SAN MATEO, Calif. and DUBLIN, Ireland, Jan. 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Marketo, the leading provider of cloud-based marketing software, today announced that the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a subsidiary of the Economist Group, has deployed Marketo worldwide to power growth. By improving marketing effectiveness, and implementing best practices to the EIU's lead nurturing, scoring, and sales insight, the firm estimates the increased efficiency equates to the productivity of two extra FTEs.

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"We wanted a mature solution that would enable us to bridge the gap between sales and marketing through delivery of pre-qualified and scored leads to drive greater conversion rate," said Holly Donahue, senior marketing manager, Economist Intelligence Unit. "We evaluated several leading marketing automation solutions, and selected Marketo based on its rich functionality and ease of use."

The EIU has one of the largest and most experienced analysis teams in the world. Its 100 full-time country experts and economists have a thorough grounding in economics, politics, risk and industry. As the leading provider of forecasting and advisory services, the EIU wasn't short of sales leads, but rather lacked the marketing automation and sales insight to manage them. A large number of leads were regularly generated from various channels, including events, the Web, and webinars. These were then manually forwarded onto the EIU sales teams globally via email or spreadsheets for follow-up. However, the sales teams had to devote hours sifting through low quality leads to find lucrative sales opportunities. 

"Using the Marketo platform, our entire organization now has a single, complete view of each lead, and its progress through the sales process. This allows us to more effectively manage our sales pipeline, close more business, and close business more quickly," continued Donahue.  "The EIU marketing team relies on Marketo to deliver leads to a large global sales team in a quick and efficient manner. It's the productivity equivalent of two full time additional team members."

Marketo also integrates with the EIU's existing CRM system from Salesforce.com, and has a similar to the look and feel, enabling the EIU's sales teams to swap between systems seamlessly. Over time, the EIU will also integrate social marketing feeds into Marketo from LinkedIn, Twitter, and other sources, driving even broader and deeper prospect insight.

About Marketo: Easy, Powerful, Complete.  
Marketo uniquely provides easy-to-use, powerful and complete marketing software that propels fast-growing small companies and global enterprises alike. Marketo® marketing automation and sales effectiveness software – including the world's first integrated solution for social marketing automation – streamlines marketing processes, delivers more campaigns, generates more win-ready leads, and dramatically improves sales performance. With proven technology, comprehensive services and expert guidance, Marketo helps thousands of companies around the world turn marketing from a cost center into a revenue driver.

Known for providing breakthrough innovation and fueling explosive growth, Marketo was recently named one of "America's Most Promising Companies" by Forbes, the #1 Marketing Software Vendor on the INC 500, and the #1 fastest-growing private company of 2011 by the Silicon Valley Business Journal.  In both 2011 and 2012 the company received the CRM Market Leaders Awards Winner for Marketing Solutions by CRM Magazine. Salesforce.com customers also honored the company with two AppExchange Best of '11 Awards, for Best Marketing Automation Solution and Best Chatter Exchange.

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