When considering whether to implement an on-premise or on-demand solution , you should consider operational and scaling costs, availability requirements for the application, and ongoing maintenance and support to ensure you can meet SLAs for your customers or constituents. The SaaS model is founded on customer success – which puts you in charge. As a leading Social Marketing Automation SaaS provider, Genius.com takes its responsibility to provide service to its customers, both domestic and international, very seriously. Seeing what's behind the wall of your hosted solution. MORE >>

It’s undeniable that consumers are moving much of their communication off of email and onto the social networks, and that those networks provide unbelievable opportunities to better understand and convert customers.  The big question for the marketing automation category is whether email as the core channel for prospect/customer communications continues to make sense given this shift over.  Can a computer program really “read someone’s body digital body language&# effectively and meaningfully in a way that deepens a customer relationship? movement. MORE >>

In the “not so distant past&# (as in “still happening&# ) the customer hand-off from Marketing–>Sales–>Customer Support was too often a dropped baton, and an unhappy customer.  and call for backup to engage the customer more meaninfully.  According to B2B magazine, 58% of marketers now believe marketing “must continue across the entire customer lifecycle&# (thanks Ardath Albee for this one ). Call it “customer scoring&#.   Scoring customers is a lot different, and harder, than scoring leads.  Digg this! MORE >>

Back then there was basically one vendor whose product was very hard to use, and most customers just used it as an very expensive Email marketing system that required a lot of services to run. The fact that the majority of customers still don’t get positive ROI in less than 6 months is still a major problem for MA vendors. Just got done reading Jessica Groopman’s excellent survey of Marketing Automation  (MA) buyers by Focus ( download here ).  After 10 years as an automation user and vendor, I’m both encouraged and depressed by the results.  and 44% said ROI came in less than 6. MORE >>

Points are assigned based on specific criteria you set–those attributes you’ve identified as being most associated with serious prospect customers–the higher the score, the more likely they’re the right target prospect who is actively engaged in the buying process and should be the most routed to sales.”. According to Wikipedia it’s the “method of assigning points to each prospect you come across. Put simply, lead scoring is a lead qualification process that helps you “qualify” or rank leads according to their level of buying interest. Lead Score with Marketing Automation. Tweet This! MORE >>