That so few run one means the most are buying blindfolded and hoping for the best. I presented my Seven Deadly Sins of Marketing Automation Software Selection during last week’s Webinar with Neolane. To replay the Webinar, click here.) If you’re wondering how many companies actually commit those sins, the sad answer is: a lot. Here are some statistics. About half of buyers consider only one system , I’m told by various vendors. Some may have known exactly what they needed in advance, but the great majority are just buying the first system that seems to do what they need. But they’re not. MORE >>

Naturally, the conference also included public and private discussions of HubSpot itself, but I thought those were best shared in a separate post. Back on September 20, I posted various tips from the Inbound Marketing Summit and HubSpot User Group. Here goes. The conference yielded a clear picture of HubSpot’s business strategy for the coming year. This strategy has two main elements, which were set out by CEO Brian Halligan in his keynote: - expansion to “middle of funnel” marketing. The company is now doing more to help marketers nurture the leads its attracts. What Does It Mean? MORE >>

The best-in-class, average, and laggard classifications illustrate the huge gap between even average performers and best-in-class. One of the things I’m enjoying about my new role as head of analytics at Left Brain DGA is being closer to hands-on marketing than I was as a consultant. This leads to different questions than I used to get, including the ever-popular “what’s a reasonable response rate for our emails?” That one came up last week and led me to review my files on industry benchmarks. Without giving away any deep secrets, I thought I’d share the results. Here is the U.S. MORE >>

Of the other two, lead scoring is primitive at best (I only saw an ability to apply segment tags, which I suppose is all you really need; the company says lead scoring is available “but we don’t advertise it because we haven’t made it easy enough within the software yet”). That said, the campaign manager you’re getting here is not as polished as the best mainstream demand generation systems. Two economists are walking on the street. One looks down and sees a $100 bill. He points it out to the other, who says, “It must be counterfeit. At least it’s worth a closer look. MORE >>

I''m beginning to see those capabilities are specialties that are not necessarily core features of a CDP because they''re best purchased from third party vendors. In other words, the role of Silverpop shifts from delivering customer treatments to helping other systems find the best treatments to deliver. 'At their annual Amplify conference last week, Silverpop unveiled the culmination of a two year project that conveniently matches the Customer Data Platform (CDP) concept I’ve been describing for the past month. But it has partners who fill that gap. MORE >>