LeadSloth

OCTOBER 4, 2009

In this post some thoughts about the program… First of all, the best thing about this event is that the speakers are marketing practitioners, not vendors. The Marketing Automation Vendors. My specialty is Marketing Automation Consulting, and many of the vendors were attending with a booth. The Marketing Automation Vendors.

Manticore 100

Manticore B2B Marketing Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services 100

LeadSloth

OCTOBER 28, 2010

It is not specific to any Marketing Automation vendor, nor is this event sponsored by any vendors. However, vendors and consultants are welcome to attend, but no selling please. The meetups will focus on best practices in Marketing Automation, not so much on implementation details. Join the LinkedIn Group.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Automation Marketing Management 100

LeadSloth

JULY 10, 2009

Earlier I published the Top 10 Demand Generation vendor blogs and the Top 10 Marketing Automation Blogs. This is an leading online magazine for Marketing Automaton, which features vendor information, news articles a job board and more. This is one of the newer vendors in the Demand Generation market, focused on the SMB market.

Demand Generation 100

Demand Generation Demand Generation Marketing Automation Services 100

LeadSloth

FEBRUARY 15, 2010

I’ve started with a much longer list, but decided to focus on those events where Marketing Automation vendors exhibit, and where the speakers cover lead management and marketing automation. The Marketing Automation vendors with a bigger installed base have their own user conferences. I can highly recommend these events.

B2B Marketing 100

B2B Marketing Marketing Management Marketing Automation Services B2B 100

LeadSloth

JUNE 23, 2009

Marketing Automation vendors have done very little to automate Inbound Marketing activities. Lately, most vendors have added features to monitor anonymous traffic your site (the most recent announcements: Pardot , Marketo , Eloqua ). There are software vendors that focus only on Inbound Marketing or SEO automation. Conclusion.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Inbound Marketing Marketing Automation Work Management 100

LeadSloth

MARCH 22, 2009

Email marketing that integrates with Salesforce.com is provided by many vendors, like VerticalResponse , Boomerang , ExactTarget , Genius , Lyris and more. There are also some relatively affordable registration form vendors, like FormAssembly and OnDialog.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services LEADSExplorer netFactor Leadlander 100

LeadSloth

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Avoid vendor bias. Based on these results, I will try to keep posting once or twice a week, but with more focus more on Thought Leader interviews and on vendor-neutral articles. Avoid vendor bias. Other Interesting Comments. In the text boxes people gave lots of useful suggestions, like these: Choose your own “purple cow”.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Customer Surveys Marketing Automation Automation 100

LeadSloth

AUGUST 23, 2010

What is nice about this summit is that most speakers are marketing practitioners, not vendors. Again, they have created a great program for B2B Marketers, covering both lead generation and lead nurturing strategies. Also, MarketingSherpa team members like Brian Carroll and Sergio Balegno are known for their excellent presentations.

Enterprise Management 100

Enterprise Management B2B Marketing Marketing Management B2B 100

LeadSloth

APRIL 24, 2009

BTW 2: I have not included vendor weblogs: I will put those in a separate post. He covers lots of Marketing Automation vendors, he offers insights into usability of demand generation systems and covers various other topics. But regardless of the terminology, these are the blogs that I enjoy most :- ).

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Automation B2B Thought Leadership 100

LeadSloth

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

An email marketing vendor found out that people searching for "newsletters" are less sophisticated than those who search for "email software" That's useful info to fine-tune your nurturing programs. Segmentation on Lead Source and Search Keywords.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Work Management Marketing Automation Marketing Management 100

LeadSloth

MARCH 16, 2009

Therefore I initially called them a ‘niche vendor’ However, the product has evolved into a fairly complete marketing automation suite for SMB companies. ActiveConversion first became known for its sales-focused Web Analytics, such as identifying companies that visit your website (similar to Leadlander ).

ActiveConversion 100

ActiveConversion SMB Work Management Lead Management 100

LeadSloth

AUGUST 27, 2009

And just like in medicine, the vendor pays for it all: admission is free for qualified B2B marketers (too bad they don’t have a session in Hawaii). They are organizing a B2B Marketing University this fall, with lots of interesting topics. They visit the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Atlanta and Seattle, with other cities to follow.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services B2B Marketing Salesforce.com B2B 100

LeadSloth

MARCH 8, 2010

This post is a prediction: Chatter will be rolled out this summer, and it will take Marketing Automation vendors some time to tie into Chatter. In most of my blog posts I try to give practical advice that you can use right away. Nevertheless, I see a great future for Chatter.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Salesforce.com Automation 100

LeadSloth

OCTOBER 18, 2010

It’s as if you would just sign up with one of the vendors, take a day to set everything up, and you’re done. These are all important trends, and many people will wonder: how do I get started? The Software is Great, But… Marketing Automation software is often positioned as the be-all and end-all.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation 100

LeadSloth

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Many attendees were confused by CRM vendors claiming to offer full marketing functionality. In addition to Marketing Automation, there were two big topics: Social Media and CRM. I will write about Social Media some other time, and focus on CRM in this post. If that’s true, why would you still need Marketing Automation?

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation CRM Salesforce.com 100

LeadSloth

FEBRUARY 17, 2010

As a vendor, you can take advantage of this by actively participating on external networks, and adding social features to your own applications. You can also use Social Networks to keep customers informed of new products and services, and giving them the opportunity to provide feedback. Conclusion.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Social Media Marketing Automation Social Marketing 100

LeadSloth

AUGUST 24, 2009

Several vendors claim to have self-service solutions that does not require IT involvement. However, if Sales doesn’t believe in the benefits of Marketing Automation, that can kill the project. Lack of Expertise. “Ease-of-use&# is big theme in Marketing Automation selection.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Work Management Marketing Automation Marketing Management 100

LeadSloth

OCTOBER 16, 2009

Even though some vendors have been around for almost 10 years, Marketing Automation is still relatively new. According to Forrester, only 2-5% of B2B firms have invested in full-featured Marketing Automation. But that percentage is rapidly growing.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Work Management Marketing Management Marketing Automation 100

LeadSloth

AUGUST 24, 2010

The content can be on the vendor’s website, it can be sent out via email, or sent out by sales people. Lead Nurturing content contains information that prospects need to make a purchase decision. It can come in various formats: (blog) articles, whitepapers, webinars, videos, podcasts, and so on.

Lead Nurturing 100

Lead Nurturing Leads Lead Marketing Qualified Leads 100

LeadSloth

AUGUST 17, 2009

Both vendors suggest to look at conversion metrics between buying stages: from inquiry, via qualified lead and opportunity to a closed deal. The word “ROI&# is often abused, but not in these workbooks. Marketo provides several worksheets that make it easier for you to calculate your return on lead management.

Lead Management 100

Lead Management Lead Scoring Lead Ranking ROI 100

LeadSloth

JULY 29, 2009

A popular offer for software vendors is the free trial. This is the alternative I like best, thinking from the vendor’s perspective. However, it serves a different function from a free trial: at the free trial stage, prospects are typically still comparing multiple vendors. Very true. Paid Trial.

Work Management 100

Work Management Marketing Management Demand Generation Agencies Demand Generation 100

LeadSloth

JANUARY 12, 2010

Several new vendors appeared on the market, many existing vendors experienced rapid growth, and Marketing Automation as a term gained popularity among B2B marketers. I have asked many of the vendors, consultants and thought leaders to give their opinion. 2009 was the year in which Marketing Automation really took off.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Marketing Automation Sales Management Automation 100

LeadSloth

JUNE 30, 2009

My take: over the past months many Marketing Automation vendors have developed Sales & Marketing collaboration tools. So either this feature needs to be added to the Marketing Automation system, or the Marketing Automation system should import the required data from an existing SEO rank tracking system.

Marketing Automation Services 100

Marketing Automation Services Inbound Marketing Marketing Automation Automation 100