Facet Breaks Down Silos and Boosts Leads with Operatus and Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Baltimore

‍ Location

Financial Services

‍ Industry

200 +

Employees

Key results

After moving to Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Facet experienced initial growth but soon plateaued, prompting them to reevaluate their marketing operations strategy. Operatus teamed up with their internal teams to get everyone on the same page, making some changes to Salesforce Marketing Cloud that allowed for better personalization and improved data flow throughout the organization.

  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud
  • Salesforce Sales Cloud

"I liked how Operatus challenged assumptions that we had. I value when someone questions me, gives me new ideas, and pushes back. Those new views, especially coming from a team that's done a lot of RevOps engagements with different companies, drive us to be better. That was the biggest unlock for me.”

Ben Bryer VP Business Operations, Facet

Challenge

Facet is a technology-driven financial advisory firm that connects people with real financial advisors. Their main goal is making expert financial guidance accessible to everyone, no matter how big or small their investments are.

As Facet ramped up growth, their marketing team found themselves needing a better system for prospecting and reporting. They were using Iterable, a cross-channel marketing platform, for member communications, but it wasn’t syncing well with Salesforce, and it didn’t support their campaign needs either. Plus, getting insights meant transforming and exporting data to a warehouse, which wasn’t a practical solution for their team.

So, they decided to step up their game in 2024 by investing in Salesforce Marketing Cloud. With a different implementation partner, they migrated their existing processes from Iterable to Marketing Cloud, essentially doing a straight "lift and shift" of their original processes and workflows.

After a little initial growth, they hit a plateau and weren’t quite sure why. They realized it was time to reevaluate not just their tools, but their whole strategy and team structure. That’s when they brought in Operatus for a three-month engagement to figure out what was holding them back.

Solution

While Facet had already laid the groundwork by starting to set up Salesforce Marketing Cloud, they needed to take it beyond a simple tool setup.

That's when they brought Operatus in for a three-month engagement to take a closer look at their approach. During that time, Operatus:

Took an advisory role to help align internal teams: Operatus met with sales, marketing, and business operations teams, digging into how they used Salesforce Marketing Cloud. The verdict? They had the right team and a solid setup but weren't using Salesforce Marketing Cloud to its full potential. Operatus' external validation gave Facet confidence that they were on the right track but needed to go further. This helped them reprioritize resources to finish the job.

Created more personalized journeys for prospects: Operatus showed Facet how to use the insights gathered from website visits to create more tailored experiences for prospects, matching them up with the right offerings.

Assisted with technical decisions: Operatus helped Facet pick the best SMS solution for multi-channel engagement by comparing Salesforce SMS and Twilio, ultimately choosing the option that fit their growth goals.

Optimized data flow between teams: Operatus streamlined data collection, so their data team received comprehensive information with minimal fuss.

They also set up the Campaign object in Salesforce Sales Cloud, making it easy for the sales team to access marketing data for lead qualification and offer development.

Results

In just three months, the Operatus and Facet teams got a lot done:

  • First personalized prospect journey launched: They successfully kicked off their first customized customer journey. The marketing team now has a solid foundation to launch even more personalized journeys as they create more content and expand product offerings.

  • More informed sales team: With the connection to Campaigns, the sales team gained real-time visibility into lead behavior, allowing for smarter outreach and faster deal closures.

  • Scaling while maintaining a lean team: Facet's marketing team can now run more nurture streams and effective campaigns without needing to hire more people. The improved setup in Salesforce Marketing Cloud helps them continue to scale efficiently.

Operatus helped break down the barriers between Facet's teams and gave them the tools to tackle their lead stagnation issues.