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B2B Marketing Firm Marketo Announces Development of New Marketing Automation Platform Leveraging Salesforce.Com’s Force.Com Platform

New marketing automation platform synchronizes sales and marketing data – resulting in more timely marketing activities and improved marketing accountability

PodCast:

SAN FRANCISCO, Salesforce.com Dreamforce Conference (Dreamforce Booth #140), September 17, 2007 – http://www.marketo.com Marketo, which provides affordable, easy-to-use marketing automation software that helps B2B marketing professionals drive revenue and improve accountability, today announced the development of its new on-demand marketing automation platform leveraging salesforce.com’s Force.com on-demand platform.

Marketers are under constant pressure to drive qualified sales leads and demonstrate revenue impact. Additionally, new online channels are changing B2B research and buying processes, requiring marketers to adjust. Unlike the sales department – which has access to powerful automation tools such as Salesforce – B2B marketing professionals have not had easy yet powerful marketing automation software available to them.

The Marketo marketing automation platform will eliminate this gap by helping B2B marketing professionals drive revenue and measure results. Central to the platform is the Marketo Marketing Database, which provides marketing with all the information needed to acquire and nurture leads, forecast marketing results, and demonstrate marketing’s impact on the bottom line.

The Marketo Marketing Database acts as an extension to the information in Salesforce Marketing and CRM applications, ensuring that the marketing-specific information is part of a unified single view of the customer. Marketo leverages the Force.com platform to synchronize data between marketing and sales systems in real-time.

“We’re leveraging the Force.com platform to provide B2B marketing professionals with the information they need, while ensuring that marketing and sales data remain in sync as part of a single information store,” said Phil Fernandez, president and CEO of
Marketo. “Real-time synchronization is critical to bridging the gap between sales and marketing teams while ensuring that marketers have the tools and information they need to earn their seat at the revenue table.”

Through the bi-directional synchronization made available using the Salesforce API, the Marketo marketing automation system is updated whenever a record changes in Salesforce. For example, if a lead score changes from “warm” to “hot” or a new customer
support ticket is created, Marketo is notified in real time and kicks off an automated marketing workflow. If a sales rep marks a lead as “not yet sales ready”, the lead is automatically recycled back into the automated lead nurturing program.

Bi-directional synchronization also allows Marketo to load new objects and campaigns to the Force.com platform. Using Apex Code, new leads captured via a Marketo Landing Page are de-duplicated and loaded to Salesforce in real time. Also, automated
nurturing campaigns can trigger new activities in Salesforce – such as a follow-up phone call after an email distribution.

“The thousands of installs of hundreds of different on-demand applications clearly demonstrate the incredible momentum of the AppExchange as the world’s on-demand application marketplace,” said George Hu, Chief Marketing Officer, salesforce.com. “Partners
like Marketo have harnessed the power of the Force.com platform to develop innovative new on-demand applications. Customers of all sizes can leverage Marketo’s expertise to extend their Salesforce Marketing application and improve their marketing results.”

Marketo is currently accepting requests from salesforce.com customers to participate in a beta test of its new marketing automation platform, available this Fall. Contact Marketo at info@marketo.com for more information.

Force.com Platform and the AppExchange

Force.com is the on-demand platform for the next generation of business applications. Force.com reinvents traditional customization and integration and enables the creation of a whole new generation of on-demand applications that go beyond client/server computing. Force.com allows applications to be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com’s AppExchange marketplace, enabling all the innovation that Force.com unleashes to benefit the entire on-demand community.

The AppExchange economy continues to expand as thousands of salesforce.com customers have installed thousands of on-demand business applications available on the AppExchange, found at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange.

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