Set It and Forget It Marketo-Integrated Subscriber Emails:
A Case Study with DiscoverOrg

Franklin Bear, Marketing Operations Manager at DiscoverOrg

DiscoverOrg is a pioneer in data intelligence today, focused on sales and marketing. They provide reliable, specific, and granular data about real people, as shown in this video. They also offer world-class articles, advice, and tips on sales and marketing from their blog. Marketing Operations Manager Franklin Bear describes their aim as “delivering the most accurate and actionable B2B sales and marketing data on the planet that will accelerate growth in pipeline and revenue.”

The Challenge

DiscoverOrg’s ability to offer that information to their clients had been hampered for some time. Franklin recognized how critical subscriber management is, but the email service he was using at the time was too limited. Furthermore, DiscoverOrg used Marketo for their website analytics and tracking, and various email campaigns, but had almost no insight into their blog newsletter analytics at all. What little they did have wasn’t able to translate easily over to Marketo.

The other thing they needed was control. They had a brand message to present, and they wanted it to be consistent across every email, every newsletter, and every other communication. Most importantly, control included timing—being able to set releases ahead of time and let them trigger remotely would be a huge burden removed and let the creative team focus on staying creative.

The Attempts

And so, DiscoverOrg started looking for a way to transition to something better. They found a potential solution straight away. What were the results? Franklin answers, “We tried to get them to help us customize the template, to keep our branding cohesive, but they wouldn’t help out.” Paying someone to design and code every single email would be cost prohibitive for any company, not to mention an ineffective use of time. But that wasn’t the only problem…

“Beyond that, it wasn’t reliable. I found myself firing it off on the weekends manually because it just wouldn’t send on its own.” That lack of customization combined with a lack of reliability left them searching for something better.

The Solution

Digesto was what they turned to next. This time the results came swiftly and positively. Since Digesto works natively with Marketo, any branded template created through the platform was useable. On top of that, our team worked together with DiscoverOrg to customize the templates even further. “They coded and tested, and tested more until it was perfect,” Franklin said.

What about reliability? Digesto’s Smart Scheduler will only detect new content, and sends it out on a predetermined schedule. “I don’t have to send (updates) manually on the weekend,” Franklin said. “I don’t have to worry if the email will be populated with the RSS feed. It just works.” All of the metrics and subscriber management DiscoverOrg uses is handled in Marketo, and those same metrics are monitored from the emails. Any changes or updates to the planned emails can be handled through Marketo, and it gives access to a wider array of content.

The Results

When Franklin thought about life without choosing Digesto, this is what he said. “[Without Digesto,] our blog program would have sucked! I still would be manually pushing the sends on Saturdays, and worry if the RSS feed was working properly and pulling in content.”

Franklin’s ultimate measure of performance? “I have had ZERO hiccups with Digesto since I started using it. ZERO.”