Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS™) is a global leader in financial services technology solutions. The company serves 20,000+ clients in 130+ countries, focusing on retail and institutional banking, payments, asset and wealth management, risk and compliance, consulting, and outsourcing solutions. The digital and mobile revolutions have brought about significant change for this $9.8 billion company.

According to Colin Day, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer/Marketing, FIS is taking full advantage of the exciting opportunities offered by the Engagement Economy. Over the past three years, marketing has increased its emphasis on digital marketing and automation to engage customers in a personalized way to make them customers for life.

To support a digital-first approach, marketing implemented a rich ecosystem of technologies that support marketing efforts worldwide. Adobe Marketo Engage is the center of that universe. Integration between Marketo Enagage and Microsoft Dynamics, which FIS uses for customer relationship management, is tightening marketing and sales alignment. As a result, the marketing and sales teams are identifying and qualifying more opportunities and are closing more new business.

Shifting to a digital-first strategy

For Colin and his team, marketing’s primary role is one of driving shareholder value. To fulfill that role, they needed to focus on growing demand for FIS products and services. Growth through acquisition, however, had resulted in many diverse business units operating independently — a structure FIS referred to as managed entrepreneurship.

The challenge was that individual FIS business units were defining their own marketing strategies and the company was not going to market with a common voice.

The marketing team realized that that the previous approach of “treating any marketing interaction as a lead” and then promoting individual products would not provide a sustainable growth engine. Marketing needed to implement a modern, digital-first strategy of engaging prospects in individualized conversations based on their unique business needs, and then building fit-for-purpose solutions tailored to customer requirements.

The marketing team needed to go back to square one and develop a common culture, vocabulary, and mindset. The effort also involved identifying the skillsets required for FIS marketing associates and empowering those associates with tools for effective modern-day marketing.

“The way that people research products and make purchase decisions is very different today than it was in the past,” says Day. “Today, they do much of their research online — before their initial contact with us. We’re finding that 40% of the buying decision is made before our reps engage directly with a prospect. We needed to drive engagement through digital connections. So, we reinvented our strategy, taking into account the best ways to reach people early in the buying cycle, identify where they are in the decision-making process, qualify them, and get their information into the hands of our sales reps.”

Implementing the right marketing solution

To support the digital-first strategy, the marketing team needed a technology foundation that would enable marketing to deliver personal experiences at scale and nurture prospects with the right content and the right solutions.

“After a major acquisition in 2015, we had two marketing automation systems: Marketo Engage and Eloqua. We needed to standardize on one of them to achieve our goals,” says Day. “We did an in-depth evaluation of our needs and came up with three primary factors on which to make our decision. Price, of course, is always at the top of the list. But equally important were the talent pool available in the marketplace and ease of use. Based on those three factors, we decided to move forward with Marketo Engage.”

Marketo Engage is now at the front and center of FIS marketing activities, supporting a truly global business. The solution enables solution marketers to create global campaign messages. The centralized marketing team then works with field marketing associates to localize messaging while still maintaining a consistent voice.

“Marketo Engage has had a huge impact on our ability as marketers to deliver value to our company,” says Day. “It empowers us to engage clients in a totally personalized fashion to drive increased business.”

Achieving measurable success

With the new marketing strategy and Marketo Engage in place, the marketing team has committed to creating programs and campaigns that meet objective, measurable commitments. Specific metrics were derived from recommendations by global B2B research and advisory firm SiriusDecisions, Inc., and are based on industry benchmarks. They include:

• Generating marketing-sourced leads that contribute 30% of the sales pipeline
• Delivering a 6% contribution to closed business

The commitments now form part of each marketing associate’s compensation plan. And the marketing team has beat the industry benchmarks for two years in a row.

“Last year, marketing handled more than 200,000 inquiries, converted them into 9,889 marketing-qualified leads, and sourced 2,276 opportunities that the sales team was able to win,” says Day. “That put the marketing-sourced contribution to the sales pipeline at 37.11% or around $2.8 billion. And we achieved a 16% contribution to closed business — approximately $480 million. This would not have been possible without Marketo Engage.”

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