Customer Experience Matrix

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

Summary: I've posted a list of nearly 200 RFP questions that I hope many people will adopt to their own needs. If it's used widely, buyers and vendors both benefit. Death, taxes and RFPs. For business software vendors, all three are equally inevitable – and it's not clear which they dislike most. In my on-going humble efforts to serve the industry, I’ve posted nearly 200 detailed questions that could serve as the backbone for many RFPs.

RFP 184

RFP Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Automation 184

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

Summary: Eloqua10 provides much-needed update to Eloqua's user interface and a new reporting infrastructure for “revenue performance management”. Neither change is revolutionary but both substantially improve the company’s competitive position within the crowded B2B marketing automation industry. Eloqua is slated to officially release its long-promised Eloqua10 system on November 21.

Eloqua 183

Eloqua Allocation Enterprise Management Lead Scoring 183

Customer Experience Matrix

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Summary: a CMO Council survey shows that CMOs and CIOs agree they need to cooperate, but disagree on how well they're doing and what their roles should be. Both sides need to work harder to close an increasingly-unacceptable gap. This affects marketing automation vendors too, since they sell to both sides. The CMO Council and Accenture Interactive recently released a study Aligning the CMO and CIO to Achieve Agile Intelligent Marketing based on parallel surveys of about 300 members of each group

CMO 183

CMO Enterprise Management Work Management Marketing Management 183

Customer Experience Matrix

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

Summary: Four critical metrics tell you most of what you need to show the value of your marketing efforts and to optimize your results. And, here's a funny picture. There’s still time to sign up for my October 7 Webinar on stage-based marketing measurement (sponsored by Marketo and hosted by the American Marketing Association ). During my extensive, um, research, I was very pleased to find the following picture to illustrate the concept of stages: I like this picture both because it's amusing (a

Budget Programs 182

Budget Programs ROI Forecasting Statistics 182

Customer Experience Matrix

JANUARY 7, 2010

Summary: the demand generation market will continue to grow in 2010, and it may attract some new, big competitors from outside the industry. But the real excitement will be features that expand the scope of demand generation products to support inbound marketing, better measurement, and more efficient content creation. 2009 was a year of tremendous growth for demand generation systems (a.k.a. business-to-business marketing automation.

Demand Generation Agencies 179

Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation Marketing Automation Services Work Management 179

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 19, 2010

Summary: Public data gives some insights into Marketo's financial history and prospects. Despite past losses, the company is in a strong position to continue to compete aggressively. Here’s a bit more on this week's $25 million investment in Marketo : a piece in VentureWire quotes revenue for Markteo as $4.5 million for 2009 and "triple that" ($13.5 million) for 2010.

Marketo 177

Marketo Enterprise Management Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management 177

Customer Experience Matrix

DECEMBER 28, 2010

Summary: Yesterday's post described the objectives of my product fit scores for B2B marketing automation vendors and how I set up the original weighting for individual elements. But the original set of scores seemed to favor more complex products, even for small business marketers. Here's how I addressed the problem. Having decided that my weights needed adjusting, I wanted an independent assessment of which features were most appropriate for each type of buyer.

Marketing Automation Services 176

Marketing Automation Services Vendors Marketing Automation Automation 176

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 17, 2010

So.our friends at Marketo announced today that they've received another $25 million in venture funding. As one of their competitors snippily commented on Twitter, "Does that make the total $50M or $60M? I lost track." I've lost track too, but it doesn't really matter. Marketo's strategy has been clear from the start: spend heavily to establish a strong position despite a relatively late start in the market.

Marketo 176

Marketo Demand Generation Lead Ranking Marketing Automation 176

Customer Experience Matrix

AUGUST 12, 2010

Summary: Genius.com has added a free version of its system. But I think its strategy of offering an intermediate product between email marketing and full marketing automation may actually be more useful in attracting new customers. On Monday, Genius.com announced “the first free, instant-on demand generation solution”, a description carefully crafted to distinguish their offering from the free version announced by LoopFuse in June.

Work Management 175

Work Management Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management Loopfuse 175

Customer Experience Matrix

JULY 22, 2010

Summary: consolidation isn't new among marketing software vendors. When campaign management systems consolidated in the late 1990's and early 2000's, most were bought by enterprise software companies. The pattern will likely repeat itself. As I wrote in my June 30 post on consolidation among marketing automation vendors , I expect the number of competitors to shrink fairly quickly as new buyers concentrate their purchases among a handful of leading vendors.

Marketing Automation Services 175

Marketing Automation Services Enterprise Management Work Management Marketing Management 175

Customer Experience Matrix

DECEMBER 27, 2010

Summary: The first of three posts describing my new scoring system for B2B marketing automation vendors. I’ve finally had time to work up the vendor scores based on the 150+ RFP questions I distributed back in September. The result will be one of those industry landscape charts that analysts seem pretty much obliged to produce. I have never liked those charts because so many buyers consider only the handful of anointed “leaders”, even though one of the less popular vendors might actually be a be

Marketing Automation Services 173

Marketing Automation Services Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Vendors 173

Customer Experience Matrix

MARCH 12, 2010

Summary: Marketers face so many choices that just deciding which to explore is a major challenge in itself. Here are some ways to match social media to your business objectives and resources. I’ll be giving a Webinar on March 23 ( register here ) with Neolane about cross channel marketing. At least that’s the official topic. In my mind, it’s really about helping marketers choose among the ever-increasing media options available today and in the future.

Social Media 173

Social Media Resources Wiki Media 173

Customer Experience Matrix

DECEMBER 29, 2010

Summary: The first two posts in this series described my scoring for product fit. The third and final post describes scoring for vendor strength. And I'll give a little preview of the charts these scores produce.without product names attached. Beyond assessing a vendor's current product, buyers also want to understand the current and future market position of the vendor itself.

Marketing Automation Services 172

Marketing Automation Services Vendors Marketing Automation Paid Search Agency 172

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

So… Oracle bought ATG today for $6.00 per share or, as the press release puts it with charming nonchalance, “approximately $1.0 billion”. I can’t exactly say I told you so, since this particular pairing never crossed my mind. But if you look back at my “doughnuts and pizza slices” post on software acquisitions , it does make perfect sense. ATG is a specialist in e-commerce (the ERM doughnut in the online operations pizza slice), an area where Oracle’s traditional ERM products are weak.

Marketing Automation Services 172

Marketing Automation Services Digital Asset Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation 172

Customer Experience Matrix

APRIL 20, 2010

Summary: A survey of business-to-business salespeople finds they (still) consider themselves their best source of qualified leads. But marketing-generated leads are gaining increasing respect and salespeople are increasingly looking for help from outside data vendors. Marketers should work closely with salespeople to reinforce these trends, which promise to lower the overall cost per sale.

Lead Scoring 172

Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Customer Surveys Sales Qualified Leads 172

Customer Experience Matrix

JUNE 30, 2010

Summary: LoopFuse has launched a free entry-level version of its marketing automation system. It's one example of how vendors are now competing to attract new users. Only the winners will survive industry consolidation, which may be here sooner than you think. LoopFuse today promised to “transform” the marketing automation industry by offering a free version of its system.

Loopfuse 170

Loopfuse Marketing Automation Services Enterprise Management Marketing Management 170

Customer Experience Matrix

JUNE 16, 2010

Summary: here are some checklists to help select a marketing automation system. For more details, attend my Focus Webinar on June 29. On June 29, I'll be giving a Webinar on “Matching a Marketing Automation System to Your Needs”, part of a day-long set of all-star lead management presentations organized by the Focus online business community. ( Click here to register ; it’s free.

Marketing Automation Services 170

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Work Management Marketing Management 170

Customer Experience Matrix

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Summary: Database marketing and digital marketing are more different than it seems. It's hard for experts in one to adjust to the other. Yesterday’s post touched briefly on what I see as a fundamental transition between database marketing and digital marketing, and in particular on the changes that marketers and their supporting vendors must make to navigate the change successfully.

Database Marketing 170

Database Marketing Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services 170

Customer Experience Matrix

AUGUST 3, 2010

Summary: Marketo continues to follow its own path. Enterprise Edition adds the complex security needed by large organizations but sticks to simple campaign flows. Revenue Cycle Management blazes an important new trail for others to follow. I finally caught up with Marketo for a briefing on their Enterprise Edition (announced in March) and Revenue Cycle Analytics (announced in May).

Enterprise Management 168

Enterprise Management Marketo Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services 168

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 13, 2010

Summary: Rapid Insight offers low-cost desktop tools for data transformation and automated regression modeling. They're a good choice for companies that need something simple yet powerful. Predictive modeling is widely used by consumer marketers to select names for mailing lists and to decide which products to offer existing customers. These models are typically built by statisticians with tools like SAS and SPSS.

Lead Ranking 166

Lead Ranking Marketing Automation Services Cost Lead Scoring 166

Customer Experience Matrix

OCTOBER 15, 2010

Summary: Should companies apply fractional revenue attribution when more sophisticated methods are impractical? I think not: it gives inaccurate results that could result in bad decisions. Better to avoid financial measures at all if you can't do them properly. I spent most of the past week in San Francisco at overlapping conferences for the Direct Marketing Association and Marketo.

Allocation 166

Allocation Marketing Automation Services Marketo Demand Generation 166

Customer Experience Matrix

MAY 4, 2010

Summary: Two low-cost demand generation systems, Genoo and Act-On Software, have added unusually advanced social marketing features. A few weeks back, I wrote about social marketing features from consumer marketing automation vendors. Naturally our friends in the business marketing space have been adding such features as well. I got details from two of them last week. - Genoo , which offers a solid demand generation system for a rock-bottom $199/month, has placed a particular focus on capturing

Act-On 166

Act-On Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services Features 166

Customer Experience Matrix

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

Summary: Database and digital marketing are both data-driven. But they differ in plenty of other ways that make it hard for specialists in one to adapt smoothly to the other. Here's a detailed look at the differences. Yesterday’s long (or merely long-winded?) post described the different mindsets of database and digital marketers but it was pretty short on differences between the two marketing methods themselves.

Work Management 166

Work Management Paid Search Agency Marketing Management Database Marketing 166

Customer Experience Matrix

FEBRUARY 1, 2010

Here are some quick thoughts on two items: Unica ’s acquisition of paid search bid management system MakeMeTop (now mercifully renamed Unica Search) and Alterian ’s recently-released and excellent annual marketing survey. The connection is that these both support my feeling that many members of the old-line database marketing community have failed to adapt to the new world of digital marketing.

Database Marketing 166

Database Marketing Paid Search Agency Demand Generation Agencies Paid Content 166

Customer Experience Matrix

AUGUST 26, 2010

Summary: DataMentors has launched a low-cost marketing database product with limited functionality. It's an interesting test of what marketers really want. Marketing database software and service vendor DataMentors last week tossed its hat into the ever-more-crowded ring of marketing automation for small(ish) businesses. The new product, DataPoint, is a limited version of the company’s flagship PinPoint system.

Work Management 160

Work Management Marketing Automation Services Marketing Management Cost 160

Customer Experience Matrix

MAY 18, 2010

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at surveys to understand marketers’ priorities. Another one crossed my desk today, taken by Aprimo at Argyle Executive Forum ’s 2010 CMO Spotlight Forum: Retail and Consumer Goods & Services on April 29, 2010 in New York. The results are the most puzzling yet. The survey seems nice and simple: three questions with five answers each, and the answers contain similar categories.

CMO 156

CMO Customer Surveys Correlation Social Media 156

Customer Experience Matrix

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

Summary: Right On Interactive has added great life stage reporting to the data integration and output generation features of its earlier 5Buckets product. It could supplement a traditional marketing automation system or perhaps replace one. Either way, it’s worth a look to see what you’re missing. When I reviewed Right On Interactive in a July 2009 post , the company was selling its 5Buckets marketing software as a multi-channel output generation tool that complemented conventional marketing aut

Salesforce.com 152

Salesforce.com Lead Scoring Lead Ranking Marketing Automation Services 152

Customer Experience Matrix

JULY 9, 2010

Summary: HiveFire Curata makes it easy to assemble and republish content on specialized topics, attracting visitors to your company’s Web site. Here’s an irony for you: the world is awash with content, but marketers struggle to find enough of it. It’s like a sailor dying of thirst. Of course, sailors really do die of thirst. It happens when they’re surrounded by salt water they can’t drink.

Aggregators 152

Aggregators Marketing Automation Services RSS Classified Ads 152

Customer Experience Matrix

JUNE 28, 2010

Summary: Saffron Technology provides an analytical database that explores relationships among entities and their attributes. It can explore networks, find similarities and guide decisions. Saffron is considerably more flexible than standard semantic engines. As I was preparing my June 3 review of link analysis vendor Centrifuge Systems , Centrifuge introduced me to their business partners at Saffron Technology.

Organization 152

Organization Analysis API Statistics 152

Customer Experience Matrix

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Summary: LeadPAC lets marketers pay for email responses as easily as they pay for search responses. It’s a major improvement over traditional lead generation. I can’t recall a vendor with the same business model as LeadPAC from marketing automation vendor True Influence. That's pretty rare in itself, but what really matters is that LeadPAC's model offers some powerful benefits.

Marketing Automation Services 146

Marketing Automation Services Lead Ranking Work Management Adwords 146

Customer Experience Matrix

JULY 28, 2010

Summary: Manticore Technology released some modest enhancements to its demand generation platform today. The company takes a conservative approach to marketing automation, stressing the importance of process over flashy software. I’m not sure this will be enough to thrive as the market develops, but customers will benefit regardless. Manticore Technology today released the latest version of its marketing automation system.

Manticore 146

Manticore Marketing Automation Services Demand Generation Agencies Marketing Management 146

Customer Experience Matrix

MAY 19, 2010

Summary: DemandBase has added real-time access to its data identifying Web site visitors, enabling Web sites to deliver customized pages. It's another step in the company's systematic expansion. It’s more than a year since my original post about DemandBase. At the time, they had just extended their product beyond basic IP-address-based Web visitor identification to provide company details and contact names.

DemandBase 146

DemandBase Leadlander Jigsaw Marketing Automation Services 146

Customer Experience Matrix

MAY 18, 2010

Last week's post Why Marketers Don't Measure generated some interesting debate on whether the problem is lack of time or lack of knowledge. It dawns on me that this should be a testable question -- something the assembled measurement gurus should find congenial. My initial thought is an a/b test of email headlines, one offering "quick and easy ways to improve your marketing measurement" (i.e., time) and the other offering "learn how to do a better job measuring your marketing results" (i.e., kno

Open Rate 146

Open Rate Paper Tagging Display 146

Customer Experience Matrix

MARCH 22, 2010

Summary: ClickSquared is marketing services agency that, unlike most of its peers, has built its own marketing automation system. The main advantage is tight integration of database build, campaign management and message delivery. The vendor has just officially launched its system, which should meet the needs of most mid-tier consumer marketers. In a post last week , I casually described ClickSquared as a vendor delivering multi-channel messages for external campaign management systems.

Enterprise Management 146

Enterprise Management Work Management Marketing Management Multi-Channel 146

Customer Experience Matrix

MARCH 19, 2010

Summary: some published examples of "hard" ROI from social media. As part of the preparation for next Tuesday’s Webinar with 1to1 Media and Neolane (register here ), I poked around for some concrete examples of ROI from social media. Here’s what I found. Socialnomics blog by Erik Qualman offers a dynamic video with 33 “salient examples and data points” about social media ROI.

Social Media 146

Social Media ROI Examples Media 146

Customer Experience Matrix

OCTOBER 19, 2010

Summary: Alsa Marketing is a late entry to small business marketing automation. They support multiple languages, which should gain them some business. Otherwise, though, it will be tough for them to compete with better-established players. It’s harder every day for a new company to enter the business-to-business marketing automation industry. Of the three classic competitive strategies – low price, great service and innovative products – there are plenty of low price options and leading vendors

Marketing Automation Services 139

Marketing Automation Services Work Management Marketing Automation Marketing Management 139

Customer Experience Matrix

SEPTEMBER 22, 2010

Marketo yesterday released Winning the Marketing Measurement Marathon , a white paper that I wrote for them. This was timed to coincide release of their new Revenue Cycle Explorer , which adds advanced reporting to their Revenue Cycle Analytics line. (See my August 3 post for more details on Revenue Cycle Analytics.) I'll also be speaking with Marketo in an October 7 Webinar hosted by American Marketing Association.

Paper 139

Paper Webinar Metrics Marketo Demand Generation 139