LeadMD.com starts working with Stratus in June 2010 to take over the company strategy and work on demand generation. This time LeadMD has to do everything from brand creation, online marketing presence and marketing strategy execution. We have merged the complete insights, challenge and affects of our marketing compaign to make you decide the correlation with LeadMD marketing automation.

1. LeadMD Case Study
Stratus Payments
Start to Finish
TM
Payment Solutions
Stratus Payments offers a payment
processing software solution for billing
based businesses. Stratus offers a rich
integration model, exceptional functionality
with no extra costs, and pricing that’s easy
to understand. The problem is, they are a
spin-off from a very tradoitional business.
So how dis Stratus make the light-speed
jump to Marketing Automation without
faltering or and maintaining a small staff?
LeadMD helped them build a buisness, on a
foundation of great marketing.

2. LeadMD Helps Stratus Build a Marketing Machine that Churns Out
Results
SUMMARY:
Stratus Payments offers a payment processing software
solution for businesses. Stratus integrates with the popular
receivables software and helps companies meet PCI
compliance standards for online credit card processing.
Stratus offers a rich integration model, exceptional
functionality with no extra costs, and pricing that’s easy to
understand. The company has been helping its clients make
more money with secure payment channels, while doing less
"After careful review work since 1998.
of every technology CHALLENGE:
out there, we decided
Stratus Payment is a fast-growth Web 2.0 company that
that Marketo was the emerged from parent company WSW Holding and NCAN
right fit for us, and Services. Prior to spinning off into it’s own entity, Stratus
Payments did not have marketing automation in place and
LeadMD was going very little online marketing. The company knew that in order
to be our outsourced to penetrate the crowded online payments industry, a robust
marketing program was needed. The company purchased
marketing team." Marketo’s Marketing Automation Software, and hired LeadMD
to implement and manage the campaign. Change was their
goal. Stratus wanted to forego the long branding cycle and
mass marketing strategies they had taken with WSW/NCAN
and embrace a more solution-based message. LeadMD was
tasked with everything from brand creation, to placement, to
marketing strategy, to execution.
“We really didn’t know where to start but we knew that
nurture marketing was going to be the core of our customer
acquisition. After careful review of every technology out
there, we decided that Marketo was the right fit for us, and
LeadMD was going to be our outsourced marketing team.
Handing over this hefty piece to LeadMD allowed me and
my team to focus on the product and business development
relationships,” said company President, David Worton.

3. SOLUTION:
“They moved at
LeadMD started working with Stratus Payments in June an incredibly fast
2010. LeadMD took a bottom up approach, starting with a
but efficient pace
and every piece
market analysis SWOT. Then they researched competing
solutions in the market place. With this competitive
analysts, LeadMD was able to suggest positioning and
of the project
was executed
partner strategies that allowed Stratus to leapfrog many
of the typical time-to-market challenges prevalent in the
merchant processing space. No one in the payments space
on flawlessly. I
to capitalize on that area and that meant data – segmenting knew even at this
was focusing heavily on the online channel. LeadMD decided
the industry contacts that Stratus had acquired over 15
stage that once
the program was
years through it’s sister businesses.
“There was a lot of data to comb through and prepare so
underway we’d
see the leads
that it was truly ready for a robust marketing campaign.
We used an append strategy by first cleansing the Stratus
database and then mashing that data up against several
and customer
acquisition we
sources to form a more complete profile,” says LeadMD CEO,
Justin Gray. “From there it was key to apply the personas we
helped Stratus develop and segment again on those buyer
types. It allowed Stratus to see some of the best response
wanted”
metrics we have seen in terms of nurture opt in. It was a
big win for them.”
LeadMD built buyer personas from their findings and
secured a name and URL for the company. Based around
those personas, LeadMD also built the company logo and
began copywriting Web text, and assembling a persuasion
architecture that communicated with the buyer. In just
over 60 days LeadMD had assisted Stratus in forming and
implementing a consistent brand image and online marketing
presence.
“Getting a new company off the ground takes more work
that anyone could ever imagine going into it. Knowing that
LeadMD was implementing our entire marketing automation
program from start to finish, and then handling all of the
execution, was a relief I can’t even describe," says Worton.
"They moved at an incredibly fast but efficient pace and
every piece of the project was executed on flawlessly. I knew
even at this stage that once the program was underway we’d
see the leads and customer acquisition we wanted”

4. At this point LMD began building the Stratus marketing automation infrastructure around
the content they has created as part of the website build. Using Marketo as a platform
to implement lead scoring, nurturing and lead management programs were integrated
with salesforce.com. Bridging the gap between Stratus sales and marketing was all
Phase I. Within 120 days from inception, Stratus Payments was a fully functioning
business with a strong lead funnel structure.
RESULTS:
LeadMD accomplished a remarkable return on marketing automation investment in one
quarter. The results are as follows.
+ 450 new leads added to the funnel each month
+ More than 100 qualified leads are passed to sales each month
+ 85% conversion into sales pipeline
+ 30-40 deals closed per month
+ Average sales deal size equals $3,400 monthly recurring revenue
+ Average sales cycle is 60 days
+ 35% of deals come from lead nurturing
+ Nurtured deals average 140 days in cycle, but produce 20% more revenue than
standard cycle deals
SO WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
+ Stratus has grown by 520% since implementing the program
+ Cost of Goods Sold expenses of less than 20% of Gross Revenue.
+ Profitable in first year
+ 320% ROI in relation to marketing automation spend in first 120 days
The most remarkable thing about this program is that all sales are being managed by
a two-person sales team. LeadMD is currently helping Stratus Payments maintain their
marketing automation program to ensure it keeps turning results like this. They are also
helping Stratus market to new verticals.
Worton closes in saying, “Stratus Payments simply would not have seen this kind of
success if it were not for LeadMD. They continue to act as our outsourced marketing
team and the growth we see week over week is more than we could have hoped or
anticipated. LeadMD will continue to be a part of our team for a long time.”

5. About Stratus Payments
Fully Integrated Billing & Payments by Stratus Payments change the way billers receive
and apply payments. Because Stratus payment integrations have been designed to be
as simple as possible, a very small amount of development will result in sizable benefits.
You will be able to accept electronic check payments and credit card payments, greatly
reducing payment-funding times. For more information on Stratus solutions, visit www.
stratuspay.com
About LeadMD
LeadMD is a conversational marketing services firm specializing on organic lead
generation. Headquartered in Phoenix, LeadMD helps companies fix their funnel by
leveraging cutting edge sales and marketing technology to produce quantifiable revenue
based results www.LeadMD.com.