YWAM Townsville
Charting a Successful Course with Salesforce
YWAM Townsville is aptly named. ‘Youth with a Mission’ is part of an international organization, which provides care and service to communities in more than 180 countries. Kara Medlock from YWAM Townsville says, “Our focus in Townsville is on building up the capability of young people for caring for others. We’re motivated to serve and give people what they need to improve their quality of life. Salesforce is helping us find like-minded people to join us on our mission.”
This mission includes staffing and funding medical ships, which travel to impoverished communities. Kara says, “Our medical staff provides a range of services from routine immunizations through to surgery. We’ve helped prevent blindness and other life-altering conditions. In some cases, we’re literally saving lives.”
Some training provided by YWAM Townsville takes place right on board. They also provide on the ground training for those who don’t have their sea legs. This includes accredited leadership training for young people.
“It can be a challenge to recruit trainees,” Kara explains.”In the past we’d run a marketing program and get about 100 leads. We would put a lot of effort into following up and then find only about 20 were good candidates.”
Pardot has reversed that trend. Tightly integrated with Sales Cloud, the marketing automation app is used to generate and qualify leads which are managed and tracked through the sales cycle in Sales Cloud. Pardot is changing the way YWAM Townsville recruits trainees delivering efficiencies it soon plans to extend it to other areas of the business.
Kara says, “Pardot makes it simple to run a campaign from beginning to end. And with the automated workflows and approval processes integrated into the Salesforce1 Mobile App, we can manage those campaigns on the go.”
“The proof is in better leads. Now, we might have 80 leads in response to a campaign but typically 30 of these are solid – an increase of up to a third. We’re finding the right people faster and filling up our programs.”
Productivity and morale is also rising along with the success rate. “We’re saving countless hours in qualifying and chasing leads. We can channel this effort into other areas of our business, for example increasing donations.”
Connecting the dots
“We rely on donations and need to make smart decisions about technology. The Salesforce1 Platform delivers all the tools we need,” Kara says. “The major advantage comes with how easily we can connect the apps that add value to our business.”
YWAM Townsville uses a number of apps from the Salesforce1 AppExchange. Easy integration means they’re ready to go instantly – it’s a massive boost to efficiency.
Navigating into the future
Salesforce and Pardot together are a key part of the organisation’s strategy. The vast productivity gains on the training side are just the beginning.Kara says, “We recently signed a lease for a new ship. It’s very exciting as it opens up new opportunities for training and significantly extends our reach into Papua New Guinea (PNG). We’ve provided health, training and community development in PNG since 2010 but our ship there is approaching retirement and only operates six months a year in two different regions. With the new ship, we’ll be able to operate 11 months a year in six different regions.”
“The cost is significant and we have $5 million still to raise but we believe Pardot will help us make waves on the fundraising side of the organisation. The fundraising campaign for the ship will be global – something that would have been difficult to manage without Salesforce.”