SAS’ Marketing Application Boost Sales at Wolters Kluwer

Wolters Kluwer, the leading global information services and publishing company, has seen a dramatic 50 percent uplift in its UK marketing campaign responses and sales conversions thanks to a key role played by the implementation of a complete marketing automation application from SAS, the market leader in business intelligence software and services.

In a year-on-year sales comparison, the company found that the ratio for the number of appointments converted into sales dramatically improved by more than 50 percent. Wolters Kluwer attributes these results to improved data quality and access and advanced targeting and campaign management; all achieved as a direct result of implementing SAS.

Mike Turner, Wolters Kluwer UK’s Head of Management Information Systems, states: “This is a highly significant result: an increase in sales conversion ratios plus an increase in order values across our business mix and consistent over a number of months. SAS has played a key role in achieving this, providing the infrastructure, the ‘glue’, that holds it all together. We’re seeing quantitative and qualitative improvements; not only is our targeting better, but we now have the ability to take a far more ‘real-time’ approach rather than using data that might previously have been extracted up to a month before a campaign.”

Turner concludes: “SAS delivered what we wanted and more besides. The benefits of the system we are seeing today outweigh where we thought we’d be at this stage. It was rolled out as a sales and marketing system but it has become a business management system, used in areas that range from business planning to sales reporting, finances and so on, with key performance indicators built in. SAS has become our core centralised system for marketing, sales and business activity. Having a strong partner is key, and this has been a genuine partnership with SAS.”

Ian Manocha, Managing Director of SAS UK, states: “This is a great example of how SAS’ marketing software can really make a difference to a business’s bottom line. Our work with Wolters Kluwer clearly demonstrates how SAS can help companies improve response rates and ultimately revenues. What’s even more encouraging is Wolters Kluwer’s confidence in SAS and its move to use our software as its central business system. SAS is proud to be recognised as an integral part of Wolters Kluwer’s future development.”

SAS’ marketing software, built on the SAS’ Enterprise Intelligence Platform, was originally chosen by Wolters Kluwer in November 2006. SAS now provides Wolters Kluwer with the ability to cleanse its data and improve data quality and access, resulting in highly targeted marketing campaigns that can be automated. It also gives a far clearer understanding of the balance between customer retention and acquisition, the ability to measure campaign success and feed back to sales teams, reduce costs in sales and marketing, and optimise marketing spend.