat about NetSuite. Have a good 2009 and keep us posted on how you change the way you market over the year. I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about.
You can find Kasey on twitter as @JavelinTech
