If It’s Too Good To Be True…

About 15-years ago, I was at lunch with a guy who told me that within weeks I could be making in one month what I was currently making annually.  He proceeded to tell me that he was making $70,000 per month through a new multi-level marketing company and that I had an opportunity to get in on the ground floor.  He continued, telling me that this was the easiest money I would ever make. In fact if I took advantage of this opportunity, I wouldn’t even feel like I was working.  Then our conversation came to a screeching halt when I asked “If this money is so easy how come every one isn’t doing this?”  Check please!  (Yes, he paid for lunch.  After all he was making $70k per month).

Promises of exponential riches, rapid weight loss and real estate fortunes will continue to come and go throughout our lives.  And most of us are smart enough to smile and politely say, “No, thank you”.  Yet, it seems that the promise of “gold at the end of the rainbow” is picking up steam with many in the B2B marketing space. And many marketers in search of El Dorado are being drawn like lemmings to the sea.

Just this past month, we’ve seen offers such as “guarantee of significant business impact in less than 60-days”; or “a detailed understanding of where you’re deficient in your automation strategy in less than 10-days”; or even “100% increase in qualified leads to sales”.  Sounds great!  But if it’s this easy, then why isn’t everyone doing this?  Maybe because it’s not so easy.

If you truly want to revolutionize your B2B marketing organization, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1.  Quick Does not Equal Effective

We live in an instant gratification society. But that doesn’t work in B2B organizations.  Defining new processes, developing and implementing new strategies and aligning marketing and sales teams is not something that can be done overnight.  Yes, strides can be made quickly, and initial milestones can be reached in relatively short time.  But expecting to arrive at best-in-class status or having a comprehensive understanding of ALL your business issues in a matter of days is not realistic.  Yes, quick wins are great. But lasting, effective wins do not come quickly. They take time.  Anything else is just cutting corners.

2.  There is more to B2B Marketing Than Lead Nurturing 

Lead nurturing is getting quite a bit of attention from multiple vendors.  Many vendors and consultants are developing “quick hit” programs focused on helping organizations develop and launch lead nurturing campaigns.

Lead nurturing is certainly a vital component of a demand generation strategy, however, there is much that needs to be addressed to ensure that your nurturing will be effective.  If your goal is to produce an effective lead nurturing program that has tangible results (qualified leads that convert to sales) you must ensure the following components are in place:

• A data management process
• Lead qualification process (hard to know how to nurture them, if you don’t know how qualified they are)
• A defined lead routing process
• Content mapping
• Metrics

Most companies need significant work done in these areas.  All of these processes take time to review and develop. Not developing them will produce lack luster results.

3.  It’s Not The Technology, It’s You

Not getting what you want from your marketing automation platform?  It is surely the fault of the technology right?  Think again.

Yes it is true that many organizations are striving to get more value from their automation solution.  But determining value based on which features and functions are or are not being used is not the way to determine value.

In order to improve the value of your return on technology investments look internally at your operations, your demand generation strategy and your process.  Identify your gaps, make the fixes, and develop the strategy to fill the gaps.  Only then are you ready to consider how the technology will allow you to execute that strategy.  As much as automation can provide, it should be one of the last things you consider when looking to transform your organization.

The B2B landscape has changed dramatically over the last few years.  As a result organizations need to transform their approach.  A quick fix is not the answer.   Be realistic in your approach and remember patience is key. Consistency over time wins the day.

Posted in Lead Management Process, Marketing Automation | 2 Comments

A B2B Perspective of Dreamforce

In case you missed it (insert wink and a smile here), last week was Salesforce.com’s user conference, Dreamforce, arguably one of the largest events in the industry, if not the most entertaining.  I mean, who doesn’t like Will.i.am, Cake (thank you to Silverpop), Metallica and more parties that one can possibly handle. Oh yeah, there were a ton of user sessions too.

This was my fourth Dreamforce, and I’d like to offer some observations from the perspective of someone who lives in the B2B marketing & sales space.

Observation 1:  Salesforce.com is not going to acquire a Marketing Automation Vendor anytime soon

While many were eagerly awaiting an acquisition announcement during the keynotes, nothing of consequence was announced.  As he has the last few years, Marc Benioff focused on Salesforce.com’s social capabilities. I believe this will continue to be the focus of the company in the foreseeable future.

However, there was quite a buzz as many tried to discover which marketing automation platform Salesforce.com decided to purchase for their own use. The fact that they chose to outsource marketing automation seems to indicate that Salesforce.com recognizes that they are not an automation player after all, further giving credence to the idea that CRM cannot provide marketing automation.

Observation 2:  Marketing Automation is Alive & Well

Despite the assertions (by a select few mind you) that marketing automation is past its prime, you would not have known it by the show of force from the automation vendors in the exhibit hall.  Marketing Automation row, as it seemed to be named, was anchored by Eloqua & Marketo directly across from each other. Adjacent to them with more than significant displays were Pardot & Silverpop.  Other vendors on display were Genius, eTrigue, HubSpot, Aprimo and ActOn to name a few.

However, it was not simply their presence at the show that made the statement. It was the continuous flow of traffic in each of the exhibits.  In the time we spent with each vendor, we saw and heard firsthand how attendees are catching on and understanding the value that marketing automation solutions bring to the table.  Several of the vendors said that the traffic they were experiencing far exceeded their expectations.

Observation 3:  B2B Marketing Continues to Mature

The conversations we had around marketing, demand generation and lead management were elevated at this year’s conference compared to those in years past.  Instead of asking “What do we need to do?”, the marketing executives and practitioners that we spoke to were saying things like “We know we need lead management process, and understand what it will do for us. We just need help in actually making it happen.”  Statements like “Visibility into pipeline by marketing”, “Ability to track marketing contribution to revenue”, and “Develop an end-to-end lead management process” were more the norm than the occasion this year.  This maturity was confirmed by many of the exhibitors that we informally surveyed about the level of attendees and the discussions they were having.  Overall, the B2B marketer seems to be maturing.

Observation 4:  Salesforce.com Needs Better Content 

I’m sure there is probably no better place to get hands-on training if you’re a Salesforce.com user or administrator. However, when it came to the “informative” or “thought leadership” content, there was a severe gap.  Our own experience, as well as much of the feedback from our colleagues and customers who attended, indicated as much.  We observed many sessions where people left in droves during the presentation. To us, this seems to be an indication that today’s buyer will not stand for being “sold to”.  I was told by many that the sessions they attended were more like commercials for the session sponsor.  Salesforce.com, if you’re reading this, I suggest that you focus on improving the content significantly, perhaps by previewing presentations to confirm that they are more thought leadership, and less promotion.

If you have not attended Dreamforce in the past, I highly recommend you add it to your calendar and budget for next year.  It is an ideal place to network, connect and learn from other users.  I look forward to seeing what is in store for next year!

Posted in Industry News, Marketing Automation | Comments Off

Four Things to Consider Before You Buy Marketing Automation

Well, we’re in the dog days of August.  However, for many B2B marketers, 2012 planning is right around the corner and usually starts right after Labor Day.  And for many of you, one of your goals will be to finally implement a marketing automation tool. Unfortunately, too many marketers begin this process with the question, “Which automation tools should we look at?”  Not only is this the wrong question but its not even close to where you should begin.  To have a successful marketing automation implementation start with this question and this question alone: “What does our lead management process look like and how can we automate it?”  If you don’t have a solid lead management process in place than a marketing automation platform (MAP) will only automate a broken process. What’s the point of that?

Instead reviewing your current lead management process, making improvements where they are needed, and finalizing a plan and map for the improved process will have two effects. First, you’ll become more efficient in your marketing and sales efforts.  Second, defining the process ahead of time will help make selecting a marketing automation tool easier because you’ll now have process requirements which will guide the technology selection.

So before you go lining up demos consider these four stages for lead management process development.

1. Review Your Current Process

You can’t begin to automate processes you haven’t defined. And you can’t define those processes you haven’t reviewed. So the first phase in lead management process development is to do a deep review and discovery of your existing processes (you may even call it an audit). This process should be jointly conducted with marketing, sales and other appropriate stakeholders. If you can’t find an internal objective source, consider bringing in an outside consultant. What is the goal of this review and audit? To define the current process, identify gaps, and create a new lead management process that fills those gaps. This process should cover areas such as data management, lead qualification, lead routing, lead nurturing, and metrics.

2. Obtain Executive Buy-in

So now you have a newly defined process. However, implementing it throughout the organization will go nowhere unless you have executive buy-in. Executive teams today are revenue-driven and ROI-focused (if yours are not, you might want to start dusting off the resume), so management will often look at marketing automation as just another expense. It’s imperative to present the need for a new lead management process, supported by automation, in terms of revenue. To see how this can work, go to “Myth 5” in this example.

3. Implementation Is More Than Just Software

Once you have the new process in place and the approval of management, you can move on to implementation. But remember, we’re not just talking software here. This is the implementation of a new process for how you obtain, manage and close sales leads. The best way to achieve a successful process implementation is to give authority and responsibility to an “independent” project director. This person will lead the cross-functional team in implementing the new process, and selecting (based on the process) the new automation platform.

4. Monitor, Tweak, Enforce, Repeat

Nothing would be worse than to spend all the time, effort and resources on implementing a new process only to have everyone revert back to old behavior. The new process will not run on its own. Long lasting success requires ongoing monitoring, tweaking and enforcing the process changes you’ve implemented. Like the implementation phase, this is best achieved by identifying the resources that will have the authority and knowledge to ensure the new process is being followed. They will spend significant time reviewing the process, analyzing metrics, monitoring technology use, and interacting and communicating with the various stakeholders. If your organization is not committed to this kind of long-term role, then you may want to consider investing company resources in something else besides marketing automation.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Marketing automation is not easy. It requires time, planning, process and patience. But for those ready to take this approach to the journey, the returns can be exponential.

This post originally appeared on the PointClear blog.

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The Results Are In…And They’re Not Pretty

Over the last week Demand Gen Report & Televerde published reports which reviewed the performance of B2B marketing and sales teams.  The results are far from attractive and show that many companies are still lagging far behind.   A few highlights from the two studies include:

• 40% of the respondents did not know their conversion metrics or indicated that their metrics were not applicable or calculable
• 61% of the respondents recognize lead leakage as a problem within their organizations
• 89% recognize contact data challenges in their organization, with 43% indicating that their data is not cleansed, updated or enriched

While these reports were published separately, there were some common themes in both studies that explained the Why, the Who and the What behind the numbers:

Why?

• The changing and evolving B2B buyer has been the main catalyst to expose the knowledge and skills gap that exists in organizations as they struggle to shift and adapt.
• In spite of adopting and implementing technology (Marketing Automation, CRM, etc,) to support connecting with the buyer, neither marketing or sales is getting it right.

Who?

• Both reports indicate that while there is indeed a skills gap within marketing organizations, the same exists in sales as well.

What?

So what is the impact that this gap is having on organizations?  The impact is lost revenue:

• Approximately two-thirds of the respondents indicated that lead leakage (i.e., lost leads that are neither acted upon nor followed up on) exists within their organizations with a combined 6% quantifying an annual estimated revenue loss at between $500,000 and $5 million-plus.
• According to IDC – B2B companies’ inability to align sales and marketing teams around the right processes and technologies has cost them upwards of 10% or more of revenue per year, or as an example, $100 million for a billion-dollar company.

While these totals are staggering, they are not necessarily surprising.  Technology alone has never been able to drive change within organizations.   To truly get the most from these technologies it takes the right process (see the IDC quote above) and the right people.

To develop the process and people needed for generating more revenue, here are a few myths you should bust:

1.  All I Need is Lead Scoring & Nurturing to Improve Engagement with my Buyer

While scoring and nurturing are certainly important components to your overall process, they are not enough.  To truly develop a closed-loop process you must develop a full Process Framework that includes:

• Data
• Lead Planning
• Lead Routing
• Lead Nurturing
• Lead Qualification (this includes the scoring)
• Content Blueprint
• Metrics

Without these individual processes working together, you will not have the necessary foundation in place to achieve a greater return on your marketing and sales investments.

2.  My People Will Be Just Fine

While you may have smart and capable people in marketing and sales roles, they still require continuing education and cannot be expected to learn new skills on their own.  According to SiriusDecisions, the average company spends less than $1,000 per year on training their marketing personnel.  The numbers are not much higher for sales training.  Organizations have a responsibility to properly equip and enable their revenue engine by enabling their people.  There are many places where this education and skills development can be achieved. One that we recently joined is The Marketing Automation Institute which was founded specifically to address this gap.

3.  Take An Honest Look

We once had a meeting with a VP of marketing to discuss their lead management issue.  Quite defiantly, he folded his arms and stated, “We don’t have that problem here.”  After some number crunching on the white board, we showed him that his organization was leaving $22 million on the table because of their lack of process.  They are now one of our best clients.

Reviewing numbers that indicate a loss is not a fun exercise, but it’s a necessity.  You can’t begin to fix something if you do not know where or how badly it is broken.  Begin to assess the damage in your organization, analyze the impact it’s having on buyer engagement & revenue, and begin to fix it.

4.  We Can Address This Quickly

The issues that exist in organizations did not occur overnight. Unfortunately neither will the fixes.  Too many organizations want a quick fix, and some are being told they can get one. The reality is, changing and developing processes and people takes time.   Throughout this process, be realistic and set achievable milestones so you can measure your progress.  Patience is a must!

5.  We Can Do This By Ourselves

As highlighted above, the issues of revenue, skills and process are not just marketing’s problems.  They are just as much a sales issue.  The good news in that is that the teams can work together to address the problem.  You want alignment?  Work together to begin the development and implementation of process.  If necessary, bring in outside help.  The consultative, objective “third party” can create efficiency in the change management process.

The current state of B2B marketing and sales is one of underachievement.  However, the solutions to the problems are there for the taking.  Organizations that want to improve their revenues and gain market share will be the ones that move forward and begin addressing these needs.  Those who don’t will continue to struggle.

Posted in Industry News, Lead Management Process, Marketing Automation, Sales and Marketing Alignment | 2 Comments

Interview with Adam Blitzer, Co-founder and COO, Pardot

This week we are privileged to interview Adam Blitzer, Co-founder and COO of Pardot, one of the leading providers of cloud-based marketing automation solutions.  Adam is responsible for product management, marketing, and operations.  He was previously a senior email marketing consultant for InterContinental Hotels Group, a consultant at Moxie Interactive, and spent four years in Japan at an advertising agency.

AG:  The role of marketing continues to evolve, as more is demanded from organizations.  Can you speak to what your clients are experiencing and how they are adjusting to this change?

Blitzer: Marketing isn’t the smoke and mirrors of “branding” that it used to be.  It’s all about hard numbers. Our clients challenge us on a daily basis to think about how we can make our reporting even richer and our automation even more sophisticated. Today’s marketers are thinking in terms of efficiency and, more often looking for ways to prove the value of their spend. It’s great to see them embracing some of the best practices that are preached by our industry – really looking to bridge the gap between sale and marketing, recognizing that the whole company should be working toward a common goal and using technology to make that happen.

AG:  One of the big debates brewing of late is the idea that marketers are now responsible for generating revenue.  With this traditionally being a sales role, how do you view marketing as a revenue generator?

Blitzer: The truth of it is, marketing has always existed to support sales. Even before marketing was being asked to show the actual numbers, their ultimate goal was still to build brand recognition and get people interested in the product. So things really haven’t changed that much, except that there are new tools available to show if it’s working. It’s really an empowering position for the marketing department.  In the past, marketing was seen as a drain on resources but now they are able to point to campaign data and say, ‘My tactics resulted in xx dollars of new revenue for the company.’ There’s also the idea of the marketing touch — tracking not only marketing-sourced leads, but also any lead that comes in touch with some sort of marketing campaign. When you factor in the popularity of drip nurturing, that means marketing has their hand in almost every deal these days.

AG:  There are many statistics on how users are not getting the full investment from their marketing automation solutions.  What steps should an organization take to avoid this?

Blitzer: I think it’s common with a lot of software products that the capability of the tool is well beyond what you actually need to use at the time.  But you often look for what is going to meet your needs and provides some room to grow. Because marketing automation does have a lot of different components, we encourage people to start small and ease into it. This is essential, since it’s so important to have a strategy in place and not just unleash 100 random new process automations on your database at once.

AG:  I came across this question the other day and am interested in your response – ‘What is the next “big thing” in marketing automation?’

Blitzer: I think social is inevitably becoming a bigger part of the buying process, so it’s going to make its way into marketing automation tools as well. We’re expecting to see growth in two areas of social. The first is the social as lead gen, or basically using social profiles to obtain more information on a prospect. We display this type of information within Pardot lead records. The other element of social that can overlap with marketing automation is the social posts angle – this includes both tracking social activity and link clicks from your posts, and the ability to schedule posts on Facebook, Twitter or other sites. Think about it, if you have an event coming up – you can create your email template promoting the event, the landing page to sign up, set up a drip program for reminders and also schedule tweets to drive registration. You can tag all of those elements within a single campaign in your marketing automation system and see which tactics drove the most registrations. Since the marketing department typically owns social media, it’s a natural fit to bring some social features into the marketing automation tool.

AG:  As Pardot sells to B2B companies what are some of the changes you have seen in the B2B buyer behavior and what are you doing as an organization to adapt to it?

Blitzer: I think one of the biggest evolutions we’ve seen – even since beginning to sell our own product four years ago – is that buyers are coming into the process already educated. There is a wealth of information available out there, particularly with the trend of building great, vendor-neutral thought leadership content. Buyers seek out that information and come into the sales process on their own terms. I think it’s led to a much more personalized sales process since buyers already have an idea of the features they are looking for.   It’s about helping them understand how your tool addresses their specific challenges and why your company is the best fit to become, essentially, a partner in their business.

AG:  What role should sales play in a company’s marketing automation strategy?

Blitzer: Sales should absolutely be involved in the marketing automation strategy. So much of what these tools do provides direct benefits to the sales team – from sales alerts to activity tracking to lead nurturing. It’s important that marketing get buy-in from sales, and one of the best ways to do that is to involve them in the process. Something that marketing can sometimes forget is that sales is the one on the front lines, listening to the needs, wants and pain points of your potential clients. They can serve as an invaluable resource for developing new marketing materials and messaging.

Learn more about Pardot and read some of Adam’s most recent posts at the Pardot Blog.

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Exciting Time for Marketing Professionals

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this refrain from our prospects and customers:  “Yes, we have a marketing automation solution. We’ve had it for about a year.  All we use it for is one off emails, and managing names in the database. We’re not seeing any improvement in sales conversions, and we still don’t know how to determine ROI or impact to revenue.”  Unfortunately, this is a common problem among marketing automation users.

Certainly, the lack of process is to blame (See what SiriusDecisions has to say about that).   But there are other factors as well, one of which is the lack of training resources.  In short, marketing practitioners today lack the skills and knowledge they need to be successful, especially when it comes to the application of marketing automation.   This goes beyond the training needed to operate a marketing software system.  Marketers today need to be educated on how to use this relatively new technology to enable their strategy.

This need among so many organizations is why The Annuitas Group is excited to be a part of the newly formed Marketing Automation Institute. The Marketing Automation Institute (MAI), which launched just this week, is focused on providing the education and skills that are needed for today’s marketer.

When you consider that, according to SiriusDecisions, 85% of marketers describe themselves as “self-taught”, it’s no wonder that they are struggling.  If self teaching was effective, then we’d see way more that just 25% getting value from their marketing automation investment. We believe that the MAI will help improve on these statistics.  The MAI will serve to help those individuals and companies that are looking to get more not just from marketing automation, but from their overall marketing strategy.

The Annuitas Group has always strongly believed in equipping marketers.  Our involvement in the MAI will be a natural extension of that belief, and we’re honored to be part of it.  Whether you’re a marketing rookie, a seasoned veteran, or somewhere in between, we hope you’ll take advantage of this new opportunity to develop the skills needed to succeed in a buyer driven 2.0 world.

 

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Marketing Automation by the Numbers (New Infographic)

I recently had the privilege of developing with Focus.com the new graphic below – Marketing Automation by the Numbers.  It is a compilation of relevant and frankly, very compelling statistics about the state of the marketing automation industry, its business impact and future growth.  Hope you enjoy and find it useful in your pursuit of marketing excellence.

Posted in Marketing Automation | 2 Comments

The Characteristics of Revenue Generating Companies

In the last year the aspect of revenue, as it relates to marketing departments, has taken center stage.  Both Eloqua and Marketo are at the forefront of the Marketing Automation space discussing Revenue Performance Management.  These two companies along with others have appointed Chief Revenue Officers and some have resorted to creating a new type of marketer dubbed “The Revenue Marketer.”

Over the past few weeks I have had several opportunities to discuss this phenomenon with my friend and respected colleague Craig Rosenberg, a.k.a The Funnelholic.  During the conversations we have tried to answer questions like:

- Does revenue really emanate from marketing?

- Is the CRO really a legitimate role in organizations or is this really a COO with a different title? Or as David Brock has said: “Isn’t this the CEO’s job?”

- Hasn’t sales always been about revenue and is this new obsession with it just marketing’s awakening to the fact that they should also be focused on measuring themselves by the revenue yard stick?

The very fact that this is what we discuss when we are together or on the phone, makes us in our own right “marketing nerds” and while we do not have all the answers to these questions, we do know and agree on one thing – corporations exist to generate revenue.  While this is the foundation upon which all for-profit organizations are founded, we do not believe that all organizations are necessarily “Revenue Focused Organizations” (there is another acronym for the B2B space “RFO” – don’t try it we already have it trademarked).  So to better define what these organizations looks like, here are Craig’s and  my characteristics of RFO’s

1.  The Customer is the Focal Point

Hidalgo: For all of the work that has been done on getting marketing and sales aligned, it’s a wonder that the issue still exists. As a matter of fact, we would submit that the gap between the two is more apparent than ever.  However, revenue focused companies understand one thing: alignment is not just about marketing and sales. It’s about the entire organization uniting (forget aligning) to deliver true customer value at every buying stage.  This includes marketing, sales, customer support, product development, IT etc.  All of these organizations have their place in customer engagement which turns into revenue.

Rosenberg: This sounds so obvious but it isn’t.  The fact is we SHOULDN’T have to write about this, but we do because we need it.  In the last 3 years, we have learned a ton about the buyer and frankly exposed serious flaws with how we are running our businesses.    Again, from David Brock, start with the customer and work backwards against all areas of the organization. There is a great case study with Motorola where the customer became the organization’s purpose statement.  To get there, they understood everything about the customer and brought that understanding to EVERYONE.  Not just marketing, but everyone.

2.  Marketing Enables

Hidalgo: There is no doubt that the role of the B2B marketer has changed dramatically over the past several years.  As a result, many have sought to put marketing front and center in revenue creation. That’s not where they should be as this in effect supplants the role of sales.  Revenue Focused Organizations understand that rather than generating, marketing enables revenue.  While we may be splitting hairs here there truly is a difference.

How does marketing enable?

• They generate and deliver engaging and relevant content to the buyer
• They deliver content to sales that they can use to help propel deals through the pipeline
• They focus on delivering highly qualified leads to sales (based on a common definition and lead qualification process), thus increasing sales effectiveness
• They measure their impact and make adjustments where necessary
• They are marketing, engaging and nurturing at every stage of the buying process or sales funnel

When marketing supports the creation of revenue, it is an internal state of Nirvana

3.  They Know Where They Play

Hidalgo: Companies that are Revenue Focused Organizations know what segment of the market in which they play and do not pretend to be something they are not.

Rosenberg: Every single employee/team member in the Revenue Focused Organization can tell you who their customer is.

Hidalgo: In Sales: They are not afraid to walk away from a deal if they know they are not a fit.  Why?  Because trying to put the proverbial square peg in a round hole deviates from producing revenue. If you win the “wrong” deal will, in most cases, be a losing proposition.

Rosenberg: In Marketing: They focus on building their programs against their target. In Product Marketing: They don’t chase either. They are maniacally focused on building product to support the needs of their target.

Knowing where you play and staying true to your product or service delivery goes hand-in-hand with understanding your customer.

4.  They Are Maniacal About Measurement

Hidalgo: Companies who are revenue focused measure and measure the right things.  There is such a thing as going overboard on measurement.  Here is a good rule of thumb – if no one is going to use the data from your organizational metrics to help shape the future direction of your company, don’t measure it.

Rosenberg: Companies that are Revenue Focused Organizations measure what counts and pull the intelligence from those measurements to help define what’s next, what changes need to be made and what should continue.  It’s actually harder for the disjointed, unfocused organization to do this.  The lack of the singular goal of revenue prevents organization from creating truly transparent measurement and reporting.  Everyone’s silo is doing their own thing and looking to cover their butts.  The Revenue Focused Organization works backwards from revenue and creates the metrics that get them there.  If you’re not doing it already, now is a good time to start.

 

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An Interview with Jon Miller, Co-Founder of Marketo

We recently had the opportunity to connect with Jon Miller, Vice President of Marketing and Co-Founder of Marketo.  Jon leads strategy and execution for all aspects of Marketo’s hyper-efficient demand center (powered by Marketo’s solution, of course). In Marketo’s popular blog, Modern B2B Marketing, he explores everything from lead nurturing and social media to marketing ROI and revenue performance management (RPM). Jon was also named a Top 10 CMO for companies under $250 million revenue by The CMO Institute.

We would like to thank Jon for taking the time to speak with us about marketing automation, RPM and B2B Marketing.

1.  As widespread as the awareness of marketing automation is, many are still estimating automation is below a 20% adoption rate.  Why is there such a disparity between awareness and adoption?

I think a lot of companies are still trying to figure out what revenue performance management and marketing automation really mean. It has traditionally been viewed as more of a marketing tool and part of the marketing ‘cost center’.

Many are not yet aware of the transformational impact it can have on their sales and marketing organization, and what it can do to top line growth. We see the low market penetration as a tremendous opportunity for us, and our competitors, to help increase adoption and also grow the market.

Also, until recently, solutions were expensive and hard to use. It is only in the last 3 years that we’ve seen easy to use and easy to adopt solutions come to market.

2.  Marketo is one of the leaders in Revenue Performance Management (RPM).  While we certainly ascribe to RPM, many are confused as to the difference between marketing automation and RPM.  What would you tell someone asking that question?

Marketing automation deals with basics like email marketing, lead nurturing and lead scoring, i.e. taking marketing tactics and making them repeatable and scalable through technology.

Let’s step back a bit to look at the big picture. B2B buying today is much different than it was 15 years ago. Because it is so much easier for buyers to get information, through websites, through search, through social media, they get a lot of their buying process done independent of your sales reps. But this has to be measured and managed, and the technology is now available.

Revenue Performance Management goes beyond marketing automation and ties together the complete revenue generation process, starting from initial buyer contact through to closed deals. Whereas we used to just have the sales cycle, with its distinct qualification stages, we now have a comprehensive revenue cycle. RPM talks about the complete process and recognizes that there will be several distinct marketing stages before a lead is ever ready to talk to sales.

Because sales and marketing work from the same data, we are able to measure and even predict the impact of marketing investments on revenue. For example, RPM allows us to ask and answer questions such as ‘will revenue grow faster if I hire another sales rep, or if I use the same money to invest in more PPC ads?

3.  What advice do you provide a customer who asks what they should do from an organizational perspective to get the most from their automation investment?

I think it really starts with making sure marketing and sales are on the same page. For example, how does your organization define a “lead”? Other important questions include, e.g. How long should it take for sales to follow up on a lead? And, what is the mechanism for sales to give feedback to marketing on lead quality?

Given these answers, you can pretty quickly build your lead management flows using lead scoring and qualification rules.

Another important thing is to invest in a lot of good content. Having a variety of content, aimed at speaking to different buyer personas, and to buyers at different stages of the revenue cycle, will drive the demand gen process.

Don’t leave out the human element in all of this. For example, our customers often have sales development reps that reach out to qualified marketing leads by phone. The timing of the call, and knowing what to talk about with the lead, is aided by our technology. Having a live voice on the phone makes a big difference in your prospect’s perception of your brand, plus it is the surest way to fully qualify a lead before it is passed on to sales.

Think big, start small, move quickly. Get quick wins, and then be agile to continuously adapt the solutions.

4.  Marketo continues to experience tremendous growth. What can you attribute this growth to?

I’d say there are three things that drive our success.

First, we are lucky to be working with a market that is hungry for what our solution offers. Tech, healthcare, financial, manufacturing, education – in all of these industries, you have buying processes which have been transformed by the Internet. They have a lot to gain from building an integrated marketing and sales approach, one that is driven by sophisticated measurement and management.

Second, we feel the product itself is very strong. Right from the beginning, we focused heavily on usability and making it intuitive to use. It was built by marketers, for marketers. Over time, we’ve added to the lead management core, additional products for marketing analytics and sales effectiveness.

Third, we feel a big part of our success is due to us ‘drinking our own champagne’. Comparatively, we spend a lot on marketing, $0.90 for every $1 spent on sales.  But we do this because we see how these investments pay off, e.g. 80% of our revenue is directly sourced by marketing. We’ve become very efficient at capturing and nurturing leads, and delivering high quality leads to sales. And the end result is an efficient sales engine, actually better put, a revenue engine.

5.  While none of us has a crystal ball, where do you see this industry in the next five years?

It’s truly an exciting time for our industry. Overall, I think we’re going to see wider adoption of technologies related to revenue performance management. Whereas today it’s still perceived as a nice-to-have, a couple years from now it will become a must-have.

We’ll likely have more standardization, common definitions and metrics which are more widely adopted by vendors and marketers. And social isn’t going to go away. Expect to see platforms which are even better at measuring, and driving the whole online experience.

 

Posted in Industry News, Marketing Automation | 1 Comment

Automation and The Sales Funnel #marketingautomation

If you have read this blog for any length of time you know that we are big proponents of process being the key to improving ROI from your marketing automation investment.  Over the last few days, I have had several conversations about the idea of lead management process as it relates to marketing automation.  During two of these conversations, I was told that marketing automation is only useful for nurturing the middle of the sales funnel.

To be sure I asked for clarification.  To shed light on their remarks, my colleagues said that automation was not useful until you have the ability to begin nurturing the buyer as nurturing only happens in the middle of the funnel.

Yes, nurturing does happen in the middle of the funnel, as it should.  However, to say that automation is only useful once you have “middle of the funnel” nurturing in place is short sighted.  Lead nurturing should happen at every stage in the funnel. Let’s take a look at the various sales funnel stages to see where nurturing can happen.

The graphic below illustrates a typical sales funnel and corresponding aspects of automation that can and should be used at each stage.

 

As you can see, automation can be used to enable dialogue and communication at all stages of the buying process.  As you continue to learn about your buyers and further refine your process, you will have a better understanding of the many ways automation can be used.  If you are new to automation, attaining these levels can take time. But don’t stop moving.  Remember, dream big, start small and scale appropriately.

 

Posted in Lead Management Process, Marketing Automation | Comments Off