The Funnelholic

Ahh, marketing automation, thank you for coming along. Not just because marketers need you, but the technology market needs you. We don’t have as many dirty, bare-knuckled technology wars as we used to or at least any new ones. Especially for a guy like me who loves a good battle. Whenever I’m out with the marketing automation guys, I tell them: “I love standing on the sidelines watching you go at it.” I love it.

That being said, there’s been some recent amazingness in the blogosphere with marketing-automation-exec-on-marketing-automation-exec violence. We can derive some important lessons from it.

So, first, with joy, I present to you the last couple weeks in the war for marketing automation dominance:

1. Lead Sloth’s Genius.com article: This was a fairly innocuous article, with Jep getting the scoop from Scott Mersy at Genius and writing about the two freemium offerings in the marketing automation market. Innocent, right? Check out the war that broke out — particularly between David Thompson, CEO of Genius, and Phil Fernandez, CEO of Marketo — in the comments.
2. The Eloqua Blog “callout” of Marketo VP of Sales Bill Binch: Bill sent a LinkedIn message to some Eloqua sales reps. Alex Shootman, SVP of Sales at Eloqua, in a brilliant chess counter-move, then posted the message on his blog and, in his tone and message, took the high road. Many will debate whether posting the message on the blog in the first place really constitutes taking the “high road,” but who cares? This is war! How about Bill’s comment: “Old school or not, it got me 6 interviews.”  CLASSIC.

My perspective:

1. “A party isn’t a party without a good fight” — A really mean guy in high school who got in fights every weekend used this as his graduation quote. I’ll never forget being horrified by it, but now I get to use it. The key here, as I mentioned above, is that there is nothing better for a market than a good all-out fight. SAP v. ORCL, ORCL v. MSFT, MSFT v. GOOG. Bring on the trash-talk, lawsuits, gamesmanship, and — sorry Alex — recruiting, which is a big part of this.
2. “Its not a battle unless you are recruiting each others soldiers” —  Sorry, again, Alex, but it’s true. You should be excited that Marketo is going after your guys. Eloqua is the market leader, the king of the hill, so expect your competitors to pull out all the stops and try to beat you in deals, take your clients, and recruit your guys. Sending in recruiters to steal your people is fair game, and you need to fight back with a strong employee retention strategy. That’s war, guys. Embrace it, dig your heals in, and fight.
3. “Everyone needs an enemy” — Lightspeed Venture Partners’ John Luongo was an adviser on our board, and one of his first tips was to declare an enemy. This great tip gives your team focus, direction, motivation, and a common enemy.  The marketing automation war is a perfect example of how enemies only make you better. Lets face it, the current marketing automation market was built around everyone declaring Eloqua the enemy. Now, more and more, people are adding Marketo to this list. But the point is, the winner of the competition will be end users as (hopefully) companies work to make themselves better.
4. “The battlefield has changed, and it’s kinda fun” — Let’s go over what happened here again: EXECUTIVES from these companies went to war in the blog comment fields. I love the age of new media. Instigating your rival can be done in seconds in today’s world. Imagine what that would have taken 10 years ago.
5. “Predicting that a market with 36 companies in it will consolidate is not really a prediction” — With the Market2Lead-Oracle “deal” and IBM’s recent purchase of Unica, bloggers have been “predicting” that the marketing automation market will consolidate. Dude, come on. Even I know that. I can’t even think of an analogy, but of course there is no room for all these marketing automation companies. Thanks for that really insightful comment.

So, there and I didn’t even use “All’s fair in love and war.” Fight on marketing automation people, fight on.

Here we are again. If you missed Part I, make sure to read it first. Once again, before we begin, I need to introduce the members of the band:

On the guitar, Tom Scearce (@TLOTL), and on the electric keyboard, Chris Jablonski (@cjablonski).

I can say this, we had a lot of fun. Check out numbers 37-49. @TLOTL has some great ones.

25.  Cold calling: I really have no idea why I put this on here. It’s pretty simple: You pick up the phone and call someone who has no idea you are calling. In today’s day and age, this is best left to professionals — a.k.a., outsourced.

26.  Contacts: Just names. The contact movement has been brought upon us by breakthrough companies such as Jigsaw, demandbase and NetProspex. These are not leads, even if these companies market them as such. Contact purchasing is a critical component to push marketing (see below).

27.   Leads: A lead is a person who has opted in for an offer (see below). As mentioned above, a contact is not a lead.

28.   Offer: An offer can be defined as “something” someone has opted-in for. These can be discrete offers such as white papers, webinars and podcasts. They can also be an appointment with a sales person.

29.   Lead generation: Activities designed to create leads.

30.   Demand generation: All the activities designed to create demand. Not just lead generation, which is part of it. Everything — including things like PR, speaking engagements, advertising, discounts or special offers and so on and so on. BTW, this is an interesting point of conversation — check out some of the answers to this on Focus.com.

31.    Lead nurturing: A process that uses content (offers, tools, white papers, etc.) and distribution tactics (email, phone, Web, etc.) to market to leads over time until they are measurably ready to engage. This one was hard. I got some terrific definitions from experts on Focus.com.

32.   Remarkable content: You need to develop this every day, and you know it’s remarkable if people can apply it right away. You need to deliver on three characteristics: 1) value: create substantive, meaningful and high-quality content and 2) efficiency: package for simplicity and ease of consumption; 3) relevance: target buyers and address their specific challenges. (@cjablonski)

33.   Push marketing: “Knocking on someone’s door.” In other words, using outbound marketing tactics such as email, phone and direct mail to market to contacts in order to create leads. Examples are outsourced appointment setting and email campaigns to a list.

34.   Pull marketing: As opposed to push marketing, “getting people to walk into your store.” Pull means you are using SEO, paid search, etc. to attract people who are searching for something you offer. It also includes getting people to look at your products in other stores through online media and white paper syndication, for example. Because not all buyers are walking into your store, you need to make sure you are represented in other stores that attract your type of buyer.

35.   Landing page: A Web page with a call-to-action to download an offer, such as a webinar, a white paper, and so on. In order to download the offer, the user has to fill out a form. (@cjablonski)

36.  Direct mail: The act of sending a marketing offer via the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, and so on. This is a dying lead-generation tool. NOTE: there are marketers who believe direct mail still works despite the cost and low conversion rates. My suggestion is that, if you don’t do it now, don’t start.

37.  Return on contribution: Anyone who takes the time and energy to create remarkable content needs to also invest time in managing return on contribution. This can mean several things: 1) crowd-sourcing the content to leverage the friends and followers of the contributors for added distribution; 2) syndicating your content through targeted media properties; 3) engaging in online conversations where your content can be delivered in a relevant context ; and 4) leveraging your content across multiple campaigns, including lead-nurturing programs. (@TLOTL)

38.  Micro-marketed content: The opposite of mass-marketed content. An unmediated, free-flowing discussion among genuine experts in a niche category (e.g., this discussion on Focus.com) is often more relevant and helpful to buyers than a banner ad or an industry trade publication. (@TLOTL)

39.  “Multi-channel, multi-touch”: The mantra of any successful pipeline/revenue generation program. Email, Web and phone are all integrated and response-measured (scored) using marketing automation services. (@TLOTL)

40.  The “three legged stool”: In direct marketing, results are usually, ultimately, a function of the:

• List (or audience)
• Offer
• Creative

Underperform in any one of these areas and the stool falls over. (@TLOTL)

41.  The revenue/sausage factory: A useful metaphor for helping the uninitiated understand how the marketing and sales team work together to drive the top line. The factory can include “upstream” suppliers like Google, direct mail programs or demand-gen agencies. And it can also encompass post-sales “revenue recognition” functions like professional services and account management. (@TLOTL)

42.  Pipeline erosion rate: Your sales team converts your leads into pipeline deals. They win some, they lose some. Some deals roll into next month/quarter. Some don’t. The erosion rate measures the lost pipeline value that must be replaced through incremental demand-gen efforts and budget. (@TLOTL)

43.   Rotting lead rate: The percentage of leads that go untouched by sales (no email, call or voicemail) before they start to “rot.” Keep in mind that the goal is not necessarily a 0% “rot-rate.” In some cases, it’s totally ok for sales to let leads “rot.” If sales has warmer leads to work, marketing can take back the leads that would otherwise rot and nurture them until they are ready. (@TLOTL)

44.  Funnel jockey: The demand-generation expert in every successful marketing department who understands his or her funnel well enough to hard-wire the entire revenue manufacturing process, from marketing spend, to lead gen, to pipeline creation and booked revenue. This person is one of the Excel users in the marketing department who is most likely to have a working command of functions like VLOOKUP, GETPIVOTDATA, SUMPRODUCT, and RAND. (@TLOTL)

45.  Campaign Sorcerer: Describes a marketer who can quickly articulate and illustrate campaign concepts with a unique and integrated skill set that includes design aesthetics, copywriting/storyboarding, program logistics, and schedule visualization. A Powerpoint/Keynote Magic User proficient in spell-casting with SnagIt and Photoshop. (@TLOTL)

46.  Market whisperer: The agency-side marketer who can, in 30 minutes or less, figure out the essence of a client’s marketing and sales challenges, with minimal to no briefing from said client, consulting only Twitter, Google, Wordpress and Michael Porter’s Five Forces model. This marketer is more likely than his or her peers to get away with wearing ironic tee shirts or quirky, comment-worthy eyewear/accessories. (@TLOTL)

47.  Tweeps: Twitter + Peeps = Tweeps. (@TLOTL)

48.  Product myopia: Outdated marketing thinking still practiced by many who engage with prospects and clients through the lens of their own solutions. (@cjablonski)

49.  Trapping the chicken in the courtyard: A semi-obscure “Rocky II” reference/metaphor describing the relentless and often frustrating pursuit of repeatable marketing and sales success. “I feel like a Kentucky Fried idiot.” — Rocky Balboa (@TLOTL)

50.  Buyer engagement: Your goal anytime a buyer comes into contact with you. To get their full attention and immerse them into a brand experience, make sure everything you do is valuable and differentiated. (@cjablonski)

Below are SiriusDecisions definitions I have included because they have done an amazing job of getting marketers to use their methodology and lingo. This is for the other marketers who aren’t Sirius trained and want to talk the talk (I chose the three most used terms)

51.  MQL (Marketing qualified lead): Prospects defined by your marketing and sales organization as someone ready to pass to sales. They’re instrumental in calculating lead gen metrics, such as marketing qualified lead rate (# of MQLs/# of total marketing contacts).

52.  SAL (Sales accepted lead): A lead that has met the basic tenets of qualification and that sales has agreed to engage. (@cjablonski)

53.  SQL (Sales qualified lead): A prospect confirmed by sales as a true revenue opportunity and entered into the pipeline. (@cjablonski)

Drumroll, please … Another ambitious post here: The Marketing Hipster Dictionary. When we started, I just wanted to create a post with some definitions of terms used in this blog and in the marketing space in general. Then we started having fun with some “originals.”

Before I go on, I must introduce my band. (Side note: I love when the lead singer introduces the band at concerts. I don’t know what it is — but I get excited.) On the guitar: Tom Scearce (@TLOTL). Tom is a brilliant marketer who understands marketing from brand to process. Follow him on Twitter. And on the electric keyboard: Chris Jablonski (@cjablonski). Chris can do anything. Period. And he does do everything, but he is not a dilettante. He does them all really well.

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Drumroll please …  I present the 210 B2B marketing tips for 2010. Let me tell you, this was quite an adventure, one that I will certainly do differently in the future.

Basically, the sequence of events went like this: Continue Reading »