Automating Lead-to-Revenue Management

Lead-to-revenue management (L2RM) is a set of disciplines that can be strongly supported by marketing automation, but marketers need to focus on process to make L2RM automation initiatives a success. This report, compliments of Marketo, by independent research firm, Forrester Research, Inc., discusses how marketers can make the most of their L2RM investments, by keeping a few things in mind:

• Be honest about your marketing process maturity
• Identify what capabilities you really need
• Develop a marketing automation road map

This must-read report will help you understand and develop a L2RM process that leverages marketing automation systems to drive revenue. Download the new Forrester research report today.

Marketo Ignite Revenue Sales Insight Launch Party

On Thursday, June 4th over 200 customers, prospects, analysts and friends of Marketo attended an evening at Hotel Vitale in San Francisco for the launch of Marketo Sales Insight.  The party was high energy and with filled some great spirits, snacks, and demos of the new product.  Phil Fernandez, President and CEO of Marketo, shared some thoughts during this fun night, talking about how Sales Insight came to fruition, explaining why so many customers were implementing these new features, and how this latest solution is helping marketing and sales collaborate together to ignite revenue.

But don't trust us, this is what some of our favorite twitterers had to say about our launch party.

The Cost to SMBs of Not Implementing a Marketing Automation System

Recently, I read an article about the Ten Small Business Lead Nurturing Tools after a search on Twitter Search. I found the title curious, since I only use one lead nurturing tool, and upon reading the article realized that many small and medium (and even large) companies are purchasing anywhere from 2-10 tools to do what one marketing automation system can do.

It made me think how hard it must be for a small business to operate when having to use so many different systems. Using different tools for email, landing pages, lead scoring, and auto-replies causes inefficiencies from time lost during vendor discovery and selection and the time to duplicate information in multiple systems.

How Marketers can be as good as Google

The other day when speaking to a well respected SEO he commented on how Google lacked sophistication, noting that their algorithms could be enhanced and results for searchers improved. He specifically commented on how results differ for the plural of words from the singular, which I agree can be very frustrating (as both a searcher and search marketer). Even though this can be annoying, I commented that this was not very important to Google. That instead the goal for Google is not to be perfect, just better than other search engines. So as long as their competitors are less than perfect, they can be too.

Marketing can be like this as well. It's not that you have to deliver the perfect message to the ideal prospect every time. Instead, you often just have to get pretty close, and the intellect of the consumer can do the rest.

5 Reasons Why Lead Management is more than Lead Nurturing and Scoring

I think one mistake many marketers make is to think of their lead management requirements too narrowly - and to be honest, quite a few demand generation vendors make this mistake as well.

As I wrote back in December, 2006, the fact that today's buyers take control of their buying processes using search, social media, and other online tools means that marketers need to move away from a mindset of "generating leads" and towards a model of "managing leads". Done well, this unlocks serious revenue growth. At Marketo, our lead management system helps our sales team to be 40% more productive than comparable SaaS companies, and allows my demand generation team to generate 50% more qualified, sales-ready leads per month at 33% lower cost per lead.

Announcing Marketo Lead Management 3.0

A quick post to share the news that Marketo Lead Management 3.0 is now available! This is our largest release since we first launched the product last year. It delivers a comprehensive upgrade to our user interface as well as a great new design, plus a ton of significant new functionality in every part of the application.

More Resources to Define Lead Management Requirements

A few days ago I posted a link to the new IDC Workbook: Optimizing Marketing and Sales Lead Management with Marketing Automation. This is a great tool, but there are quite a few other resources out there to help you define what you are looking for in a demand generation system. Here are some links to help you out; please let me know if you write about this topic and I'll be happy to add you!

Marketo's Secret Sauce for Demand Generation

You may ask, why should anyone care what I have to say about demand generation? Well, at Marketo, we've built a world-class demand generation machine that has helped us in just 10 months to sign up over 130 customers in more than eight countries, including companies such as Thomson Reuters and CollabNet.

Now, I'm not writing this to promote Marketo, but I think our results are proof that we're doing something right with our own demand generation and lead management processes. I frequently get asked to share how we achieve these marketing results, so I recently presented a fact-filled webinar titled Secret Sauce for Demand Generation: How Marketo Nurtures, Scores and Accelerates Leads through the Revenue Cycle.

Streamline Customer Acquisition to Grow With Reduced Funding

Ken Ross recently wrote on the Expert CEO blog about the future of Software as a Service in today's economy. Although he discusses software in particular, I think his arguments apply to any company that needs to grow without using significant amount of capital.

Historically, SaaS companies needed a significant amount of funding to get to cash flow breakeven. This was because it takes time for the recurring revenues to build up enough to cover the fixed and semi-fixed costs of development, marketing and sales. For example, Ken points out that both salesforce.com and Netsuite took over $100M in venture capital before going public.

Lead Generation Best Practices: Thought Leadership with The Funnelholic

The next interview in the B2B Marketing thought leader interview series is with Craig Rosenberg, author of The Funnelholic (one of my favorite B2B marketing blogs). Craig is Vice President, Products and Services at Tippit, Inc., the world's fastest growing B2B online media and lead generation company. You can also follow him on Twitter (funnelholic).

Demand Generation Made Simple

David Raab is an analyst specializing in marketing technology and analysis. Like me, he is a strong believer that marketers increasingly depend on technology for success, and he has made a business helping clients objectively select the right tools and deploy them effectively.

His blog, Customer Experience Matrix, explores technologies and business issues that help organizations make the most of every customer interaction. Recently, he's been looking at demand generation vendors (including Marketo), so if you are in the market for demand generation software you should certainly take a look at his blog and articles.

Introducing Modern B2B Marketing Podcasts

As the marketing departments of B2B companies gain recognition and responsibility as a full partner to sales in creating revenue through demand generation, marketers should continue to hone their skills and knowledge. With that in mind, Marketo is introducing a series of podcasts with thought leaders in B2B marketing.

Re-inventing Marketing Automation

Fresh off the launch of Marketo Lead Management, Phil Fernandez, our president and CEO, was the subject of an interview with Andrew Gaffney of Demand Gen Report. In his presentation at Under The Radar last week, Phil iterated that Marketo aims to 're-invent marketing automation.' The Demand Gen Report article lets Phil expound on that statement, and make a few others, including these highlights.

Lead Management Will Never Be The Same Again

$300 billion dollars a year. That's what the 3,000 largest B2B companies in the world spend annually on lead generation, resulting in billions of leads. Yet despite this massive expense, I have yet to find a sales executive who is happy with the number and quality of marketing generated leads.

Why the disconnect? The old model where marketing generates a lead and sends it over to sales doesn't work anymore. Mass marketing, big tradeshows, and buying lists don't work in a world where buyers use the web, search, and social media to take control of their buying process. Companies today meet prospective customers earlier in the buying cycle, and those customers want to engage with sales later than ever. This dynamic complexity also makes it harder than ever for marketing to identify which programs really impact revenue and pipeline.

CMO Council: Marketing Outlook 2008

The CMO Council just released its annual outlook for Marketing, based on insights from 825 senior marketers. I'm proud to say that this year's report was sponsored by Marketo as well as Deloitte Consulting LLP.

One of the key findings from the report is that although progress has been made, senior marketers continue to have a razor focus on marketing ROI and marketing accountability:

Online Marketing Tools Come of Age Article

An article in B-to-B Magazine yesterday validated the reality of most marketers: that we don't have big capital budgets. You know, the kind used for most enterprise software purchases.   We have monthly and quarterly budgets, and we're frequently looking for software that will help us do our jobs better (and track ROI) without requiring huge upfront costs and implementations.

In the article 'Online marketing tools come of age,' Marketo president and CEO Phil Fernandez says that "it's easier for a marketing department to pay $5,000 per month on a piece of software they really think they need and say, 'We'll cut it off if it's not profitable.''

Why You Need Marketing Operations

Modern B2B marketing requires a new set of "left-brained" skills, including:

• Quantitative planning and forecasting,
• Rigorous marketing performance measurement, and
• Consistent execution of best-practice processes.

These new marketing skills can be quite different from "traditional" marketing skills such as strategic and creative thinking, and yet they are critical as marketing becomes more operational, metrics oriented, and tied to revenue.

Invest in marketing automation

In my last post, I argued that Marketing needs to stop being seen a cost center and start earning a seat at the revenue table. Fundamentally, this requires B2B marketers to:

1. Drive revenue by filling the revenue pipeline with enough sales-ready opportunities, and
2. Improve accountability and predictability by connecting their efforts to hard metrics like revenue and profits.

Demand Generation Quiz: How Good Are You?

How do you know if your demand generation is good enough or when it's time to take your lead management processes to the next level? Here are 14 important questions that indicate whether or not you can benefit for more sophisticated marketing automation. Ask these questions to yourself, your boss, your direct reports, your head of sales, and any other stakeholders in your demand generation process. Questions cover important topics to address, such as lead generation, lead follow-up, marketing efficiency and demonstrating ROI. Take this test, interpret the results and find out if you’re ready to take the next step.