Ultima Media choose the ultimate media and publishing CRM from Workbooks

As Ultima Media’s product portfolio and customer databases expanded, the organization found itself managing data across 15 different sources. This fragmentation made it difficult to maintain data quality, build marketing campaigns efficiently, and extract useful business insights.

“We had no visibility of our data. This meant we couldn’t clean or organize it, campaign building was time‑consuming, reporting was difficult, and we couldn’t make data‑driven decisions.” Justyna Wanczyk, Database & Circulation Manager

Knowing they needed a CRM platform but uncertain where to start, Ultima’s team sought recommendations from other media companies and conducted online research. This led to a shortlist of two solutions: Workbooks and Salesforce. After several months of evaluation, Workbooks emerged as the clear winner.

The team needed a CRM that offered strong return on investment, flexibility for customization, and guidance throughout implementation. Workbooks met all these needs, offering ready‑made templates along with the adaptability required to build a system tailored to their workflows.

The process began with a shared success workshop involving key stakeholders. Workbooks started backend configuration, followed by a rapid data‑migration phase completed within a month. Marketing was the first department to adopt the system, taking a gradual approach to integrating emails into Spotler to reduce bouncebacks.

“Taking small steps and showing everyone the system was working was crucial to getting everyone engaged.”

Although the sales team was initially hesitant, visible successes in marketing and ongoing training helped drive adoption. Today, all sales activities—including opportunity management, orders, and contact tracking—are fully managed within Workbooks.

With Workbooks, Ultima Media now has full visibility across all brands and departments. Teams can see every client interaction, improving coordination between editorial and sales.

Web‑insight data highlights who is viewing specific online content, enabling smarter prospecting and more targeted outreach.

“One salesperson gained at least ten new accounts using web insights—five times more than before—because he could focus on high‑intent prospects rather than only existing clients.”

Communication is key

“Throughout the process, communication from the Workbooks team has been excellent. They’ve stayed in touch, offered guidance, and shared ideas that helped us get the most from the system. CRM is a journey, and we’re excited to see what more we can do.”