Salesforce.com 2004 Annual Report Download - page 14

Table of Contents
Referral and Indirect Sales
We have a network of partners who refer customer prospects to us and assist us in selling to them. These include consulting firms, other technology
vendors and systems integrators. In return, we typically pay these partners a fee based on the first-year subscription revenue generated by the customers they
refer. We have also started to develop third party distribution channels for our service.
Marketing
Our marketing strategy is to generate qualified sales leads, build our brand and raise awareness of salesforce.com as a leading provider of on-demand
CRM application services. Our marketing programs include a variety of advertising, events, public relations activities and Web-based seminar campaigns
targeted at key executives and decision makers within businesses.
Our principal marketing initiatives include:
• launch events to publicize our service to existing customers and prospects;
• direct mail and email campaigns;
• participation in, and sponsorship of, user conferences, trade shows and industry events;
• cooperative marketing efforts with partners, including Web link exchanges, joint press announcements, joint trade show activities, channel
marketing campaigns and joint seminars;
• using our website to offer free trials of our service and to provide product and company information; and
• advertising in newspapers, CRM trade magazines, management journals and other business-related periodicals.
Customer Service and Support
We believe that superior customer support is critical to retaining and expanding our customer base. Our customer support group handles both general
customer inquiries, such as questions about the ordering process or the status of an order or payment, technical questions or questions relating to how to use
our service, and is available to customers by telephone or email or over the Web. We offer basic and more advanced classes on how to use, administer and
customize our service over the Web free of charge to our customers on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on the class.
We have a comprehensive technical support program to assist our customers in the use of our service and to identify, analyze and solve any problems or
issues with our service. The support program includes email support, an online repository of helpful information about our service, shared best practices for
implementation and use, and telephone support. Telephone support is provided by technical support specialists on our staff, who are extensively trained in the
use of our service and who are located at our three global support centers in San Francisco, Dublin and Tokyo. In addition, we have supplemented our support
specialists with third party technical support specialists who work for us on a contract basis. Basic customer support during business hours is available at no
charge to customers that purchase our Team Edition, Professional Edition or Enterprise Edition. Premium customer support that includes additional customer
support services is available for an additional charge.
International Sales
In fiscal 2005, 2004 and 2003, we generated approximately 20 percent, 18 percent and 14 percent of our total revenues, respectively, from customers in
Europe and Asia Pacific. We expect international markets to provide increased opportunities for our applications and services in the future. Our current
international efforts are focused on strengthening our direct sales and marketing presence in Europe and Asia Pacific, and generating more revenues from
these regions. We maintain sales offices in 11 countries outside of North America.
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