On Focus.com , Holly asks: “Does marketing automation work if I only have a cold list of records? My response: It’s true that most marketing automation implementations involve either customers or existing prospects – people with whom the company has had prior contact – but there’s no reason why you couldn’t use the same technology against a cold list. Case in point – we’re currently developing an integrated demand generation campaign for a client targeting a select group of contacts at key accounts. How effective would using this cold list be?&#. MORE >>

It prevents situations in which you may lose forever the ability to market to an individual because he/she happened to dislike one particular email. Because the page is hosted in Marketo , a leading marketing automation platform, the person’s email address, first name, last name, title, and country are all pre-populated, making it easy for the individual to update or correct outdated profile information. This can be a useful option if some individuals want to continue to receive your newsletter, for example, but not Webinar invitations. Time to give them that option. MORE >>

When marketers embark on a formal lead nurturing strategy, opportunities for process improvement can arise in unexpected ways. Using satellite technology for internet connectivity has particular appeal for companies with operations in remote, hard-to-reach locations, so it’s no surprise that iDirect’s market is heavily segmented, focused on key sectors such as oil & gas, maritime, and federal/military. All this presents real challenges for both demand generation and lead management. All-hands discovery session yields important insights, priorities. MORE >>

On Focus.com , Craig Rosenberg asks: “What are the top benefits of adopting marketing automation?” My response: Based on our firm’s experience , the most common benefits of marketing automation are these: 1. Regardless of how good your inside sales team is, putting in place automated lead response via marketing automation ensures that every inbound lead receives a prompt, systematic, personalized response, and that none fall through the cracks. Increased demand generation ROI due to improved conversion of leads to sales opportunities. MORE >>

Summary: Entiera is a sophisticated consumer marketing automation system, offered as a service and at a lower price than conventional competitors. Entiera Insight is a marketing automation system primarily for companies that sell to consumers. m highlighting this because most of my recent posts have been about B2B marketing automation (demand generation) systems, and the two types of systems are quite different. See the paper Demand Generation vs. Marketing Automation in the Resources section of the Raab Guide site for more on this topic.) MORE >>