sproutloud
Total Automation and Visibility to Increase Sales at the Local Level through Channel Partners

For decades, the use of software to automatically insert names and addresses from database onto the letters and envelopes sent to consumers by mail has been a mainstay of direct marketing. Fast forward to today, and you see the localization of these programs available in digital marketing as well as the traditional ones. Direct enterprise marketing to consumers continues to evolve with “Single Point” solutions. This creates a very complex environment for the Marcom management professionals to get all of these solutions to work cohesively. SproutLoud takes this one step further through the indirect sales channels that are representing brands locally. The platform combines localized co-branded marketing with Co-op and MDF funds to get channel partners engaged in programs and more effectively market products to the end customers. Think of SproutLoud as being one level below other Vendors like Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua, the level that works strictly with the brand’s channel partners.

“We consolidate digital, social and traditional advertising tactics into our single platform for all marketing fulfillment activities and the resulting channel partner engagement and program analytics. This ensures visibility to the partner and the brand on how the marketing tactics and their dollars are working,” says Gary Ritkes, Managing Partner and President, SproutLoud.

Ritkes notes, “Marketing executives and CIOs are charged with proving out ROI on the Marcom technology investments. The key is providing visibility to executive leadership.” SproutLoud's technology incorporates a set of leading digital, traditional and social marketing strategies to generate strong awareness with customers via e-mail, landing pages/microsites, paid and organic search, reputation management social media content distribution, and other traditional media buying for TV, radio, print, and SEO. Ritkes describes the platform—“Through Channel Marketing Automation,” which automates marketing on behalf of a brand’s channel partners.

The partners are typically independent retailers, dealers, resellers, agents, brokers, franchises, corporate- owned locations or field sales reps. They lack the time, resources and know how to do this for themselves. Thus, SproutLoud fully automates these programs for the partners at the local level so brands can control the message and the time for deploying messages in the market. SproutLoud manages the entire Co-op and MDF process in real-time using their proprietary Copay technology, reducing the IT investments of their clients.

In a client engagement, SproutLoud was instrumental when they helped LearningRx, an education franchise specializing in brain training. They previously had a challenge with franchisee uptake in their marketing efforts because of signing-in to many disparate solutions, which weren’t connected to each other or their proprietary solution. Hence, they lacked true visibility and were unable to capture the data required to initiate data-triggered marketing programs, whether in the form of an e-mail, a reminder, graduation mailer, or posts on Twitter and Facebook. LearningRx integrated their proprietary CRM with SproutLoud’s comprehensive marketing technology. By utilizing SproutLoud, LearningRx consolidated multiple systems onto one platform enabling franchisees to enhance their local marketing efforts. “Through LearningRx’s Franchise Management System, franchisees are able to log in and order the assets they want with customization and localization or simply enroll in corporate created automated marketing programs so they don’t have to think about marketing themselves” adds Ritkes.

He envisions, “as clients continue demanding easier and more intuitive platforms, analytics and custom reporting will become critical to success. Data, marketing automation, and real-time reporting are the Holy Grail.” Following this trend, SproutLoud will continue to focus on data consolidation and custom dashboard enhancements in 2016 and also continue to expand geographically based on customer requests.