SAP Marketing Cloud

Marketing campaigns with personalized targeting and marketing automation are therefore becoming essential for companies. The German manufacturer of customized high-performance blowers and compressors Piller Blowers & Compressors also wanted to automate its lead generation and found the optimal solution by using SAP Marketing Cloud.

Whether B2C or B2B - today's customers use all digital options before making purchase decisions. For companies, this means that they have to prepare their content in a media-appropriate and user-friendly way, but also that they have to present a consistent image on all channels. The touchpoints with the brand should be convincing and personalized. These requirements have been intensified, especially since direct contact was reduced to a minimum as a result of the pandemic.

Tradition and marketing

Piller Blowers & Compressors from Moringen in Lower Saxony is one of the technology leaders in the field of customized high-performance blowers and compressors for the process industry. Worldwide, 380 employees work in the company's own subsidiaries and agencies. 85 percent of the products are delivered abroad. Participation in international trade fairs and personal exchange with interested parties and customers play a very important role for the company with more than 100 years of tradition. When this important meeting place suddenly disappeared in 2020, the marketing department in particular asked itself: "How can we best stay in touch with our customers, and how can we communicate with contacts the way they want to?"says Luisa Büker, Digital Marketing Manager and Project Manager SAP Marketing Cloud at Piller.

When S/4 was introduced at the machine manufacturer, Piller initially focused on optimizing sales and customer service with the integration of SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud. The seamless mapping of the lead generation and qualification process on the part of marketing along the customer journey was initially missing. It quickly became clear that an extension tool for professional lead and campaign management was needed. "It is important to us that we get to know the customer needs better, can address everyone individually and precisely and can also respond in real time. Data protection also plays a major role here," says Büker.

The choice fell on SAP Marketing Cloud, which in addition to marketing automation also enables marketing and campaign planning as well as the creation of analyses. "It was clear that the new tool had to fit into the existing software landscape. Because Piller already uses a broad SAP product portfolio, the Marketing Cloud was the obvious choice to seamlessly automate the lead-to-cash process."says Tobias Schneider, Senior Consultant SAP Marketing Cloud at SAP partner FIS, which implemented the solution. The experience in integration scenarios was a great advantage in this project and a decisive factor for the cooperation.

Sales and Service Cloud

From the kick-off in March 2021 to the go-live at the end of July, only a few, but very labor-intensive months passed. "Marketing Cloud should not be a standalone solution, but should be connected to the existing SAP, Sales Cloud and Service Cloud solutions, using the same master data and exchanging information transparently via the interface"explains Frank Münzner from the Piller IT Applications team. It was helpful for the rapid implementation that Piller oriented itself to the SAP standard. The FIS team only adapted the cloud software for Piller when the company needed individual functions that were not included in the SAP standard. "FIS has repeatedly shown us how advantageous it is to stay close to the standard, so we can work efficiently and agilely in the long term. We also benefited from FIS' many years of project and integration experience. It was really a top performance"says Münzner.

After key user training and the subsequent train-the-trainer model, the marketing team was quickly able to use all the active functions of the Marketing Cloud. This includes powerful campaign management based on real-time data as well as personalized targeting with dynamic customer profiles across all channels. Lead management functions create a transparent link between marketing and sales. Thanks to detailed analyses, decisions can be made on the basis of data. Even the management of marketing consents, such as newsletter registrations, which is regulated by the EU-DSGVO, is mapped automatically and in compliance with the law with the Marketing Cloud. 

"As we work with Marketing Cloud, we continue to find new items that we still want to realize"says Büker. That is why further project steps are planned. "Right now, we are only using a small part of everything that is possible with the system. In the next step, we want to use, for example, the multilingualism of the marketing solution and the interaction via social media."Büker explains the next steps.

With SAP's marketing solution, Piller was able to close the gaps between marketing and sales. Lead generation and qualification are managed across channels and interactions of prospects or customers are evaluated in real time. A decisive step for the digital transformation of the company. 

Especially in times when personal contact can only take place to a very limited extent due to restrictions, companies are challenged to maintain communication with prospects and customers via other channels. With appropriate marketing tools, the path along the customer journey can be made the focus of marketing activities. Through professional campaign management, email marketing and marketing automation, companies can reach prospects at every point of the customer journey - and address each customer individually.