Marketing Interactions

Marketing Automation Preparedness

Over on the Software Advice site, Jeff Pedowitz wrote an interesting article, Why the Marketing Automation Market is Floundering & 5 Fixes to Fuel It. He raises some great points at a high level about what marketing automation vendors can do to improve purchase and adoption of the technology.

All of them have merit, but there are a couple that I think warrant further exploration.

Complexity: The whole idea of automating content marketing is staggering in its hugeness. There are so many moving parts. Intellectually, the concept has great attraction value. Realistically, it's really hard to know where to start.

Jeff makes the point clearly when he states:

"The concepts and processes that drive successful adoption of marketing automation are often beyond the core skill sets of daily practitioners."

We need to help marketers better prepare to adopt and use marketing automation. Several issues that have stopped this intention in its tracks include:

• Lack of market definition. This means personas. But it also means understanding how to create a dialogue with those people. Just sending an email isn't the point. If it was, we could all keep our ESPs and be as productive as the next company. Creating contagious content is a skill that's dependent on how well marketers know what their audiences care about and how to talk with them—not at them.


• Lack of clean, usable prospect and customer data. Let's face it, most databases are a mess. We have all these forms that collect massive amounts of information, but we don't collect it in ways that help us use it to create better interactions. We need to improve our data collection processes and we need to do it purposefully. Every field on a form should be there because it helps us better connect with people interested in hearing from us. And don't get me started on customer data. It's even worse - and we know them, or we should.


• Lack of content strategy, development resources and process. How the heck can you create perpetual marketing programs without these key components? Yet they seem to be an after thought for many. I often create annual nurturing programs for companies that include 18 content assets and 36 email messages plus other tie-in pieces and related sales collateral—and that's for one persona + product/solution combination. The scope of requirements to use marketing automation successfully across a complex buying process can be daunting, but they don't have to be. We need to help companies develop methods for streamlining that process and determine how to make it something manageable that also delivers on goals.

Education: Webinars that purport to educate prospects share a lot of great ideas that motivate them, but also leave them wondering just how to put them to work. Some companies even get to the point of deciding prove the concept. This could mean taking advantage of a 30-day trial that some vendors offer or even a more formal 3-month pilot. And, shamefully, we let them, often without setting parameters and expectations.

If the company's average sales cycle is 9 months to a year, just what do you think a 3-month pilot will prove? Sure, if you're lucky, you can scrape that 15% of sales-ready leads off the top, but they could have done that on their own. So what should have been an exercise in proving value for engagement, momentum and contribution to downstream revenues ends up being a glorified, short-term sales campaign.

If we're going to invite companies to try out the software, we need to ensure that how they do so will prove value that they can't already produce on their own. And, we need to help them prepare to get that value in a limited timeframe. Otherwise their pilot stalls and so does their interest in the technology.

Business case: In his article, Jeff makes the point that, "The very person that Marketing Automation seeks to empower – the marketing executive – has the least power on the senior management team to buy." In his fix, he says, "Start selling to sales executives, CFO’s, CIO’s and even the CEO. Make this an enterprise play, not just a marketing one."

I agree. We need to start helping companies view marketing automation from the perspective of a critical business system and the impact it can have beyond lead generation and qualification. There's a case to be made for all of the roles Jeff indicates. How many vendors have expanded their reach beyond marketing executives to enlist other executives in the conversation? How many help their marketing prospects understand how to have those conversations with their colleagues?

Marketing automation preparedness applies to the company's who will buy the solution as well as the companies that sell it. It's the foundation for everything that comes afterward.

Go read Jeff's article - he covers a lot of ground and makes some key points that could change your game.

Marketo Revenue Cycle Analytics Power Strategy

Yesterday afternoon I caught up with Jon Miller and Maria Pergolino to get an inside view of their new Revenue Cycle Analytics (RCA) as well as what's coming up. I have to say that I'm really impressed. RCA provides some serious strategic visibility enabling B2B marketers to prove the value their marketing programs drive for their organizations.

One of the often heard arguments for short-term focus vs. long-term focus of marketing programs is the nature of corporate budgets and achievement reviews. Quarterly is the construct that dictates the focus of most organizations.

However, as our buyers change and take control over how they buy, B2B marketers dealing with longer buying cycles face a quandry. Since they have to report results at the end of the quarter, they believe they must align their campaigns in line with this 3-month parameter so they can debrief and cull the results to prove value driven during the period.

Well, thankfully, that's no longer true. Paraphrasing Jon Miller about using Marketo's RCA for his own company's marketing programs, "I went from being the arts and crafts guy to the revenue guy with my executive team."

As more B2B marketers have implemented marketing automation systems, what's become clear is that the technology must be used to enable the execution of a strategic process. Without that foundation, an organization will only have a glorified email system, at best.

But, even with a defined pipeline funnel, content mapped to buying stages based on personas and marketing automation, it's still been a challenge to understand what's happening across the entirety of the buying process during each stage. Additional challenges include discovering points of stall and more accurate pipeline forecasting.

With Marketo RCA, now you'll know.

You see, the thing about buyers is that they're dynamic. They ebb and flow throughout the process you've defined. In other words, their buying process may be different than your sales process. Instead of looking at statistics as static numbers, we need a more holistic way to measure movement across the entirety of the process.

Revenue Cycle Modeler: (click to enlarge)

This tool enables marketers to create a diagram view of their revenue cycle (funnel) within the Marketo platform. It's flexible enough so that marketers can label each step with their own terms. The arrows indicate triggers for movement that are individually rules driven. But, what I really like is the ability to diagram all the side trips a prospect might take during the process. There's also an inventory view that enables you to see which prospects are in which stage of the cycle.

One of the things I really like is that the model can also reflect SLAs between marketing and sales. For example, in Marketo's model, once a prospect becomes a lead, sales has 7 days to move it forward or the lead will return to nurturing. This is one way that marketers can ensure that prospects don't leak or become dormant within the process.

Revenue Cycle Explorer is what I call stage-by-stage metrics and is one of the coolest tools I've seen for strategically managing nurturing programs and prospect momentum across the entirety of the buying process.

You'll want to click to enlarge this one and take a look at the buttons on the left more closely. These metrics can not only show you how your leads are moving, but how each stage of your cycle (or bucket) is filling and emptying.

Marketers can now gain clarity about buying stage transitions, how their lead generation and nurturing programs are impacting the pipeline along with a graph of what that looks like over time. This statistics on the left side include:

• Balance - how many leads in each stage/bucket
• In Flow - how many added this month
• Out Flow - how many moved forward, back or out
• Conversion - percentage of transition
• Time - average days spend in stage/bucket

Marketers can also use these metrics to show the impact of their programs based on timing and goals. The best part is that you've now got the tools to better forecast how many net new prospects need to be generated and where momentum needs to be refined to ensure that the stages are delivering the appropriate flow to your sales force. Not to mention identify areas for refinement. Instead of making an educated guess, now you'll know just where to apply your efforts to improve marketing programs during execution instead of having to wait until after the fact to identify areas for improvement.

Ad Hoc Reports give marketers the ability to create custom reports by dragging and dropping fields onto the canvas for real-time reporting.

With this tool, you'll be able to slice and dice your data to gain insights that match up to whatever your executive team needs to know. You'll be able to prove the revenue results tied to specific sources and programs as well as improve your budgeting allocation based on truth, not assumption.

Revenue Planning and Forecasting (Coming Soon, Can't Wait!)

Because marketers execute programs at different times, the results are all evaluated equally if, for example, your reporting must represent achievements earned within the quarter. Where one program may look better than another, this can be deceiving based on when the program was executed and the length of time for your revenue cycle. It's quite possible that, given more time, the program that looks less successful could possibly be the more successful revenue generator.

Because the Marketo system continually analyzes all the information collected by your revenue model, it can intelligently forecast or project results for programs over time.

One of the things that marketing technology has created is tons of data that marketers never had access to before. Most marketers are not trained data analysts. What I really like about Marketo Revenue Cycle Analytics is that you don't have to be. They've culled the data that can be used most effectively to inform your marketing strategy as a real-time visibility component from your execution platform.

Learn more about Marketo Revenue Cycle Analytics

Watch this 20 minute video demo on RCA

Download the RCA Whitepaper (brief registration required)

The folks at Marketo spent some time really thinking through what marketers need to manage revenue performance. The interactive tools they've developed to enable marketers to build the accountability and respect that shifts executive perspective from viewing marketing as a cost center to seeing it as a valuable revenue driver are impressive.

Their customers must agree as retention hovers in the mid 90% range.

Genius.com Removes the Handcuffs with Free, Instant-On Demand Generation

I recently caught up with Scott Mersy, VP of Marketing, and Parker Trewin, Director of Marketing Communications for Genius.com to discuss their Free, Instant-On offering of Genius Demand Generation.

First, the details:

• No need for IT - Instant-On Website Tracking
• Up to 3,000 contacts
• Up to 10,000 emails per month
• No limit on page views
• Automated integration with Salesforce.com with entry of password.
• Triggered response
• Web-to-Lead forms
• Email Marketing
• Segmentation and List Building
• Multichannel and social media tracking (My review of Genius gURLs)
• See all the features here

You all know how I feel about the need for marketing automation technology to drive business objectives and to provide quantifiable proof of marketing's contribution to downstream revenues. Marketing performance cannot improve to the degree necessary to drive business results without technology.

But, let's talk for a minute about why Genius.com is providing a free Demand Generation Solution. The company is passionate about helping marketing and sales successfully drive revenues. Here are a few of the things they believe:

• Marketers should have the ability to test their approaches and prove business case for the tools that fit their needs without being handcuffed to a solution that's not right for them.


• Marketing automation should be intuitive and easy to use—providing instant gratification—not require months of deployment, intensive training to operate or monopolize your IT staff.


• Marketing automation should improve communications and responsiveness between marketing and sales, not impede it with the creation of another silo.


• Education is a responsibility they embrace passionately to help marketers build the skill set they need to successfully develop programs that match the current needs of the marketplace, using the technology to deliver them.

Over the last week, since Genius.com's announcement, there have been reviews and comments made about this idea of "free." Some think it's great and some feathers are ruffled. It's an interesting discussion with lots of opinions. Here are a few - don't forget to check out the comments:

Will Marketing Automation Be Free? by Jep Castelein (@jepc)

Genius.com Offers Free Version: How Much Does It Lower True Cost of Entry by David Raab (@draab)

Closing the Technology Innovation Vs. People/Process Stagnation Gap in Modern B2B Demand Generation by Adam Needles (@abneedles)

Now, I'll throw my thoughts into the ring.

I work with a lot of clients in the process of adopting marketing automation technology from a variety of vendors. In most cases, they've purchased the solution prior to determining the people, process and content combination they'll need to be successful in using it. Thankfully, they've decided to figure that out sooner, rather than later.

Some of their questions include:

• What needs to change in our thinking and planning to make the switch from manual to automated marketing?
• What kind and how much content do we need? How will we produce it?
• What calls to action do we need to create momentum in the buying process? How will we know it's working?
• What's the most effective way to segment our audiences?
• How can we learn what we need to know to connect better with our buyers?

As companies work to answer these questions and develop the skill sets they need to move forward, Genius.com's free offering can help.

Consider the following possibilities:

• Choose a segment audience and run one campaign across an entire buying cycle. That's the real beauty in removing the limitation of a 30-day trial with limits on functionality.
• Divide the campaign into A/B groups and test different versions of content, email subject lines, etc. to gauge response and learn what matters to your prospects.
• Treat it as a pilot project and establish goals to identify business value, identify which features are important to you and what doesn't work.
• Incorporate social media and use gURLs to prove the value of your participation in attracting leads, improving continuous dialogue, etc.
• Trial a Google Ad Words campaign and measure impact.
• Have your salespeople use the Outlook integration to prove the success [or identify areas for improvements] in engaging late stage leads with the messages they send.

With the focus removed from the technology purchase and implementation, marketers and sales organizations alike are free to apply their attention to the people, process and content needed to power prospect and customer dialogues throughout the buying process.

That's the power of free demand generation technology. Developing the skill sets, processes and content may not be free, but without the technology in use, it's very difficult to judge how the concepts will work in action when all you have is theory.

For those who think there will be no impact to adoption because companies aren't purchasing the technology upfront, I beg to differ. The stake being put in the ground is the application of the people, process and content to prove business value. That's often a bigger stake than the cost of the technology. If companies are not willing to do that, they won't be successful whether they purchase the technology or don't.

Manticore Technology VII Enhancements Boost Marketing Performance Management

Manticore Technology is rolling out over 40 enhancements and features to their marketing automation platform to improve usability, accelerate lead flow and more closely align marketing with sales. What this means is that they’re simplifying the process while expanding the capabilities. Marketers can now accomplish more while increasing precision at the same time.

I recently had the opportunity to see a demonstration of the new capabilities and liked what I saw. The interface is intuitive and the capabilities are need-to-have, not nice-to-have, for marketers who are truly embracing lead management process execution and diligently pursuing alignment with sales.

Let’s look at what a few of these enhancements mean for B2B marketers:

Marketers, as business users, need technology that simplifies complex process execution. With longer term buying cycles, the ability to track and measure prospect behavior over months—sometimes longer—improves their ability to help transition early-stage buyers into late-stage sales opportunities.

In case you need further motivation to consider implementing marketing automation to improve your lead management results, the 2010 Lead Generation Optimization report from CSO Insights may nudge you in the right direction. Their research found:

• Over 49% of marketers report that 25% or less of the deals closed resulted from marketing-generated leads.


• 49% of marketers said that sales would say the quality of their leads needs improvement.


• 60% of them said that sales would say the quantity of leads generated needs improvement.


• More than 54% of marketers say that less than 50% of leads result in a first call.


• Over 65% of marketers say lead scoring is informal or nonexistent.

When you consider that 50.6% of marketers also indicate that their ability to execute a web-based marketing program needs improvement, it’s time to take a serious look at the tools your company is using to facilitate the execution of marketing strategies. Manticore Technology has listened to what their customers need to continuously improve their marketing performance—and they’re working hard to deliver on their promise to provide simply powerful marketing automation.

Go check out Manticore Technology VII for yourself!

[disclosure: Manticore Technology is a client]

LoopFuse Removes the Budget Barrier from Marketing Automation

I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Sean Dwyer, CEO of LoopFuse yesterday. Matt Quinlan, VP of Field Operations joined us to give me a preview of FreeView - a fully-functional marketing automation platform designed to meet the needs of SMB marketers. [Hint: FREE is the key word.]

The folks at LoopFuse [watch the 5 min demo] believe that marketing automation is the future of digital. They want to help B2B small-to-mid-size companies adopt the technology they need to compete effectively with eMarketing programs. What they've done that I think is very unique is to create a Free Forever model.

The Free Forever model includes the tools a marketer needs to score leads, create and execute lead nurturing programs (lead flows in LoopFuse ease), send leads to sales via CRM transfer (and take them back), create alerts, rules and even harness pre-existing lead capture forms.

Yes, there's a catch. FreeView is limited to 2,500 prospects, 5,000 emails per month and 100,000 page views. But, the really cool part is that you can have it forever. No more trying to prove value and ROI during a paltry 30-day trial. Marketers can actually create a nurturing program for a target audience and run it across the entirety of the complex buying process—tweaking and refining as they go to build the business case for expanding the program.

There are a couple of really useful things I should mention:

• Salesforce.com integration is about a 3 click process. But even better, marketers can choose to import leads during that process and have them all transferred into the FreeView system so they can be up and running fast.


• No charge per seat. You want to expand visibility into nurturing progress to your salespeople? No problem. 


• Build extensive behavioral dossiers on companies, not just individual prospects. I've been preaching for a while that marketers need to reach beyond decision makers. Now you can do so easily by monitoring your reach inside companies, as well as their activities as a group, or drill down to the individual level.


• Scoring overview. In addition to summarizing all activity for a lead and ranking explicit demographic information, marketers also see how many times each activity is performed during the course of building the score. This insight can be really useful for evaluating interest levels for content formats, topics, etc.


• Gain access to the system about 120 seconds after creating your account.

LoopFuse FreeView is definitely worthy of consideration for SMB marketers. The company has spent a lot of time creating a system that is intuitive and arming marketers with instructive how-to videos within the system to ensure they have what they need to get up and running fast. If you've been trying to figure out how to prove the value of marketing automation to build the business case for implementing it in your company, this may be the perfect opportunity.

As you know, there's just no way to brilliantly execute a primarily digital marketing process without the technology to support it. Now, there's no excuse left about why you don't have it.

Marketing Automation Must Support a Business Process

Manticore Technology and Bulldog Solutions have released a new white paper that addresses some misconceptions that B2B marketers may have about marketing automation. As they point out, it's terrific when an application is intuitive and easy to use, but marketing automation must be used in support of a business process if it's going to produce the desired results. More sales and revenues.

Process and skillsets are holding marketers back:

"Recent Executive Benchmark Assessment data from Bulldog Solutions and Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership company, shows that process is the number one roadblock BtoB marketers face in implementing marketing automation, with skillsets and content right behind."

Considering that Sirius Decisions predicts that 50% of B2B marketers will have marketing automation within the next 5 years, it's imperative to go about deploying it the right way, the first time. As we're hearing more and more - companies who implement marketing automation successfully can achieve stellar results.

What I like about this paper is that for each "truth" it presents, marketers are offered action points and links to related resources so they can hone in on the areas where they need the most help.

To whet your appetite, the 6 Truths addressed include:

Truth 1: Marketing Automation ISN’T Easy

Truth 2: While Lacking Sex Appeal, Marketing Process Is the Key to Marketing Automation Success

Truth 3: The Buying Decision Is Well Under Way by the Time the Prospect Gets to Your Web Site. Act Accordingly

Truth 4: Content Is King — And Not Necessarily a Benign Dictator

Truth 5: Think Beyond Lead Generation: It’s Not Quantity, It’s Quality

Truth 6: You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

Download Your Copy
[fairly painless registration is required]

Manticore Technology VII is All About Marketers

I've known the folks at Manticore Technology for quite a while. I've been watching their progress and I've been impressed by their interest in learning what's working and what's not for the companies who implement marketing automation.

Based on feedback from their customers, they've taken note that a one-size-fits-all mentality doesn't work for marketing, nor does it work for the technology that supports it. Bravo!

Manticore Technology's VII release has a really intuitive user interface that allows each marketer to customize their display so they have just the tools and reports they need in view. The drag and drop was so easy I wanted to wrestle the mouse away from Christopher Dolan, their VP of Marketing, when he was giving me a preview.

The other thing I like about the dashboard is that the top of the left navigation shows you all things you've recently used so you don't have to search for them.

In case you're wondering, Manticore Technology has had a really nice year. Their customer acquisition for 2009 is up 117% over 2008. Companies are obviously responding to their well-designed changes.

For example:

Program Trees: I'm not sure what they call them, but the planning tool for nurturing programs is one of my favorites. Manticore enables marketers to see the entire nurturing chain like a decision tree. You can view the whole thing instead of having to pull up different campaigns and try to visualize how they work together, or figure out where the gaps are that you overlooked.

Asset Folders: This is a very cool way to manage your marketing assets. Just like you create folders in MSFT Word, you can do so here, with hierarhy as you need it. Then you drag and drop assets into them so you can see at a glance everything being used by month, by campaign, by segment, or however you like.

The improved visibility is a boon for taking control of your marketing funnel, but the simplicity is what's really compelling. Marketers are busy. We've got so much on our plates that we certainly don't need to struggle with the technology that's supposed to be enabling - not aggravating.

I say, Good Job, Manticore! Go check it out for yourselves...there are a lot of other new things to see like the email wizard and drag and drop list building that makes segmentation a breeze!

Genoo Puts Microsite Marketing Automation on the Map

While I was in Minneapolis last week, I had the opportunity to see some of the latest developments for the upstart marketing automation company, Genoo. As of today, they're out of Beta in full public release with a growing roster of companies that are generating valuable business results.

Genoo has lead scoring, email marketing, salesforce.com integration, lead profiles, landing pages segmentation tools and auto responders, like many other marketing automation SAAS providers, but let's get to the uber cool stuff.

There are a couple of things that set Genoo apart:

Microsites: Being able to manage your online marketing content in real time is critical for B2B marketers. If you're stuck in the IT queue, it may be time to consider deploying a themed microsite (or two) that focuses strictly on sharing the educational and expertise information your buyers need to know. Genoo gives you the microsite and content management tools to make this happen. Yes, for business users.

Lead Sequences: Regular drip campaigns require marketers to put a stake in the ground and assign leads to a nurturing campaign or track. With Genoo, you can do this, but you can also create rules that allow for the system to assign them to additional tracks of interest or reassign them altogether based on the content they view at your microsite.

This way, if your leads' interests change from one problem scenario to another, they can get the information that's just right for them. That's pretty darned cool. It also puts a whole new spin on relevant follow-up.

Traveling Forms: (this is my name for them) Yes, you can create lead capture forms on the microsite in about any configuration imaginable with a few clicks. But your microsite is no longer just a marketing silo.

You won't want to forego the lead generation potential of your corporate website, or have separate form collection that's not integrated with your marketing efforts. Now you can also embed Genoo forms in the appropriate places on your corporate website and collect those leads into your Genoo lead database, inserting them into the appropriate lead sequence of communications. How's that for consolidating your marketing efforts?

Genoo also has some other cool developments in the works that will be coming soon. When I spoke with Kim Albee, President of Genoo (yes, she's my sister) she stated that most of the new functionality and tools for the Genoo platform are being co-developed with their clients. She wants to make sure that each new feature truly addresses customer needs and functions in the way that produces results for them. A good example of embracing the customer perspective as a way of developing the business.

But, don't take my word for it.

You can hear a customer interview with Kurt Theriault of Business Efficacy and download the case study about how Vision Solutions is using Genoo to share a serial eBook with their leads over time that's become their "number one lead generation vehicle from cost-per-lead and quality-of-lead standpoints," according to Ed Vesely, Sr. VP of Marketing.

And, the pricing is reasonable enough that you can do a whole lot more with a whole lot less than you thought. 

You can also read the review by Tom Pick at WebMarketCentral blog.

Lessons Learned from Using Marketing Automation

There's a new report out from Demand Gen Report, sponsored by Manticore Technology, that reveals the reflections of 53 marketing executives who are using marketing automation systems. As the use of these systems is estimated at only 10% of the overall B2B market, these insights from the trenches will help both vendors and customers prepare for the best outcomes.

The benefits from automating marketing programs can be many. In fact, given the role of the Internet in today's complex purchasing process, it's almost impossible to operate in a customer-centric fashion without it.

This said, technology is not the answer to better marketing. Technology is the enabler of a solid eMarketing strategy. Marketing automation systems enable the gathering of prospect intelligence and the delivery of content made more relevant when offered in parallel to those insights. Even better, the systems can help you generate online dialogue and interactions valuable to both your prospects and your company.

The report, Marketing Automation: Lessons from the Trenches, provides some interesting feedback from companies that have deployed these systems. The executives interviewed used a variety of solutions including; Active Conversion, Aprimo, Eloqua, eTrigue, LoopFuse, Manticore Technology, Marketo, Market2Lead, Pardot and Silverpop Engage B2B (formerly VTrenz).

Here are a couple of key insights:

“If you were to head up the rollout of a marketing automation system at another organization, what would [you] do differently,” 79.2% said they would “better prepare their organization by building proper processes and content offers to feed the automation system.”

"...usability is important over the long-term of the system’s lifespan, not just in the early stages of rollout. 36% of respondents said, “Just because a marketing automation solution has a slick interface does not mean it’s going to be easy to use and function how you expect...”

Satisfaction rides on meeting expectations:

Vendors should pay close attention to what causes diminishing satisfaction. There's quite an impact shown on satisfaction scores between customers who found the systems easy to use and enjoyed faster implementation times—and those who didn't.

Support and training are also highly critical to satisfaction. Technology vendors must remember that their systems are likely being used by business users, not IT professionals. Using the system is only one thing on a long list of deliverables for an already over-worked marketing department.

The fact that customers find they're "currently using 50% or less of their marketing automation system’s functionality" should also be a wake-up call for vendors to help their customers take advantage of the system's capabilities as they gain proficiency.

Customers need to consider:
Based on the findings from the survey, companies choosing to implement marketing automation need to think carefully about what they want to get out of the system and how their processes will shift from manual efforts to technology enabled efforts.

The whole purpose of marketing automation is to empower marketing to drive more qualified sales opportunities to the sales team. Without the knowledge about what your sales force considers a qualified opportunity, it's very difficult to construct an automation process that delivers prospects truly ready to actively consider becoming your customers.

To round out your decision to implement marketing automation, I'll leave you with this quote from the report:

“Nurture content is different than demand gen content – it’s doesn’t talk about ‘shiny new objects.’ It should deliver valuable content to the reader, based on their profile and behavior.”

Every company considering implementing marketing automation should read this report. In my opinion, marketing automation is one of the best decisions a company with a complex sale can choose to implement. But, it's important to be prepared for what's coming. Technology is an enabler - and a great one. Choose wisely and prepare to use it effectively.

Thanks to Manticore Technology for having the chops to sponsor this survey. It's great to see such high satisfaction levels as well as to help other companies learn from the experiences of early adopters. Well done!

Go Download the Report

Genius is Bringing GURLs to the Social Party

I had the privilege of speaking with the Genius folks today about the GURL^TMs and some cool new web analytics features they'll be rolling out this fall. For those of us who've been wondering how the heck to prove ROI is possible with social media, we may have found a way to do just that.

Tracking the impact your social participation can make on active pipeline has been a pretty nebulous challenge. But the GURLs change that. GURLs are these super-powered, shortened URLs similar to what you may have seen from services like budURL, bitly, and others.

I use budURLs to track many of my Twitter links. I can see clicks and a few other things, but they're a standalone metric. And there's no follow-thru visibility about someone who clicks on my budURL and then clicks on other links on my blog or website.

The GURLs could become one of the most popular tools at the social media party. What I like is how easy Genius has made social media support. Just take a look:

Step 1: copy and paste a URL into the tool. Label it for tracking purposes.

Step 2: Once you click the button "Create Trackable URL" you're presented with your GURL and the options to Tweet, post to LinkedIn or on facebook. When you make your selection, the link is embedded, you type your message around it and you're done.

Step 3: Measure your success. Now you can wait and watch to see how well received your links and messages are. But here's the kicker: Genius will track anonymous visitors until they identify themselves to you and then merge the history from their previous clicks with their identified profile. This means you'll have the ability over time to begin assigning contribution to social media efforts.

Here's an interesting tidbit. The Genius folks shared with me that what some of their customers are learning in Beta use of the tool is that the lead conversions they achieve through Twitter actually tend to become qualified leads at a faster rate. The early belief about why this is happening is because those leads have been actively researching solutions and looking for information.

This is good news for B2B marketers who have been looking for more proof points that social media pays off.

But, wait...there's more. Genius is also launching Visitor Intelligence for Sales which allows both sales and marketing to see which companies are visiting, but not yet identifying themselves. With a tie to LinkedIn, your sales reps or marketing people can take a look at who they know from those companies and replay the website visits to ensure they can communicate in relevant ways to help relationships grow right from the start.

The other thing that comes to mind is the ability to see when there's a potential interest from a new vertical or market segment you might not have been focusing on with past messaging. Let's say that, all of a sudden, pharmaceutical firms are visiting your website. Wouldn't that be great to know so you can get some content specific to them ready for prime time?

These are two great additions from Genius that show they're continually stretching to deliver tools that impact how marketing and sales can improve the ways they sell in relation to the way today's buyers are buying.

Read about Social Media Support

Check out CEO David Thompson's blog post

Learn more about Anonymous Visitor Tracking and Visitor Intelligence