March 8th, 2010 by admin
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In the past Eloqua has been criticized for lengthy deployment times and high implementation costs. The company has tried to improve their services with the SmartStart implementation program.
Clients who participate in Eloqua’s SmartStart are refunded the balance of their investment if they are not fully satisfied with the performance of their marketing automation deployment. Eloqua claims the the SmartStart methodology reduces time-to-value to just five days.
Keep in mind that customers still have to foot the bill for implementation but at least this is start in the right direction.
March 6th, 2010 by admin
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Richard Sharp at Marqui’s Web Marketing Blog posted Top 10 Marketing Automation Must Haves, Part 1. Here is a summary of the key big ideas.
- Fast landing page creation you can measure and a/b split test.
- Simple form creation that integrates with your website call-to-actions. All leads into 1 funnel.
- Bi-directional integration with your chosen CRM system with communication history for sales context.
- Separate marketing database with dynamic segmentation based on explicit data and behaviors.
- Lead scoring duh! But it needs to be simple to use and flexible to fit your business model.
Click here to read the article.
February 21st, 2010 by admin
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Here is a fun article posted by Joel Harrison called Marketing Automation: The Rise of Machines?
‘Automation’ is a word that could strike fear into the minds of the average cinema-goer, back in the golden age of science fiction last century. It conjured up images of soulless robots, marching relentlessly to subjugate us under their tyrannous regime and enslave or kill us… It’s a theme that starts with Metropolis and runs right through to The Terminator and The Matrix – more recently revived by David Tennant in Doctor Who.
So when we add the word ‘automation’ to marketing, should we be fearful? Are marketers about to be replaced by a wave of sinister robots hell bent on driving response rates up and costs down? Are the days of human beings in charge of the marketing function numbered?
Unfortunately, the reality is rather more prosaic … big sighs of relief all round then. For the uninitiated, instead of replacing marketers, marketing automation is a form of technology designed to allow marketers to be more efficient in terms of time and effective in terms of outcomes. It’s about removing some of the more mind-numbing tasks and giving them the ability to be responsive to their audience in a way that would be impossible otherwise. And ultimately it allows them to deliver more of what the organization needs: good sales-ready leads.
Click here to read more.
February 13th, 2010 by admin
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As follow up from my November 2009 post entitled Salesforce Hungry for Marketing Automation, Salesforce.com recently raised $575M through a convertible debt offering on top of the $1B in net cash and investments on its balance sheet. Many analysts believe they are likely to use the cash to fund a more aggressive acquisition policy over the next few quarters and years, involving a string of small-to-mid-sized deals, with potential for larger acquisitions.
As further evidence of this trend, CRM added two new positions to its Careers site, one looking for a “Sr. Director/VP, Acquisition Integration” with 7+ years of M&A integration experience and one looking for a “Senior Manager, Acquisition Integration” who would report to the VP.
These new openings for experienced M&A professionals is a sign that CRM plans to be more acquisitive in the future, with both postings referencing “multiple deals” and emphasizing the build out of “repeatable processes.” Could a marketing automation company be part of Salesforce future plans? Only time will tell.
January 28th, 2010 by admin
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Genius.com has won salesforce.com’s AppExchange Best of ‘09 Awards for marketing automation. Genius.com achieved the top-ranking on AppExchange with products that customers cited as enabling marketers to deliver unrivaled sales success. Genius.com is one of the fastest growing marketing automation players in cloud computing with more than 150 customer wins since the launch of Genius Enterprise Marketing Automation in 2009.
“We are honored to be recognized by salesforce.com’s customers as the preferred marketing automation cloud computing solution,” said David Thompson, CEO and co-founder, Genius.com.
Click here to read more.
January 25th, 2010 by admin
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Marketo
was honored with “BestMass Email” solution as part of salesforce.com’s AppExchange Best of ‘09 Awards.
Winners were determined based on feedback and reviews from salesforce.com customers, and Marketo’s mass email solution has received more than 45 reviews with perfect 5-star ratings for ease of use, value, and support.
This is one of a series of Salesforce honors as Marketo also won the AppExchange Best of ‘08 Award for “Best Marketing Automation” solution.
Click here to read more.
January 18th, 2010 by admin
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Here is a handy website that lists several key marketing automation companies.
January 15th, 2010 by admin
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Research has consistently shown that personalized email campaigns lead to 2-3x higher conversion rates than mass emails.
Personalization can be a challenge due to a lack of data integration and bad data hygiene practices. If marketers can’t trust customer data, how can they use it for more relevant, personalized, timely interactions that drive revenue?
According to a new research study published by Aberdeen Group, the top two challenges with customer data include an inability to segment and target customers through customer data (50%) and a lack of trust in customer data (34%).
The study highlights customer database processes and procedures from 155 organizations to identify how top-performing organizations build trust in customer data and use this information to achieve superior performance in marketing. Click here to download a free copy.
December 25th, 2009 by admin
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LoopFuse’s new CRM Integration Wizard enables Marketing staff to kick-start their CRM integration by themselves, without having to rely on IT staff or wade through lengthy implementation manuals, or take the historical approach of spending additional budget in costly consulting engagements.
According to LoopFuse, the CRM Integration Wizard is a simple 4-step, event-driven process that walks users through a process that typically takes 5-minutes or less. Users can initiate advanced settings with the user-interface or get additional support and information from contextual articles or community-driven knowledgebase links that are readily available throughout the process.
Upon completion, users can immediately sync their marketing automation database and get leads flowing into their existing CRM system like Salesforce.com or SugarCRM. Click here to read more.
November 9th, 2009 by admin
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Kevin Joyce is the chief marketing officer at Market2Lead and makes some interesting observations in his article on DestinationCRM entitled Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf? Is Salesforce.com a threat to vendors of marketing automation solutions?
According to Joyce, the most likely technologies to become commoditized and be fully absorbed by midmarket CRMs are:
- all sales person-related functions, such as notifications, alerts, outlook integration, etc.
- lead scoring from the sales perspective
- data quality tools and data enrichment
- technologies related to social media tracking (knowledge management extension)
- telesales and tele-qualification functionality
- pay-per-click tracking
- email marketing
- channel management functionality
Least likely to be absorbed within the next two years include technologies such as:
- Web analytics
- asset and content management
- marketing calendars and project management
- marketing planning, budgeting, and financials
- production management
- campaign automation
- response management (dynamic profiling with forms, landing pages, microsites, etc.)
- PR-related technologies
- marketing data warehouse
Joyce believes Salesforce.com will likely absorb functionality that has wide appeal to its installed base. That means low end marketing automation vendors and email marketing firms will need to be worried and marketing automation vendors catering to the high-end and midmarket will be in friendly cooperation with the CRM vendors.
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