Marketo started interacting with prospects long before they had a bunch of white papers.  The first nurturing campaign was based on blog posts and other people’s content.  Marketo then added new pieces to the nurturing program as they built out content.  Now all of our nurturing tracks are infused with a mix of content- including white papers, webinars, blog posts, analyst reviews, and more.

Let’s say someone signs up for your company’s one white paper on VOIP.  You could still easily have a lead nurturing program without creating any other content.  Here is an example of a simple three month drip campaign: 

Day 1:   Thank you for requesting the VOIP paper, including link to paper
Day 15: Information about the future of VOIP, as posted by an analyst on their website
Day 30: Summary of a longer blog post about VOIP that your company did, with link to the post
Day 45: Information about big industry announcement, like X number of companies switching to VOIP, sharing excitement about the change, and linking to a post about it on a news site
Day 60: Summary of a video that your company participated in, even if not on your site, including link to the video
Day 75: Information about new books in your industry, summarizing why they may be interesting to read, and linking to the books
Day 90: Summary of and link to another popular post your company posted on your blog

In this example I used content by analysts, book authors, and other industry leaders to share my message without ever having created another piece of content other than some blog posts.  There are lots of options for this external content including:

Because each of these emails are html and because they have links in the emails to content, you can collect opens, clickthroughs, etc. just as you would using your own content.  And because the campaign is going out to people you know it doesn’t matter that the items do not go to offers with registration.  You will still have all the benefits of sharing your own content.

Don’t get me wrong, my job revolves around creating content and I am consistently working on new white papers, because I do believe they provide value.  The key is to understand that it’s not all or nothing.  You can still have a successful demand generation program that includes lead nurturing and scoring even if you only have one white paper or one webinar.

Also, by not focusing on the quantity of content you have, you can focus more on the quality of the content pieces you do produce.

Many marketers think because they run reports in their CRM or have canned reports ready for them in their marketing automation system that they are looking at the right data and are ready to make decisions. This is often an incorrect assumption. Data by itself is meaningless without context. Marketers must understand that data in a CRM is only as good as the information sales is entering, and if they are not working with sales to ensure the proper information is being entered that the data they pull from it is meaningless. They also must understand that a single report is often just one piece of a much larger puzzle. In the case above, the leads purchased from the vendor were not attached to the opportunity because they were not the final buyer in a long sales cycle. Instead, they were the initial contact and primary influencer of the purchase. Without these names the sales to many companies would not have occurred, but because of the simple canned report ran from the CRM, leads that would undoubtedly result in sales will not be purchased.

So how do marketers know when to rely on the data in a report, and when the report is not telling the whole story?

1.       Listen to your gut: If the report you are viewing doesn’t seem right or like it is missing data, it probably is. Try running the report a different way or look at a few individual records to make sure the right data is being captured.

2.    Audit: Don’t simply trust the data in your CRM. Monthly or quarterly audit the data in a report to ensure accuracy. For organizations that sell expensive products with long sales cycles, it is reasonable to review every sale to ensure the data in the record is correct and that you are properly capturing lead sources, search terms, and other pieces of information key to marketing.

3.      Clean out your CRM: Remove all fields that are never populated, make important fields mandatory- this will allow your sales team to focus on answering the important questions.

4.      Training: Be a champion of the CRM system. Work with sales so that it is clear what is expected and create dashboards that highlight data errors so that they can be fixed quickly.

5.      Automating: Try to capture as much information as possible from databases, the lead themselves, or other external sources. Then rely on sales to simply audit the data when speaking to a contact.

6.      Practice and Test: You must become familiar with the reporting features of the tools you are using. You can’t simply reply on the reports that others have created or utilize canned reports. Every company is different, so canned reports will often not apply to your business model and will need tweaking.

Not only will following the tips below ensure you are looking at better data, but by working regularly with sales and reviewing data you will understand how information is captured. This will result in better reports run, because you will understand what fields tell what story.

It’s important to use data to tell a story, and to do this you must understand all the different pieces that make it up. Don’t just run reports, focus on visualizing what you are trying to understand, and then find a way to capture data that answers your questions.

The steps to do this are as follows:

1. Import all press and media contact lists into your marketing automation system.  Alternatively, you can bring them into your CRM system and allow them to sync with your marketing automation system.  If you do not have a marketing automation system, you can do this only using your CRM system or using your CRM system in combination with an email marketing system, but you may have less data available to analyze after the public relations campaign (like their website activity). 
2. Make sure that these contacts can be separated from the leads in your system.  This can be done by creating a lead source named media or by creating a new field that indicates which media list the contact originates from (i.e. analyst list, local press, etc)  You can also create a unique page layout for these in your CRM system so that you may capture information about the media representative, like their industry influence,  the publications they write for, or the strength of your relationship with them without having fields on your lead view that are not relevant to sales.
3. Send company news to press prior to release distribution.    Include links to additional information, an email to contact, and additional company links of interest in the email.   Group all of these emails together with a parent campaign or list, which will allow for easier reporting and reporting on the entire group of PR campaigns. 
4. Monitor which analysts or press representatives click through on links or send emails.  Follow-up with those that have taken interest to support their research efforts or send a follow-up email with additional information. 
5. Record conversations with press representatives and analysts (outbound calls, voice mail left, inbound calls, in person meetings) and attach emails sent similar to how sales logs activities for prospects.  This will allow you to pull up a full record of your interactions so you are more prepared when speaking to press. 
6. Review press that opts out of email notifications.  You may then choose to contact the press agent and discuss why you think your content is relevant to them.  You will also be able to see if certain types of announcements causes higher level of opt-outs. 

This can be taken one step further by utilizing your CRM to track press and analyst coverage of your company.  By monitoring this, you will see what causes the most press attention.  For example, if you pair the coverage received with the communications you sent to the press you will be able to run reports to see if analysts respond better to emails sent to them in the morning, or if they tend to give more coverage to emails that include pictures or videos, etc. 

You can also create workflow rules that notify your company’s communications specialist to follow-up with a press representative or analysts.  This can be based off of their online behavior, their reaction to an email (opens, clicks through) or on a lead scoring system that is augmented for media and analysts. 

I use Salesforce.com as my CRM system, and have also implemented PR Manager, a free tool by Force.com Labs, for additional tracking of communications efforts.   This can be downloaded from the Salesforce Appexchange in minutes and the fields can be customized to meet your company’s needs. 

And to help analyze all my marcom efforts, I have created a public relations management dashboard and scheduled reports to track the success of these efforts.  This allows management to see what is happening in corporate communications without me having to run and email extra reports. 

I changed up my weekly review a bit, trying to add in more about lead scoring, lead nurturing, and lead generation since it’s applicable to anyone using Marketing Automation (and since I’m reading those articles anyway).

Tweeted (and retweeted) by many:

• The Five Rules for Lead Generation http://bit.ly/dOp5T
• Here’s how to take responsibility for your own lead generation: http://is.gd/paja
• How to Generate Revenue Quickly with a Lead Generation Campaign: 5 Steps http://is.gd/p9Br
• B2B Lead Generation Using The Big Friendly Giant http://tinyurl.com/cj96w8
• Maximizing B2B Lead Generation http://bit.ly/12rt3O
• Marketing Automation Next For Salesforce.com? http://bit.ly/NKeg

Funnelholic: A-Rod, LeBron and b2b Lead Gen. How about them apples : http://ping.fm/0X6XT and Great thought leader interview: David Thompson-Genius.com. Support the cause: http://ping.fm/h9cGQ

Draab: Review of Act-On – slightly different approach to demand generation http://bit.ly/N4NY and Will demand generation stay separate from sales automation? http://bit.ly/vEFnL and Does On-Demand Business Intelligence Make Sense? Join my Webinar on April 2 http://bit.ly/KltBE and Are flow charts good for multi-step demand generation campaigns? List of vendors who use them: http://bit.ly/15FJUe

dtboyd: If B2B marketing emails could talk – http://tinyurl.com/c83z94

smersy_genius: Blog from @funnelholic – If You Can’t Take the Heat, Stay out of the Lead Gen Kitchen http://bit.ly/UgmIq

jonmiller2: Now available on-demand: Turn Inbound Traffic into Leads and Revenue webinar from #Marketo and #Demandbase http://tinyurl.com/cck86x

mosleyppr: SEO preso From @mvolpe of #Hubspot on SlideShare: Lead Generation for Small Business http://tinyurl.com/cxtmpu

joelmartin: interesting take on how to use twitter for lead generation: http://twitpwr.com/1eF/

passioninlife: New blog entry: 7 Advertising And Lead Generation Trends To Watch http://tinyurl.com/d3dm9a

ariwriterdotcom: Guest Post by Brent Arslaner: The Next Generation of Lead Generation: Brent Arslaner is the Vice President of Ma.. http://tr.im/hHIW

jeffwidman: Slideshare = massively underutilized lead generation: My slidedeck there has 4000+ views (142 downloads!!) http://bit.ly/W2517

btobmagazine: Register for BtoB’s Leading Edge on May 19. It’s the only virtual conference dedicated to lead gen for B2B marketers http://ow.ly/1pa1

neil_s I Dont Need Marketing Automation & Lead Nurturing – I Have A CRM – http://bit.ly/nOk5 and Lead Nurturing & Marketing Automation For Small Companies – Perceptions Can Change – http://bit.ly/JeSua

jblock: Doing a webcast with @cdoran on the importance of marketing automation platforms on April 7: http://snurl.com/e80pm

RikkertWalbeek: leest “Abandon Your Marketing Automation System!?” : http://tinyurl.com/cu4rvu

jojobickley: marketing automation, lead management | Don’t Automate Your Way Out of a Good Customer Experience http://ff.im/-1G6so

jill_rowley: @jasonmoodle http://bit.ly/1a1eGi- check out Terracotta’s success with Eloqua – MA makes sense for OS b/c of high volumes in inquiries

Geet_Dhillon Dennis Dayman at Deliverability.com says ‘Buy your own gTLD!’ – What is one and why do we need it? http://bit.ly/GTyV4

mattblumberg: OnlyOnce Blog: Book Short: A Marketing-Led Turnaround: Book Short: A Marketing-Led Turnaround Gene.. http://ow.ly/1mHQ

EarthTimesPR: B2B Marketers Gain Big Results from Marketing Automation Solution http://tinyurl.com/dj5nqx

Montclairadvrs: Marketo one year anniversary last week and their 160th customer, congrats! http://tinyurl.com/chdnab

Marketbright: Get your BBQ on with Marketbright’s BBQ Addicts webinar on the Bacon Explosion social media marketing campaign: http://tiny.cc/zgh3e

And stuff from Eloqua and Steve Woods:

• Lead scoring in B2B marketing / demand generation – think of outputs before thinking of how to score – http://is.gd/oUv0
• Eloqua Artisans – 11 great resources for connecting with your Eloqua peers – http://is.gd/oy9m
• When setting up lead scoring, don’t let the scores rise continually over time – a simple approach to managing time: http://is.gd/oesU
• 11 great resources for connecting with your Eloqua peers – http://is.gd/oy9m
• Eloqua CTO @stevewoods interviewed on CustomerThink about his new book “Digital Body Language” http://tinyurl.com/d2v73u
• Company press release: Eloqua Defies Market Conditions; Revenue Up 58% Year-Over-Year. http://tinyurl.com/c3ye4k
• 76ers: Multi-Channel Campaign To Win Back Season Ticket Holders http://ow.ly/1lj4 >Reconnect with your customers…find the emotional tie

Also, check out the Eloqua Artisian blog for articles posted but not listed. Oh, and there were lots of tweets about people joining the Eloqua Twitter Group on Twittergroups.

Hubspot:

• HubSpot TV – Go Public on Facebook http://tinyurl.com/cab32x
• Interruption Marketing Incites Anxiety; Inbound Marketing Builds Trust http://tinyurl.com/cupszl
• Why The Fuller Brush Man Shoots Videos for YouTube http://tinyurl.com/c773k5
• HubSpot Simplifies Social Media Distribution of Blog Articles http://tinyurl.com/ce2xyp
• Facebook Gives SEO Credit to Links in FBML Applications http://tinyurl.com/d6mdfh
• The Best Way to Build a Twitter Account? Step by Step. http://tinyurl.com/ctpmyt
• How Many Tickets to the SEO Lottery Do You Have? http://tinyurl.com/cu4k2a

So, I’m continuing my weekly update on what happened in Marketing Automation in Tweets this week. I got a few emails from people who said this was useful, as it’s very hard to keep up with everything that is posted on Twitter. Here goes…

mikepilcher: Part 2 of 4 of Nuturing – “This does not have to be so hard” http://blog.marketbright.com/

demandgenx: Love the new Engage B2B (form. Vtrenz) rebrand-were everywhere @ MSherpa event! Such a solid product-great choice for us over Eloqua/Marketo

silverpop: Twitter bio analysis: “Marketers” top users; Marketing top subject http://ow.ly/14Kg

onsaas: HEADLINE: Marketo Celebrates One-Year Anniversary With 160th Customer Win – http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29751777/

regisasso: Good article by Phil Fernandez,Marketo on SandHill.com on mrktg & sales alignment-the last productivity frontier.http://tinyurl.com/d7jbow

vizeboogie RT @mailchimp: what makes a good open rate depends a lot on your industry. Here are some stats – http://eepurl.com/Cws

AdamBlitzer RT @jepc: Lead Management Automation Systems compared with ESPs, Web Analytics, WCM, Landing Pages & Search Marketing: http://hub.tm/?LOEVG

funnelholic: The 3 lead gen metrics that matter. Lots of action on this post, not much from twitter-Come fly with me on this one. http://ping.fm/1OUOM

draab: Just received first printed copies of my new book Marketing Performance Measurement Toolkit. Details at http://bit.ly/13Y0F

draab: Just added Neolane entry to Raab Guide to Demand Generation Systems www.raabguide.com

From Eloqua/Steve Woods/Eloqua Artisan Blog:

• Register for this free webcast on 3/25 and learn how hosting virtual events can help you quadruple your leads. http://tinyurl.com/d59o5z
• Today’s Marketing Insight: 5 Web Metrics for Search Marketing Spend http://tinyurl.com/cfntyq
• The Eloqua Artisan @stevewoods discusses “Most Recent Campaigns as Source of Insight” http://tinyurl.com/cvruoe
• Social Networks Overtaking Email — @andreyee discusses the implications http://tinyurl.com/dzk3kx
• Thinking of Delving into Twitter with Your Brand? Some ideas to help you get started: http://tinyurl.com/ah8mbe
• Interested in learning more about lead scoring? Check out @stevewoods latest Digital Body Language blog post http://tinyurl.com/djflwe
• jill_rowley: Quick tip to make a “Tweet This link” on Eloqua Artisan blog – http://tinyurl.com/cj7uvf
• stevewoods: Why hiring sales reps to increase sales is like buying a new putter to improve your overall golf game – http://is.gd/nUum
• mikemacfarlane: Eloqua Tip – have a complex program with lots of variables? Set up error steps with notifications and then view their path through the prog.
• maryannmckinnon: Populating Eloqua’s new Customer Central. Talk to your CSM if you’re interested in the BETA.

I actually think there were some more Eloqua posts from their various blogs, but I didn’t see tweets about them.

From Hubspot:

• Inbound Marketing Lessons from Phish http://tinyurl.com/c6zdlc
• HubSpot Creates its Own March Madness http://tinyurl.com/bsof7t
• HubSpot TV – Stick with High ROI Marketing http://tinyurl.com/bwa6gv
• The Secret of Analytical Marketing: Obsess Over Experiments, Not Data http://tinyurl.com/cp973z
• Mike Volpe to Present Webcast at BrightTALK Inbound Marketing Summit http://tinyurl.com/djlu6h
• Is Your Online Marketing Strategy All Tweet and No Meat? http://tinyurl.com/dekxk7
• Bio Characteristics of Twitter Power Users http://tinyurl.com/cutfw4
• SXSW Interviews Part One: Useful Tips from Internet Rock Stars http://tinyurl.com/dekrjt

And, I thought I’d throw in some ExactTarget News since they put out some cool stuff this week:

thecrmbook: Microsoft – ExactTarget alliance announced http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/090317/sf84713.html

prnews: ExactTarget Releases One-to-One Field Guides to Help Marketers Build Better Integrate http://tinyurl.com/cyezja

prnews: ExactTarget Launches Nationwide Tour To Promote Excellence In Emarketing http://tinyurl.com/d5rc3e

stefaneyram: @theeMailcompany Greatest email event? 2008 ExactTarget Connections user conference http://is.gd/nU5G

This week Demandbase and Marketo held a great webinar on Best Practices in B2B marketing.  If you missed it I’d try to catch the recording.  Next week, Marketbright is putting on a webinar with Google Adwords, Eloqua will be hosting two, one on Social Media and one on Demand Generation.  Jon Miller of Marketo will also be conducting a webinar on how Marketo uses their own tool.

Don’t forget that Friday is Hubspot TV day.  This and a all the other Marketing Automation related events I could find are posted on the blog to the right in the Events column.

There were anywhere from 70-95 people on the webinar during the presentation.  And I know this because it told me at the top of the screen.  (See picture below)

I also know this because it listed out every single person on the webinar and then added the ability for me to copy the email addresses of these people so that I could capture their email address in a spreadsheet.  (See picture above) I’m sure this was particularly interesting to the competitors on the webinar.  I noticed two people I knew from their competition, one from Eloqua, and one from Hubspot. 

This means that these competitors would have been able to copy the names and email address of the almost 100 people on the call with little effort and potentially contact them to promote their services.  While not the most ethical thing to do, I am sure this could be a strategy by some companies.  And some of the people on the call were from great companies including CareerBuilder, Cisco, Philips, and Harte Hanks who would be great prospects for these competitors. 

As someone in charge of Demand Generation at a company that regularly does webinars for training, lead generation, and lead nurturing, I ensure the people giving these webinars change setting to prevent this from being visible when my organization conducts a webinar.  In addition, we have a checklist for webinar a presenter that includes removing items from their desktop, having all slides approved, and testing out webinar functionality prior to using.  I would encourage Marketo and Demandbase to do the same , too. 

Too busy preparing for SxSW to watch what’s going on in Marketing Automation?  Well, here is a summary of what happened over the past week, minus all the retweets, complaining, and information about breakfast by your favorites in Marketing Automation.  Oh, and if I missed something important, please just add a comment below. 

@Eloqua tweeted these topics (immediately followed by every Eloqua employee and customer retweeting):

• Today on the Digital Body Language blog @stevewoods provides 10 examples of assessing the buyer’s toolkit: http://tinyurl.com/cfp3fs
• Marketing Insights reports on Myths #3 & #4 in their Marketing ROI series http://marketinginsights.el…
• The Eloqua Artisan @stevewoods on “Getting Creative – Hidden Form Submits to Make Links Powerful” http://tinyurl.com/boo3jy
• I.B.I.S. Achieves Eloqua Certified Partner Status; Arms Microsoft CRM Customers with the “Power to Succeed” http://tinyurl.com/cq3dhb
• RT @stevewoods Case study on TriNet’s “sweet music” campaign – http://is.gd/mwWu
• What does marketing in a Web 2.0 world looks like? Check out the latest blog post from @andreyee and find out. http://tinyurl.com/and35s
• Read why @deliverability believes more email can equal less revenue http://tinyurl.com/apuvxz
• Some thought provoking ideas from @stevewoods about “Employees, Social Media, and Superstar Economics” http://tinyurl.com/cegy9u
• Green Marketing Campaigns — new ways to think about how to reduce, reuse and recycle. http://tinyurl.com/ceporc

Also, BtoB’s held a webcast on Digital Body Language with @Eloqua and @BulldogSolut.  I’m sure many live tweeted it if interested.  Also, I’m sure someone has a recording of it posted if you want to check it out.  

Here is the rest of what happened:

ActOnSoftware #emailmarketing Act-On Software has a 30 day trial. It’s an Email Marketing Tool – integrated with Salesforce & Webex: http://t.act-on.us/1 (and) @twitters Eloqua: very clunky, hard to use. Responsys: terrific enterprise solution, can’t go wrong. Act-On: nice solution for SMB

adamkmiec Measuring Marketing Effectiveness with Twitter (Part I) http://bit.ly/2ugImr <– you’ll like this from @robsaker

ArmanArami Love the new flash on Marketo’s homepage http://www.marketo.com

bhalligan HubSpot in the NYTimes today: http://tinyurl.com/ddqzby

chadhorenfeldt Eloqua tip: Upload your contact data through Eloqua first to pass to your CRM – Use Eloqua data cleansing/deduping tools. DM for info

ConversationAgeRead what @stevewoods teaches us about tracking inbound referrals http://tinyurl.com/czsxh7 (with a little help from Conversation Agent)

DavidDucic Automation key to b-to-b marketing, sales success http://tinyurl.com/ahzjlt

drabdhamid latest article in Ezine on Internet Marketing Automation @http://ezinearticles.com/?i…

EarthTimesPR Marketbright and Google Host Free Webinar on Google Adwords 101: Jump Start Your B2B Pay-Per-Click Campaigns http://tinyurl.com/cw2ma4

funnelholic 3 lead generation metrics that matter. (funnel-style) http://ping.fm/1OUOM

Geet_Dhillon Eloqua Users: Social Media Tracking – Inbound Referrals http://bit.ly/FOGdI

Geet_Dhillon Demand Generation: Lead Scoring – Caps and Buckets http://bit.ly/15QJf

Geet_Dhillon Email Marketing: Changes to permission rules in U.S future? http://bit.ly/6fnLS

HubSpot HubSpot Enables Lead Imports for All Customers http://tinyurl.com/arf9sp

idabarrie I need to remember to watch this B2B Landing Page Optimization Clinic from MarketingExperiments later: http://tinyurl.com/9yvlpr

jasondemandbase Doing a B2B marketing webinar next week with @marketo — check my blog for “behind the scenes” desc. of the content http://bit.ly/97Q7U

jasondemandbase really nice article about Demandbase at BtoB Online! “Analyzing Analytics 2.0″ http://bit.ly/17qcUj

jberkowitz  Marketing Metrics: The Hard and The Soft- http://is.gd/mMNZ. This is our approach to mktg automation.

jeffcohn Marketo might be the fastest growing marketing automation software company I have ever seen. #montconf

jill_rowley destinationCRM.com: Looking to Score http://tinyurl.com/dj9lnt via @ShareThis

jill_rowley great lunch with David Lewis, President of DemandGen – www.demandgen.com – they have an incredible lead scoring offering!!

jonmiller2Is Marketing Going to Perform Magic for Sales? New from Ventana Research http://bit.ly/b0HGy

mktquestions When can we expect Google to Google up a Eloqua, Loopfuse, Market2Lead, Pardot?: They ate urchin and that turned.. http://tinyurl.com/cbxyfb

mvolpe RT @rww – “Social Networking Now More Popular Than Email, Report Finds” http://hub.tm/?QYPPS

mikepilcher http://blog.marketbright.com/ – new thinking on Nurturing – interested to hear your comments

nivenor1 The Future of Marketing Automation and CRM 2.0 http://bit.ly/q3d6

OctopusJuice Imrpessive presentation from Eloqua.com – http://tinyurl.com/dhwn9e

returnpath Does it cost more to create great emails that your customers will love? Read Matt’s post then tell us what YOU think. http://ow.ly/N0S

An easy way to friend these people instead of clicking the links is to go to www.twitter.com/mktgautomation.  This account is following all of the people listed below. 

My favorites:
Well, obviously me- @inboundmarketer 
@blueingy – Eloqua user and social media master
@jasondemandbase – I think he is me, but as a boy

MA Companies and Their People:
@ExactTarget – Marketing Automation Company
@Marketo – Marketing Automation Company
@bulldogsolut
@heatherfoeh – Sr. Mgr, Customer Success for SMB at Eloqua
@malfried – Marketing Automation consultant, using Twitter for prospecting
@dlog – Cubic Compass CEO
@mikepilcher – Head of Marketbright sales
@Jackiekiley – Eloqua, Best Practices Consultant
@rhondalee – Eloqua, Director, Training/Marketing
@smarketeer – Eloqua consultant (?)
@adrianchang – Eloqua, Success Manager
@SGersh - Eloqua, VP of Marketing
@RobertCalise – Marketing Automation Consultant
@jenhorton – Eloqua consultant
@jonmiller2 – Marketo, VP Marketing
@kelly_marketo – Marketo
@jill_rowley – Eloqua
@craigklein- SalesNexus
@kevmil72 – Marketbright sales guy
@edmulcahy – Eloqua, Success Manager
@AnitaCordeiro – Eloqua, Success Manager
@Infusionsoft – Automated Follow-up Marketing
@mikemacfarlane – Eloqua
@clatemask – CEO for Infusionsoft
@saasman – Infusionsoft – VP of Marketing
@JoeManna – Infusionsoft – Community Manager
@tylergarns - Infusionsoft – Marketing Director
@adamblitzer - Pardot – VP of Marketing
@tsydoryk – ActiveConversion
@Stevewoods - Eloqua – CTO

MA Users
@inko9nito – ExactTarget User
@MegFullenkamp – Marketo user
@ohpinion8ted - Marketo user
@the_bone – Marketo user
@Kelley_Smith - from GotoMeeting, Eloqua user
@ardath421 – unknown
@mrktguy – unknown
@funnelholic – unknown, demand gen
@sharilee – unknown, demand gen
@vizeboogie – Pardot user
@dtboyd – Pardot user
@anaisamy – Marketo user
@bcarroll – lead gen
@dmlatch - Marketo
@guitarlawyer – Infusion

Here is a link to all the Hubspot people: http://www.hubspot.com/twitter/

Reviewing prospective vendors on these points was no easy task.  And, in retrospect, there are some things I should have looked at in more detail.  I’m not taking the time to count the points below, but am sure there are well over 100 features I considered.  I compared these features by making the list below in a spreadsheet and taking notes about each feature during product demos.  If i had additional questions about a feature I asked for information from the sales person via email.  I then asked each sales rep to review my sheet and make corrections.  Then I reviewed the differences between my results and the salesreps to understand what I misunderstood.  In some cases I found I had made a mistake, in others I found sales reps being dishonest.   

Below is the criteria I used to make my decision (broken out into categories):

Campaign Management

·         Add to SFDC campaign

·         Create SFDC campaign

·         Auto-responder emails

·         Decision steps, alternate actions

·         Event based automated emails

·         Report on opportunity and revenue

·         2-way synch with SFDC including all leads

·         A/B List testing

·         Multivariate List testing

·         Advanced deduping (replace Ringlead)

·         Auto add to dist list

·         Auto add/remove from dist list

·         Opt-down

·         Build criteria based dist lists

·         Database cleansing

·         Dedupe list imports

·         Dedupe on email

·         Detailed activity profiles in Salesforce.com

·         Real-time synch with Salesforce.com

·         Suppression list

·         Track inactivity

·         Trigger tasks for sales team

·         Upload from excel

·         Ability for Sales to opt leads out of campaigns

Email

·         Creation (html, text)

·         Deliverability testing

·         Dynamic content

·         Dynamic signature/sender details

·         Import html

·         Reporting

·         Set time for batch

·         Track email bouncebacks

·         Track email click-throughs by individual

·         Sales alert of clickthrough

·         Track email opens by individual

·         Trackable emails from sales users

·         Hard bounces versus soft bounces

·         Review email delivery by list, by campaign, etc

·         Unique IP

·         Outlook Integration

·         Spam Review and recommendations

Forms

·         Change Salesforce values

·         Create, no IT help

·         Field level rules for overwriting in SFDC

·         Hidden fields to update SFDC records

·         Integrate w/landing pages

·         Integrate w/Salesforce

·         Ability to host on our site

Landing Pages

·         A/B testing

·         Multivariate testing

·         Branded

·         Creation

·         Dynamic content

·         Edit HTML code in editor

·         Import graphics

·         Integrate with SFDC

·         Integrated forms

·         Own URL

·         Reporting

·         Self-publish

Lead Nurturing

·         Behavior triggered

·         Lead score degradation

·         Lead scoring

·         SFDC change status triggered

·         Sales ability to adjust score

·         Different score paths for different regions

Surveys

·         Survey Management (depth?)- replace Zoomerang type functionality

Website

·         Known visitor tracking

·         Additional visits in activity history

·         Unknown visitor tracking- (w/ sales access)

·         Replace Leadlander- ability for sales to see companies on site

·         Visitor notifications to sales

·         Replace Google Analytics

·         Replace Omniture

·         CMS system integrated

Reporting

·         Ability to create custom reports

·         Dashboards

·         Number of Canned Reports

Implementation

·         Time to install

·         Time for 100% up and running including lead scoring

·         Costs of implementation

Interface

·         Attractive

·         Easy to Navigate

Transition

·         What happens to data if we transition to a different product

Other

·         PR/Communications Management

·         Tradeshow management

·         Invitation management

·         Direct Mail Management

Training

·         Training included

·         Additional Training Options

·         Training hours recommended

History

·         Years in business

·         Years with current model

References

·         Available and Relevant

Pricing

·         Pricing (per touch or a package)

·         What is a touch?

·         Number per limit

·         Set Up fees

·         Training fees

·         What happens to pricing when additional features are added?

·         What price increases can I expect?

Intangibles

·         Uptime (3rd party monitored)

·         Speed of Service/Scale (transactions per second)

·         Work-flow based automation

·         Activity Driven content

·         International Character Support

·         Webservices API

·         Data Center SAS 70 audited?

Support

·         Best-practice templates (How many)

·         Best-practice Consulting (SMB specific)

·         Regional User Groups

·         Online Community

·         User Conferences

·         Tech Support

·         Dedicated customer support contacts (How many? For what?)

Company Specific

·         SMB Customers

·         Technology Vertical Customers (Hardware & Software)

·         Users

·         SFDC Premiere Partner

Product Replacement (Current products I am using)

·         Will Replace Leadlander (allow sales access multiple times per day)

·         Will Replace Email tool

·         Will Replace Ringlead (dedupe leads from salesforce and excel)

·         Will Replace CMS

·         Will Replace Survey Vendor (Zoomerang or Surveymonkey type)

·         Will forward registration information to GotoWebinar in some way

·         Includes ability to track outside events like PR, tradeshows, direct mail

After identifying the problems I was trying to solve, I did a high level review of the entire marketing automation space including outliers like those companies specializing in email marketing and some sales and CRM systems.  This industry is changing constantly, with companies entering and exiting at a rapid pace.  This being the case, I had to limit my selection.  I knew I had three main objectives in my search: 1. tight integration with Salesforce.com, 2. robust reporting capabilities, and 3. finding a full marketing automation product.  To me, a full marketing automation product included the ability to create landing pages, lead scoring, closed-loop and trigger campaigns, and event-based automated emails and would allow transparancy of these efforts to sales. 

I started with a list of approximately 30 products, but have illustrated how I began my decision in the chart below.  I ranked various vendors on the three criteria I specified. 

Marketing Automation Decision Chart

Those that fell in the center of the triangle were best fits for my organization, because they met all the key criteria.  I also grouped these vendors by price and communicated this in the chart by circle size.  Vendors with the largest circles are highest priced, those with medium sized circles were mid-priced, and those with small circles were the least expensive.  I think it is important to note that this was my perception of these vendors based on preliminary discussions with their sales teams and from content on their website.  I haven’t worked with the majority of these products and was doing my best to understand their functionality and points of differentiation. 

By doing this, I was able to narrow my search and only look at those vendors that would best meet my needs.  In retrospect, I would probably move Pardot closer to the center and give them a closer look.  I also think that this chart is constantly changing as each of these organizations have new releases and change their product. 

In the next day or so, I will continue to share my next steps, which include how I evaluated the finalists and negotiated pricing.