Online video hosting company Wistia increased conversion from its free trial program by nearly 30 percent with lead management campaigns powered by marketing automation provider, Pardot, an ExactTarget (NYSE:ET) company.

Wistia triggers Pardot-powered automated drip marketing campaigns that feature blog content and personalized emails to re-engage prospects, resulting in Wistia nearly doubling its customer base within its first year.

“Before working with Pardot, we didn’t have a systematic way to capture leads,” said Ezra Fishman, Wistia’s marketing director. “Working with Pardot, we are able to market to prospects and existing customers, by automating the lead tracking and nurturing process, resulting in strong business results.”

Wistia creates, deploys and manages its online lead nurturing campaigns using Pardot, capturing the top of funnel leads for tracking and lead nurturing. With insight into the prospect, the company sends targeted emails, depending on how far along they are in the sales cycle.

“Sending exactly the right message at just the right moment can really impact conversions, and marketing automation takes the hassle out of that process,” said Adam Blitzer, ExactTarget’s vice president of b-to-b marketing automation and Pardot co-founder. “Wistia’s campaigns help the online video host market broadly to prospects and customers while providing personalized communications to advance the sales cycle.”

Forrester research estimates that lead origination and lead nurturing accounts for 21 percent of the overall b-to-b marketing budget — the largest component of b-to-b marketing spend. (Forrester Research, Inc., July 2, 2012 report, "The State of Lead-To-Revenue Management").

Wistia’s campaign follows the release of a new commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of ExactTarget that found 35 percent of marketers ranked managing marketing campaigns across multiple marketing point solutions as one of their greatest challenges - despite 78 percent who said they believe cross-channel marketing is important or very important to their business. To download a complimentary copy of the study, visit www.exacttarget.com/CrossChannelStudy.

Acquired by ExactTarget in October, Pardot enables marketing and sales departments to create, deploy, and manage online marketing campaigns that increase revenue and maximize efficiency. Featuring certified integrations with salesforce.com, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SugarCRM, Pardot powers lead nurturing and lead scoring to generate and qualify sales leads, shorten sales cycles, and demonstrate marketing accountability.

About ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a leading global provider of cross-channel interactive marketing software-as-a-service solutions that empower organizations of all sizes to communicate with their customers through email, mobile, social media, Web and marketing automation. ExactTarget’s suite of integrated applications enable marketers to plan, automate, deliver and optimize data-driven digital marketing and real-time communications to drive customer engagement, increase sales and improve return on marketing investment. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana with offices in North America, Europe, South America and Australia, ExactTarget trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “ET.” For more information, visit www.ExactTarget.com.