by Jon Miller A common question I hear from marketers is “I already have a CRM system (e.g. salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM), so why do I need marketing automation ”? Many CRM systems have a module for marketing. Similarly, Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s website claims “familiar and intelligent marketing capabilities” that help you “market more effectively, improve productivity, and gain actionable insight into your marketing efforts”. Architecture of Marketing Automation versus CRM. Features and Capabilities of Marketing Automation versus CRM. Quotes. MORE >>

In addition to Marketing Automation, there were two big topics: Social Media and CRM. will write about Social Media some other time, and focus on CRM in this post. Many attendees were confused by CRM vendors claiming to offer full marketing functionality. So let’s dig in and find how Marketing Automation and CRM are different. Strong Features of CRM. For CRM, I focused on Salesforce.com. This was the list with strong points for a CRM system (compared to Marketing Automation): SFDC. Dynamic List Segmentation. Opportunity creation. MORE >>

The segments are defined based on revenue. The table below calculates revenues using reasonable assumptions about revenue per client in each segment: Combined with the previous chart, this shows the micro-business segment represents 61% of clients but just 17% of industry revenues. That’s great news – so long as vendors don’t get stuck in the current niche and so long as competitors from the CRM, email, Web software, Web advertising or other industries don’t swoop in and snatch it all away. This provides an interesting overview of the industry. The $257.5 The 26.7% MORE >>

The goal here is to create actionable customer profiles so you can segment to your audience more effectively. Integrate marketing automation with your CRM and create business rules to distribute campaign responses to sales. Demand Generation b2b marketing big data Email Marketing marketing automation revenue growth targeting and segmentationby Jesse Noyes | Tweet this Today’s guest post comes from Joe Cordo, Chief Marketing Officer of Extraprise. Extraprise provides demand generation expertise to enterprises and is an Eloqua partner. It’s doesn’t have to be that way. MORE >>

The move to relating to the customer who absorbs and shares products and information in 140 characters or less culminated with the rise of social customer relationship management (CRM). The market for social CRM, and the applications it has produced to track customer habits, relationships and activity via social media platforms, has drastically orbited into relevance in the past year. Everyone is abuzz about social CRM , and social CRM applications are now a must have. For example, Productivity in sales teams using social CRM increased by more than 25 percent. MORE >>