Marketing Automation Now

Salesforce.com Hungry for Marketing Automation?

jkort@kc.rr.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:30:00 +0000

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.

Marketing Automation Myths

jkort@kc.rr.com — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 03:31:00 +0000

Marketbright partner, Left Brain Marketing, put together the 5 most common myths about marketing automation.

Myth #1 - It's Easy

The concept isn’t too difficult to grasp, but taking that high-level concept and determining how many touches, what frequency, and which collateral is far from obvious.

Myth #2 - It's Set It and Forget It

Unless you’re working with a consultant, you’ll need time to engage in some trial and error. And regardless of how thorough and comprehensive your analysis process, when you begin you’ll be forced to make assumptions about content, number of touches, lead scoring values, and other key components.

Myth #3 - Complicated Is Better

The reason for starting simple is that you probably don’t know what you don’t know, and that will force you to make many assumptions.

Myth #4 - One Person Can Do It All

The bottom line is that in almost all cases you’ll need two separate people because the tasks require completely different abilities and aptitudes.

Myth #5 - It's Just Like Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is a sales enablement tool that is largely plug-n-play. Sure, you can “customize” it, but that’s a relatively technical project that requires little strategic planning. By contrast, marketing automation is a long journey that will enable the adopter to become a more effective, analytical marketer.

Click here to read the entire article.

Marketing Automation Who's Who

jkort@kc.rr.com — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:06:00 +0000

The folks at ReachForce put a nice summary of some of the key players in marketing automation space on their B2B Lead Blog. Here are links to their postings...

Balihoo Gets $7 Million in VC Funding

jkort@kc.rr.com — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:37:00 +0000

Balihoo Inc., a Boise, Idaho-based provider of local online marketing automation for franchises and national brands, has raised $7.05 million in third-round funding. OpenView Venture Partners led the round, and was joined by return backers Highway 12 Ventures and Lacuna Gap Capital. Balihoo previously raised around $5.5 million.

OpenView has invested in other successful software and technology firms like Exact Target.

Balihoo's nich is providing local marketing automation to franchises and national brands with local marketing needs. Clients include Quizno's, Carpet One, and Flooring America.

Erich Flynn, CEO of TreeHouse Interactive

jkort@kc.rr.com — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:30:00 +0000

We launched our first marketing automation podcast with an exclusive interview with Eric Flynn, CEO of TreeHouse Interactive.

Click here to listen to the interview.

Marketing Automation Buyers Guide

jkort@kc.rr.com — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:35:00 +0000

Pardot has published a Web Marketing Automation Buyers Guide to help guide the purchase process. With so many vendors to choose from, this is a nice tool to help frame the discussion.

The guide is broken down into the following sections:

Introduction to Web Marketing Automation Systems - A basic overview of what marketing automation is and why it is important.
Marketing Automation Implementation - The importance of creating a plan, goal setting, and assessing results.
Ten Questions to Ask When Evaluating Marketing Automation Systems - Click here for Lauren Kincke's post on The B2B Lead Blog.
What to Expect During the Marketing Automation Sales Process - 8 week timeline that includes self-evaluation, vendor evaluation, technical demo, trial, decision, training, feedback.
Functionality Checklist - This checklist goes through basic marketing automation features and compares against Pardot's product, Prospect Insight.
Anatomy of a Marketing Automation System - Prospect Insight screenshots are used as examples for prospect activity, form builder, email WYSIWYG.

Click here to download a copy.

Marketing Automation User Experiences Shared

jkort@kc.rr.com — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:29:00 +0000

There's a new report out from Demand Gen Report, sponsored by Manticore Technology, that reveals the reflections of 53 marketing executives who are using marketing automation systems. As the use of these systems is estimated at only 10% of the overall B2B market, these insights from the trenches will help both vendors and customers prepare for the best outcomes.

The benefits from automating marketing programs can be many. In fact, given the role of the Internet in today's complex purchasing process, it's almost impossible to operate in a customer-centric fashion without it.

This said, technology is not the answer to better marketing. Technology is the enabler of a solid eMarketing strategy. Marketing automation systems enable the gathering of prospect intelligence and the delivery of content made more relevant when offered in parallel to those insights. Even better, the systems can help you generate online dialogue and interactions valuable to both your prospects and your company.

The report, Marketing Automation: Lessons from the Trenches, provides some interesting feedback from companies that have deployed these systems. The executives interviewed used a variety of solutions including; Active Conversion, Aprimo, Eloqua, eTrigue, LoopFuse, Manticore Technology, Marketo, Market2Lead, Pardot and Silverpop Engage B2B (formerly VTrenz).

Here are a couple of key insights:

“If you were to head up the rollout of a marketing automation system at another organization, what would [you] do differently,” 79.2% said they would “better prepare their organization by building proper processes and content offers to feed the automation system.”

"...usability is important over the long-term of the system’s lifespan, not just in the early stages of rollout. 36% of respondents said, “Just because a marketing automation solution has a slick interface does not mean it’s going to be easy to use and function how you expect...”

Satisfaction rides on meeting expectations:

Vendors should pay close attention to what causes diminishing satisfaction. There's quite an impact shown on satisfaction scores between customers who found the systems easy to use and enjoyed faster implementation times—and those who didn't.

Support and training are also highly critical to satisfaction. Technology vendors must remember that their systems are likely being used by business users, not IT professionals. Using the system is only one thing on a long list of deliverables for an already over-worked marketing department.

The fact that customers find they're "currently using 50% or less of their marketing automation system’s functionality" should also be a wake-up call for vendors to help their customers take advantage of the system's capabilities as they gain proficiency.

Customers need to consider:
Based on the findings from the survey, companies choosing to implement marketing automation need to think carefully about what they want to get out of the system and how their processes will shift from manual efforts to technology enabled efforts.

The whole purpose of marketing automation is to empower marketing to drive more qualified sales opportunities to the sales team. Without the knowledge about what your sales force considers a qualified opportunity, it's very difficult to construct an automation process that delivers prospects truly ready to actively consider becoming your customers.

To round out your decision to implement marketing automation, I'll leave you with this quote from the report:

“Nurture content is different than demand gen content – it’s doesn’t talk about ‘shiny new objects.’ It should deliver valuable content to the reader, based on their profile and behavior.”

Every company considering implementing marketing automation should read this report. In my opinion, marketing automation is one of the best decisions a company with a complex sale can choose to implement. But, it's important to be prepared for what's coming. Technology is an enabler - and a great one. Choose wisely and prepare to use it effectively.

Thanks to Manticore Technology for having the chops to sponsor this survey. It's great to see such high satisfaction levels as well as to help other companies learn from the experiences of early adopters. Well done!

Garner Says CRM Usage Increasing

jkort@kc.rr.com — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:26:00 +0000

Worldwide CRM market revenue totalled $9.15 billion in 2008, a 12.5 percent increase from 2007 revenue of $8.13 billion, according to Gartner Inc. Analysts said that market growth was driven by enterprise investments in technologies focused on customer retention, analytics and on-demand solutions.

Software as a Service (SaaS) continued to drive the market forward, representing nearly 20 percent of total CRM software market revenue in 2008, up from just over 15 percent in 2007. Interest in social networking and social software also escalated in 2008 as businesses were confronted with the sales, marketing, and serviceability impact of increasing consumer participation in online forums.

SAP continued to be the market leader accounting for 22.5 percent of worldwide CRM software revenue in 2008 (see Table 1), but this is down from a 25.5 percent share in 2007. Microsoft experienced the strongest growth rate among the top 5 vendors, as its revenue increased 75 percent in 2008.

Table 1
Worldwide Vendor Revenue Estimates for Total CRM Software (Millions of U.S. Dollars)

Company	2008 Revenue	2008 Market Share (%)	2007 Revenue	2007 Share (%)	2007-2008 Growth (%)
SAP	2,055	22.5	2,072	25.5	-0.8
Oracle	1,475	16.1	1,320	16.2	11.8
Salesforce.com	965	10.6	676	8.3	42.7
Microsoft	581	6.4	332	4.1	75.0
Amdocs	451	4.9	419	5.2	7.6
Others	3,620	39.6	3,311	40.7	9.3
Total	9,147	100.0	8,130	100.0	12.5

Source: Gartner (July 2009)

Marketing automation also continued to grow in 2008, with a 10.4 percent increase, representing 20.6 percent of the CRM market. Customer service and support represented 36.6 percent of the CRM software market, as this segment grew 11.2 percent in 2008.

Click here to read the entire press release.

Interview with Eric Flynn, CEO of TreeHouse Interactive

jkort@kc.rr.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:22:00 +0000

We launched our first marketing automation podcast with an exclusive interview with Eric Flynn, CEO of TreeHouse Interactive.

Click here to listen to the interview.

Social Media Meets Marketing Automation

jkort@kc.rr.com — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:17:00 +0000

Marketing automation software is a natural fit to harness the power of social media and Marketo has released Marketo Sales Insight to do just that. Marketo Sales Insight is a native Salesforce.com application that integrates data from Marketo’s existing lead management tool with Salesforce.com’s sales force automation platform.

According to Marketo, the application is social because it allows salespeople to define a network of prospects or current customers and monitor their activity within the Salesforce.com interface with Facebook-style “status updates.” Updates pulled from activity data include visits to pages on the corporate site, e-mail opens and collateral downloads.

The app also can check such business networks as Demandbase, Jigsaw and LinkedIn for additional information on anonymous leads, which are identified by regional or Internet domain details. The application, which adds tabs to the Saleforce.com interface, also provides automated rankings, including “Best Bets” and “Watch” lists. Users can set up instant alerts to be notified of status changes via e-mail or text messages.

Click here to read more.

Would Microsoft Buy Salesforce.com?

jkort@kc.rr.com — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 05:44:00 +0000

Bob Evans from Global CIO postulates the idea of a Microsoft aquisition of Salesforce.com in his article entitled Should Microsoft Buy Salesforce.com? Both Salesforce.com and Microsoft CRM are players and in the marketing automation space and while a marriage is highly unlikely, Evans makes some decent points in his article.

Think about it: Microsoft's in a bit of a funk these days and, in the category of broad-based enterprise players, is in danger of being relegated to second-tier status behind Oracle and SAP. It's also been outflanked in high-impact specialty areas such as virtualization by VMware, and business analytics by SAS and others, and enterprise search by Autonomy. Meanwhile, Google presents more threats on multiple strategic fronts from personal apps to enterprise search to the Android operating system, and IBM is making a full-frontal assault on cloud computing and business analytics.

After 10 years of stunning growth, Salesforce last quarter reported for the first time that its first-quarter new-business signings came in below last year's as customers took longer to sign, opted for smaller deals, and pulled back on add-ons and upgrades. That slip led the company to reduce its guidance on full-year revenue growth by 4%. Even with that adjustment, Salesforce still expects revenue for the 12 months ending Jan. 31, 2010, to grow 17% to $1.25 billion, so the company is clearly still expanding. The question is, was that slip in new-business signings purely a factor of the weak global economy, or are the competitors it always calls out -- Oracle, Microsoft, and SAP -- asserting themselves in segments that Salesforce used to dominate?

While Microsoft has been expressing its interest in virtualization and its interest in cloud computing and its interest in SaaS and its interest in business analytics, other companies have been taking leadership roles in those areas: VMware and Citrix in virtualization; Salesforce and Amazon and IBM in cloud computing; Salesforce and Workday and lately Oracle in SaaS; and SAS, IBM, and Oracle in business analytics. And when it comes to those critical and strategic enterprise categories, some CIOs are beginning to wonder whether Microsoft is just interested in participating or if it's fully committed to being a powerful and innovative leader. In that regard, acquiring Salesforce could help Microsoft reset those perceptions more in its favor.

Click here to read the entire article.

Manticore Launches Partner Program

jkort@kc.rr.com — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:08:00 +0000

Manticore Technology has joined other marketing automation companies like Eloqua in launching a worldwide partner program, which is aimed at increasing distribution of Manticore's platform.

There are two options that partners can choose from. First, an agency program is said to allow consultants to offer the Manticore Technology solution and associated consulting services to their customers, which will help them to generate new revenues. The agency partners will be allowed to design and execute demand generation and lead nurturing campaigns which is said to improve both the number and the quality of leads passed to sales.

Manticore is also allowing the agency to rent the Manticore marketing automation platform in three, six, or 12 month increments. Above all, the agency will receive a license to utilize Manticore Technology.

The second option is a consultant program, where marketing and sales consultants can deliver strategic services such as marketing-sales alignment, sales pipeline optimization and nurturing campaign design in conjunction with Manticore Technology. Consulting partners under this option will receive training on Manticore Technology and will also receive compensation for introducing Manticore Technology to clients.

"Manticore Technology's Partner Program creates a win-win," said Jeff Erramouspe, president at Manticore Technology, in a release. "The program will offer valuable services to companies in our growing customer base looking to take their marketing automation to the next level, while enabling agencies worldwide to deliver value to their customers through our unrivaled platform.”

Eloqua Provides Free Implementation Service

jkort@kc.rr.com — Fri, 22 May 2009 03:18:00 +0000

One of the biggest knocks of Eloqua's marketing automation solution has been their extremely high implementation costs. In response Eloqua has launched a complimentary implementation service program that accelerates and simplifies the deployment of Eloqua Express.

Designed for quick set up and included for free as part of an Eloqua Express subscription, the service is ideally suited for marketers who only need basic configuration. By working with a certified Eloqua partner, companies can have automated marketing programs running inside a week.

Eloqua Express does not have the full functionality of the Eloqua platform but it is a step in the right direction.

Click here to learn more.

Gartner Says Segmentation Helps Marketing Automation

jkort@kc.rr.com — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:29:00 +0000

According to Gartner, the most productive application of updated segmentation is lead management - particularly automated lead scoring. By converting segmentation criteria into business rules how leads are rated, or scored, providers see an immediate boost in lead volume and lead quality.

“Even those who generate less leads resulting from a tighter, smaller market focus, report higher lead quality, which can help providers close deals faster and improve cash flow,” said Richard Fouts, research director at Gartner. "Segmentation also helps vendors form communities around customers with common interests, which is critical if providers want to take advantage of using social media to create buzz in their target verticals.”

"Many providers want to take advantage of the increased know-how we’ve garnered over the years about lead scoring together with more innovation from technology providers. Before now, the technology and experience was in an immature state that delivered more hype than results. That has changed as many vendors, such as Silverpop, Unica and Eloqua, have improved their offerings for marketing automation. However, initiatives for automated lead management and lead scoring must be preceded by a well thought-out segmentation exercise,” said Mr. Fouts.

Net-Results Enters the Marketing Automation Space

jkort@kc.rr.com — Wed, 06 May 2009 01:15:00 +0000

A new comer to the marketing automation industry is Net-Results. The company targets marketing automation solutions to the small to medium-sized business market and recently announced the release of Net-Results 2.0.

An integrated SaaS solution, Net-Results identifies Web site visitors, tracks individual visitor activity, deploys automatic email campaigns, and generates new sales leads. Like other marketing automation companies, Net-Results promises to allow users to focus solely on sales-ready leads, ultimately shortening the sales cycle and increasing conversion..

Net-Results users receive detailed information on each Web site visitor, including what links they click on, which pages they view, how long each visit lasts, and which emails they have clicked through during previous, current, and subsequent visits. The email system is fully integrated with the visitor tracking system, allowing seamless monitoring of prospects and customers.

Pricing starts at $79/month for one user, for up to 1,000 page views; $.015 per email sent.

Salesforce.com Eyes On Marketing Automation

jkort@kc.rr.com — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:01:00 +0000

As a Salesforce.com user, I was very excited to read Michael Hickins BNET Technology article entitled Marketing Automation Next for Salesforce.

It is unclear what type of enhancements are on the horizon or how these might impact current Salesforce marketing automation partners.

"Salesforce does have marketing technology, just as it had call center technology three years ago. That’s how it could have 2,500 customers before it even officially launched “the service cloud.” But it didn’t–and couldn’t–launch the service cloud until after it integrated knowledge management technology from InStanet, acquired last August."

The Force.com AppExchange lists 6 partners in the 'marketing automation' section but there are over 46 partners in 'demand generation'. No doubt that one of these lucky companies are being examined as potential aquisition targets for Salesforce.com

Vtrenz Changes Name to Silverpop Engage B2B

jkort@kc.rr.com — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:37:00 +0000

Silverpop's purchase of Vtrenz marketing automation solution last year made many wonder how the two brands would stand alone (or compete). Well we need not wonder any more as the folks a Silverpop have done away with the Vtrenz brand in favor of Silverpop Engage B2B.

JupiterResearch recently identified Silverpop's Engage B2B solution as offering both the highest overall business value and highest market suitability among vendors in the marketing automation space.

Mistakes to Avoid with Lead Generation

jkort@kc.rr.com — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:09:00 +0000

Your sales team has their hands out asking for the best quality leads so they can make money and grow the business at the same time. You're under the gun to bring in the leads quickly or risk a mutiny from your sales staff. Does this sound like a familiar scenario?

I always find myself straddling the line between what our sales team wants in regards to leads, and what makes sense for our business. It's a constant back and forth between marketing and sales that will likely continue until the end of time. So how can you serve both masters and succeed?

Generating leads is easy. Generating good quality leads that convert at a rate that gives you the ROI you need is another story. When you're under pressure to bring in a certain volume of leads, it's especially easy to fall into a handful of lead generating pitfalls. During my marketing career, I've fallen into many lead generating pitfalls. By simply avoiding these four traps, you'll be well on your way to lead generating success.

When running a lead generation campaign, the ultimate goal is to generate the right quantity of leads that convert into sales at a very high rate, thus generating the ROI that you need to qualify the campaign as a success. With this in mind, it's very tempting to focus on very cheap lead generating campaigns. The thought process is that if you generate the raw material (leads) cheaply enough, there will be a bigger margin on each sale. Makes sense, right? Wrong!

This is a shortsighted approach that doesn't take into account the full sales process. At the end of the day, the big question you'll be responsible for answering is, "How much revenue was generated compared to the amount you paid for the leads?"

While the cost-per-lead is an important factor, you'll need to look beyond that and take a hard look at the quality of the lead. This includes both the conversion rate and the average revenue per sale. For example, I know that my leads generated from paid search turn into paid business at a substantially higher rate than many of my other campaigns. With this in mind, I pay more for these leads than any other lead, but I make the highest margin.

To illustrate this, take the following example where campaign "A" generates 100 leads at a cost of $15 per lead and has a 20 percent conversion rate with an average sale of $150. Then take 100 leads from campaign "B," which has a conversion of 35 percent and average sale of $215, but costs $25 per lead.

Campaign "A" cost = $1,500. Revenue = $3,000. The ROI ratio is 2:1Campaign "B" cost = $2,500. Revenue = $7,525. The ROI ratio is 3:1

Which campaign do you want to run?

As a marketer, it's easy to take the approach of, "The lead is generated, so now my job is done." As I stated at the beginning, generating the lead is the easy part. Taking the mindset of "my job is done, now it's 100 percent up to sales" is a great way to fuel a tenacious relationship between your sales and marketing teams. As a marketer, generating all the leads in the world doesn't matter unless the leads turn into sales. This is where analytics plays a key role.

As a "numbers guy," this step in the process is one of my favorites. When describing to our sales team what my team measures, I tell them that we measure every single step in the process, from the time someone sees our ad until after someone buys a product from us, and every little detail in between. Looking at the end outcome down to the campaign level, as well as all of the steps in between, will quickly tell you which campaigns are working and which are failing. In addition, if you break each campaign down by each individual salesperson, you're likely to find wide ranges of performance.

So what's the next step once you've done the measurement? Take a hard look at your worst performing campaigns and figure out if there is any way to improve them. If you're able to improve the campaign through marketing efforts like creative optimization, landing page optimization or marketing communications, then do so. This is what you can control. If you find that nothing you do from an optimization standpoint makes the campaign successful, then kill the campaign.

On the other hand, when you find campaigns that are working well, focus your efforts on those campaigns. This is where you'll be best served funneling the lion's share of your advertising budget. Also, just like you would do with failing campaigns, continue to optimize the campaigns where you're already showing success. You'll be surprised by how much you can squeeze out of the good campaigns with a little more marketing optimization.

How many bad leads can there really be? You'll be surprised if you're not careful. Early on, I trusted everyone and was burned on more than one occasion. At the contract stage, a CYA approach is necessary. Everyone who has ever done business with me knows that I'm extremely risk-averse when entering into any advertising relationship, especially when running campaigns through the affiliate channel where fraud can happen. With this in mind, a few simple additions to your contract, as well as careful monitoring, will guarantee that you'll only pay for actual leads.

In the contract, make the following specifications:
You will only pay for valid leads that meet your predefined qualifications. For example, we qualify our leads by stating that they must be U.S. residents, have valid contact information, be non-incentivized and non-duplicate. Specify that you will not pay for any leads that are clearly bogus or that are generated through fraud.

Give yourself a short-out clause (24-72 hours) if the campaign isn't working.
So what should you monitor on the front end? It's important that you monitor the IP address of each lead. By monitoring for duplicate IP addresses, we're able to identify clear fraud on the front end on a daily basis. When we see this, we quickly report it to our advertising partner in order to avoid squabbles and conflict later on.

In addition, you'll need to track the final disposition of each lead. While it isn't up to your advertising partners to do the selling for you, it is a publisher's problem if a large percentage of your leads are bogus or have invalid contact information. We consider it normal for 10-15 percent of our leads to have invalid contact information. We chargeback these invalid leads in conjunction with our contract terms. If your invalid/bogus lead rate is higher than 15 percent, then your eyebrows should be raised. It could either be an early sign of the general lead quality or it could mean that you have a fraud issue on your hands.

While your job isn't done the minute a lead is generated, you cannot have success running a lead generation campaign unless the sales department meets their end of the bargain. Before running a lead generation campaign, make sure you have clearly defined sales expectations for the leads that are generated. These expectations include:

The number of times you expect sales to attempt a contact by phone as well as by email.
The close rate that is expected.
The type and amount of feedback you want to help improve the lead quality.

If a given campaign is falling short, examine not only the leads themselves, but also examine how they were worked by each salesperson. We always look at the campaign details first to see if there is a quality issue affecting the performance. If we can't find anything glaring, then we dive into the performance by salesperson. It doesn't take more than a handful of salespeople to completely tank to skew the performance of a campaign. This is important to keep in mind because you don't want to end up killing a campaign prematurely because of a couple salespeople not performing up to expectations.

Work hand-in-hand with the head of your sales department to optimize every aspect of the marketing and sales process so that you're giving every campaign its best chance to succeed. In the end, the success of a lead generation campaign depends on the performance of marketing and sales. Keeping close tabs on the metrics from both sides will help you avoid pitfalls and generate bigger and bigger ROI.

Lead Management - From Cradle to Grave

jkort@kc.rr.com — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 15:00:00 +0000

The Taber Report takes a look at the entire lead management process from lead generation to conversion in an article entitled The Life of a Lead.

This article does a great job defining common semantics like lead, qualified lead, rejected lead, contacts, and customers. It talks about the importance of separating marketing and sales leads in the database and using marketing automation software to help cultivate your leads and prospects.

"The workflows for Names and demoted Leads should be nearly 100% automated, using clever combinations of email blasts, web site materials, and recorded webinars. Make sure the content is relevant to the audience! Your marketing automation system should be managing this for you, and maintaining behavioral scores for each individual."

How to Evaluate a Marketing Automation Platform

jkort@kc.rr.com — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:00:00 +0000

According to Jeff Pedowitz, CEO of the Pedowitz Group, here are 5 major things to consider when evaluating a Marketing Automation Platform:

1. Business Objectives - What are your main goals? Do you want to send out more email effectively? Do you want to integrate disparate systems? Is resource and budgetary planning important? How many channels do you plan to use? Are you trying to drive more leads … more qualified leads? Do you need more help in cross-sell/up-sell? Whatever it is, make sure that you clarify with your team what you are looking for not just for today, but in the next 24 months. Fortunately, most vendors out there are on demand and have flexible contracts - but once you seriously commit to a platform, it does get harder to switch over time.

2. Cost - Most marketing organizations are not familiar with buying technology, but they are very familiar with buying services. This will be a new type of purchase for many, and your budget will play a big role in determining what you can implement. Like most things, you get what you pay for. Solutions are available from under $1,000 to over $10,000 per month. Depth of functionality increases as you move up the food chain. Depending upon what you are looking for, you can find the right vendor at the right price. Software licenses are not the only price consideration. Evaluate start-up costs such as deployment, implementation, training, integration and system migration. There can also be ongoing costs for customer support, training, and additional modules. Again, consider all of these variables in your budgetary process.

3. Vendor Rating - There are at least 15 vendors in this space, with more jumping in every month. Some vendors have been around a long time, and have hundreds of customers in their stable and are financially secure. Other vendors are exciting and new, but unproven. Your appetite for risk will play a big part in your decision. Also look at the vendors support network. Do they have partners and affiliates that can help you with best practices and value-added services? Are there regular user groups and online forums where you can network and share with other customers? Is the vendor accessible? Are they continuously updating and refining their product to meet the demands of the market? What do the analysts think about them? Ask yourself these questions when making your purchase decision.

4. Usability - How easy is it to implement and use the product? As marketers, we are constantly on the move and seriously multi-tasking. We need systems that can support the way we work, not for us to support the software. You should be able to try before you buy and decide for yourself whether or not you can use it in your daily work routine.

5. Results - Ultimately, it comes down to financial results, and the KPI’s you choose to evaluate the success of your decision. A marketing automation system should help you get a better lead to customer conversion rate, higher transaction price, shorter sales cycle, and an increased opportunity to close rate. The vendor you choose should have demonstrated success in this area with multiple customers, especially in your industry. If they have a hard time demonstrating value, then you will too, so tread carefully.

Key Elements of Effective Lead Nurturing Campaign

jkort@kc.rr.com — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 18:00:00 +0000

Barbara Bix and Tiffany Mura give a good high level overview of important elements to consider in a lead nurturing campaign. Their article, 6 Elements of an Effective Drip Marketing Campaign, reinforces the importance of staying in front of your customers campaigns with consistent communications at regular intervals, to elevate your message above other information that prospects are receiving, and to motivate recipients to "raise their hands" when they are ready to purchase.

Here are the six areas they say an effective drip marketing campaign should have:
1. Clarify Whom You Want to Reach
2. Understand Their Concerns
3. Figure Out Where Your Prospects Get Their Information
4. Use the Correct Message Frequency and Volume
5. Simplify the Message
6. Make Your Messages Consistent

While these are good guidelines to follow, Bix and Mura fail to provide any guidance on HOW to execute these type of campaigns. This is the most important element as most businesses know what they want to say but do not how to get it out in a timely, relevant fashion.

How Marketing Automation Increases Leads

jkort@kc.rr.com — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:09:00 +0000

Inside CRM writer Eric Stack wrote this recent article entitled How Marketing Automation Increases Sales.

"Whether you want to capture more leads, qualify the strength of leads or determine the value of leads after a marketing campaign, marketing automation can help, which inevitably results in higher sales numbers," says Stack.

According to strategist and business adviser Jill Konrath, “The only way to capture the attention of corporate decision makers is to create a very personalized message based on in-depth research of their firm.”

"Marketing-automation software additionally helps you determine if your last marketing campaign was a boom or a bust. Whether a campaign is designed for short-term results or is part of a long-term strategy, you'll have access to real-time information about all of your company’s marketing and lead-management efforts. Analytical tools give you the ability to track campaign success or failure, and can help companies create metrics and protocols for crafting consistently effective marketing campaigns. This results in more leads, which naturally boost sales."

Marketing Automation versus CRM

jkort@kc.rr.com — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:00:00 +0000

I have often found that many CRM (Customer Relationship Management) companies say they do marketing automation. While this may be true on some features, most come up short when you look at their out of the box capability. For example, Salesforce.com limits the amount of email sent to 500 per day per user. Just to set the record straight, here is a good definition of what is a CRM.

To me there is a symbiotic relationship between CRM and Marketing Automation. There are different types of marketing automation software that can be added to most CRM solutions. Most of these tools are designed to increase revenues and implement a more consistent marketing campaign for the business to promote its product or service. Here is SearchCRM's definition of marketing automation.

Some things to consider when choosing a marketing automation tool is database design, campaign management, integration of analytics and reporting, email campaigns, and multi-channel support. Another key is the ability to perform batch (versus broadcast) sends and the deployment of real time view notifications.

A good marketing automation solution will integrate key analytics and reporting back into a CRM for a full picuture of the sales cycle.

Focus on the Sender Name

jkort@kc.rr.com — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:21:00 +0000

A new survey by the Email Experience Council showed that the sender name was more important than the subject line to generate opens.

Many studies show that email users look at the sender name and address when deciding whether or not to open an email. If they recognize your sender line and think well of you, they'll likely open. If they don't recognize you, they may delete you or mark you as spam.

Here are the four most common branding tactics that company's use with their sender names:

1. Brand name. It's succinct, uncluttered and easy to recognize.

2. Dot-com branding. For instance, Macy's uses the sender name "macys.com" and Dick's Sporting Goods uses "DicksSportingGoods.com." This tactic accomplishes two goals: It acts like a call-to-action, reminding subscribers to visit the site; and it familiarizes subscribers with the URL, which can be extra valuable when there's punctuation or another issue that might lead to uncertainty as to the URL, as in the two examples above.

3. Brand name plus the name of the newsletter. For instance, Wal-Mart uses "Wal-Mart Wire". Studies have shown that open rates are often higher when marketers work their branding into their subject lines. Beginning your subject lines with the newsletter name is a secondary form of branding.

4. Brand name plus the name of their division. Hewlett-Packard, which uses the sender name "HP Home & Home Office Store." Most divisions really are different brands, just like Williams-Sonoma is different from Williams-Sonoma Home.

How to Implement Your CRM

jkort@kc.rr.com — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:49:00 +0000

One key element of any marketing automation soution is a solid customer relationship management (CRM) system. Having implemented Salesforce.com and Netsuite at 3 companies, I understand the pain of implementing a CRM into an organization.

Patrick Cahill's makes some great points in his article From Poor To Perfect: 6 Steps For Launching A New CRM Application. Here is brief summary of his tips...

Meet with management and users - Get buy in from Sales, Marketing, etc. on how they will use the CRM.
Map out the process - Look at what happens to a prospect from the first moment they get on the radar to when they sign the deal.
Clean your data - Don't upload bad data into the system.
Setup your new application - Follow the maps you've setup around your process, logic and workflows.
Import your data
Train your users - Don't expect users to use the CRM. Provide documentation and a help line to help them figure it out (correctly).