Salesforce.com 2013 Annual Report Download - page 12

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Sales, Marketing and Customer Support
We organize our sales and marketing programs by geographic regions, including the Americas, Europe, and
Asia Pacific, which includes Japan. The majority of our revenue from the Americas is attributable to customers
in the United States. Approximately 30 percent of our revenue comes from customers outside of the Americas.
Direct Sales
We sell our services primarily through our direct sales force, which is comprised of telephone sales
personnel based in regional hubs, and field sales personnel based in territories close to their customers. Both our
telephone sales and field sales personnel are supported by sales representatives, who are primarily responsible for
generating qualified sales leads. Our small business, commercial and enterprise account executives focus their
efforts on small, mid-size and large enterprises, respectively.
Referral and Indirect Sales
We have a network of partners who refer sales leads to us and who then assist in selling to these prospects.
This network includes global consulting firms, systems integrators and regional partners. In return, we
typically pay these partners a fee based on the first-year subscription revenue generated by the customers whom
they refer. Also included in this network are ISVs, whom we typically pay a percentage of the subscription
revenue generated by their referrals.
We continue to invest in developing additional distribution channels for our subscription service.
Marketing
Our marketing strategy is to promote our brand and generate demand for our offerings. We use a variety of
marketing programs across traditional and social channels to target our prospective and current customers,
partners, and developers.
Our primary marketing activities include:
• Press and industry analyst relations to garner third-party validation and generate positive coverage for
our company, offerings and value proposition;
• User conferences and events, as well as participation in trade shows and industry events, to create
customer and prospect awareness;
• Social marketing and engagement on social channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube;
• Search engine marketing and advertising to drive traffic to our Web properties;
• Web site development to engage and educate prospects and generate interest through product
information and demonstrations, free trials, case studies, white papers, and marketing collateral;
• Multi-channel marketing campaigns;
• Use of customer testimonials; and
• Sales tools and field marketing events to enable our sales organization to more effectively convert
leads into customers.
Customer Service and Support
Our global customer support group responds to both business and technical inquiries about the use of our
products via the web, telephone, email, social networks and other channels. We provide standard customer
support during regular business hours at no charge to customers who purchase any of our paying subscription
editions. We also offer premier customer support for an additional fee, which includes services such as priority
access to technical resources, developer support, and/or system administration.
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