Changing the way business is done: The Wall Street Journal customizes Salesforce to drive advertising

Challenge

• The Wall Street Journal— the world's leading business publication—wanted to manage the sales component of its highly successful print and online products more effectively
• The publication sought a customizable CRM solution that could easily adapt to its unique global processes for multimedia sales
• Rudimentary spreadsheets failed to adequately manage the sales pipeline
• The CRM system needed to integrate with the company’s print and online advertising systems

Solution

• The company chose Salesforce for front- and back-end implementation, easily integrating the CRM system with an advertising data warehouse along with print and online advertising systems
• Without help from IT, the ad team created custom tabs to manage institutional sales contracts and customized fields to align with its business processes
• Users access all marketing materials, order forms, and contracts centrally in Salesforce
• The company easily customized Salesforce to provide an intuitive way to manage data for commissions, account management, and sales revenues
• With workflow functionality, lead generation and distribution is now automated in Salesforce

Results

• Salesforce gives the Wall Street Journal a consistent face across all print and digital advertising products
• With Salesforce as the customer hub for all advertising, the company now can offer total-spend discounts across all print and digital products
• Salesforce helps sales reps develop and maintain strong relationships with clients and agencies
• Management has clear insight into its sales pipeline, nationwide activities, and successes
• With improved productivity, the company easily identifies and prioritizes new opportunities
• Proposal creation for digital opportunities is much quicker thanks to workflow that feeds information directly into the digital advertising system
• A centralized source of information provides a seamless transition when a rep leaves the company