With all the hype swirling around about Marketing Automation it is easy to get caught in the buzz, or think you are missing out. The fact is… you are.
I am a big advocate of using marketing automation as a tool to support marketing programs like management of demand generation campaigns, improving quality of leads to sales, email blasts, lead nurturing, lead scoring and analytics. Now, Marketing Automation won’t do this alone, it is a larger part of the overall marketing program – but it is one that needs great emphasis and attention.
No longer are B2B marketers just judged on awareness and throwing any lead over the fence and then passing the buck to sales. Today’s marketer needs to demonstrate a greater impact on the pipeline and produce quantifiable ROI. While we still need to make the flashy brochure, be at the right shows, launch targeted webcasts, produce high quality websites, launch social media campaigns, give attention to SEO and SEM, etc… we are being asked to do even more every day.
Marketing Automation tools make this a much easier task. As someone who has used many and recently went through the process of selecting a new vendor after working with a different platform many years I thought I might share a list of some of the important questions to be thinking about while evaluating vendors and their unique technologies. Some of these will be obvious to some, but I am hoping this might spur a few “a-ha” moments to those of you looking at the multitude of tools available to you today.
11 Things to Consider:
1) Will you be able to dedicate a full time person to managing this tool? (some tools require a more technical person to administer, while they can be quite powerful be aware of the additional investment)
2) Do you have the in-house talent to design templates, or will you need to outsource? (some tools make it easier to quickly design landing pages and emails, but note they can only do so much without the proper touch of an experienced design professional)
3) How accessible do you want this data for your sales team? (some technologies allow almost full visibility with their enhanced CRM integration, but often times at an additional financial cost)
4) How many licenses will you need? (consider the point above, also, what level will sales need, what about product management and other teams that send large volumes of emails)
5) What CRM system are you using? Are you using a CRM system? (many of these tools are best used with a specific CRM system, make sure you make clear up front what tool you are using)
6) Will you want to host the forms/landing pages on your site, through the automation tool or your CRM? (this is important when considering flow to sales/CRM and ease of form creation)
7) What other technologies beyond CRM are you using, will they integrate? (pretty straight-forward)
8) Will they give relevant references? (what customers switched to them from another vendor you are looking at, what other companies are in your industry, your size, your place in the cycle when launching)
9) How robust a tool do you really need? (will you be using this just as an email blast tool, how many emails will you be sending, will you be scoring leads, will you be creating multi-threaded nurturing campaigns, will you use landing pages, will you integrate your PPC program, do you need advanced integration into CRM, etc)
10) Is the vendor innovating? (is this a tool with buzz for all the right reasons, do the references look forward to what is coming next or is this a company resting on name recognition)
11) Have you evaluated enough vendors? (sure, you might fall in love at first site, this happened a couple times in the evaluation process for me – but I wanted to throw you a list of names I evaluated to consider – these cover all ends of the spectrum in terms of price and robustness of the tool: Aprimo, Eloqua, Exact Target, Genius, Marketo, MarketBright and Silverpop)
This is just a launching pad for the questions that came up in the process, please feel free to add your own in the comment section below.
10.14.2009
Why I'll Never Be A Social Media Expert
By now you have probably seen them… the people claiming they can help you earn unlimited profits by setting you up on social media. These people claim to be Social Media Experts. What these people are doing is actually turning a valuable marketing channel into a wasteland of spam and incoherent babble. The truth is, there are some great people out there that do know what they are talking about when it comes to utilizing social media, but too often they get lost in the noise.
I did a quick search via tweetdeck on the phrase “social media expert” and well, there is a lot of chatter. I then went over to wefollow.com and did a search on “socialmedia”, the result 24,231 users have tagged themselves with this. Now, not all of these people are claiming to be experts so I thought I would look a bit deeper and went over to twellow.com, did a search for “social media expert” and wouldn’t you know it, 656 results. Justtweetit.com, 414 listings for “social networking” and the old standby – I did a Google search on the exact phrase “social media expert”… 1,450,000 results (at least the top results were others lamenting the other “experts”.)
The issue comes down to what are the services these people truly provide? How many of these experts actually have helped a company earn true ROI utilizing this channel? (You know actual dollars and not just some stupid babble about engagement.) How many of these experts can actually help you track if your efforts are producing sales or influencing buying behavior? How many of these experts helped companies integrate social media into their current marketing mix? How many of these experts know social media is more than twitter, Facebook and Youtube? How many of these experts actually have marketing experience beyond setting up their own pages on twitter and facebook and pimping out their own services?
The problem and actually the excitement behind social media is there is so much unknown and it is a constantly evolving space. I think it is great that so many people are on board and I think it is awesome that companies and marketers are finding ways to utilize SM. I just get infuriated when I think what damage these “experts” are actually causing.
This is why, I never want to be considered a social media expert.
9.27.2009
Purdue, a Timeout and a Loss of Hope
I have had a few hours to digest the Purdue loss - but it is still one of the worst I have experienced as a Boiler fan. I don't think anything will surpass the Orton fumble game (at least I hope I never.) The thing is, I came into the game expecting a loss, when you lose to Northern Illinois you kind of figure that your season is garbage. But that changed in the second half of the ND game, that is until the final drive... and one of the worst coached series I have witnessed since Jim Colletto roamed the Ross-Ade sideline.
I have been a critic of Joey Elliiott all season, but in the second half he had me believing he was at least Billy Dicken... the problem was Coach Hope wasn't Joe Tiller. I know we all need to give Coach Hope time, but when you basically give away a game there is only so much of that the fans will be willing to take (you know, the fans that finally came to life last night and had the stadium roaring.)
Why, why, why do you go into a prevent...ever? Especially when your defense finally had a swagger they had not had all season. They shut ND's scoring down the entire half, until that ridiculous coaching decision - ND marched down the field, and as a result scored... meaning we will have to hear about the miraculous Jimmy Clausen for years (is he is courageous as Brady Quinn now ESPN announcers?)
But even bigger than the prevent defense... how, oh how do you call a timeout when you stop the other team inside their 5 with about 30 seconds, the clock running, on third down, when they have no timeouts? They would either have to rush a play or spike the ball making it fourth down. Guess what, your D stopped them on third down (on what might have been fourth if not for the timeout.) How do you call that? Because you have no faith in your defensive players to stop them and you want to preserve time. What kind of message is that - what kind of message is that when you include that with forcing the D into a prevent? What that does is deflate the players and you have to hope it does not carry over into future games... or you have lost them, and for how long.
Every loss to Notre Dame stings - but this one stung more. It stings because Purdue should have won, should have had momentum, but bad coaching lost the game. I can't take another lost decade of Purdue football.
I have been a critic of Joey Elliiott all season, but in the second half he had me believing he was at least Billy Dicken... the problem was Coach Hope wasn't Joe Tiller. I know we all need to give Coach Hope time, but when you basically give away a game there is only so much of that the fans will be willing to take (you know, the fans that finally came to life last night and had the stadium roaring.)
Why, why, why do you go into a prevent...ever? Especially when your defense finally had a swagger they had not had all season. They shut ND's scoring down the entire half, until that ridiculous coaching decision - ND marched down the field, and as a result scored... meaning we will have to hear about the miraculous Jimmy Clausen for years (is he is courageous as Brady Quinn now ESPN announcers?)
But even bigger than the prevent defense... how, oh how do you call a timeout when you stop the other team inside their 5 with about 30 seconds, the clock running, on third down, when they have no timeouts? They would either have to rush a play or spike the ball making it fourth down. Guess what, your D stopped them on third down (on what might have been fourth if not for the timeout.) How do you call that? Because you have no faith in your defensive players to stop them and you want to preserve time. What kind of message is that - what kind of message is that when you include that with forcing the D into a prevent? What that does is deflate the players and you have to hope it does not carry over into future games... or you have lost them, and for how long.
Every loss to Notre Dame stings - but this one stung more. It stings because Purdue should have won, should have had momentum, but bad coaching lost the game. I can't take another lost decade of Purdue football.
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