The Funnelholic

I promised myself I wouldn’t make predictions, year-end lists, Christmas wish lists, New Year’s resolutions and so forth. Then I was forced to answer the question: “What do you see for b2b marketers in 2011?” I was asked twice: in an interview with Maria Pergolino from Marketo, then while considering predictions about b2b marketing trends for 2011 on Focus.com.

Here is my 2011 sound-bite: Live boringly.

From 2008 to 2010, it was basically a “content bubble” for marketers. All of us in the blogosphere have been riding high; talking about lead scoring, lead nurturing, content marketing, social media, sales and marketing alignment. So much sizzle and sexiness, it’s been a fantastical ride as marketers ate it up. Everyone in the world of marketing had endless new toys to talk about, and talk we did. But now, marketers must live boringly. Not to be a sensationalist, but our survival is at stake.

How to Live Boringly

Focus on execution and how to get it done, or said another way: Stop talking about it and just do it. I love this article by Carlos Hidalgo (Funnelholic all-time fave) on marketing automation. As Carlos mentions, in the case of marketing automation, less than 25 percent of us have implemented marketing automation to its full potential. In other words, a lot of hype and nothing to show for it. Create simple goals for next year, let sales and the C-suite know what they are, and hit them. Just as a VP of Sales must hit his or her metric, marketing does too. All the social media, lead nurturing and so forth are means to an end. An example of a metric might be pipeline-created qualified leads, appointments or revenue. I don’t care, but all the really “bright shiny things” have to align with achieving goals that the organization cares about.

Do This, or Else

Do you really want marketing to end up back where you started before the Marketing Content Revolution? The marketing automation vendors are trying to help you now. Look at market leaders Marketo and Eloqua. Their marketing has switched from tactics and techniques to revenue. Marketo’s Jon Miller likes to say, “More marketers are getting a seat at the revenue table.” This may be true, but that seat is hot. The revenue table is a “you’re-either-helping-or-you’re-getting-in-the-way” spot. If you’re helping, you get to stay. If you’re in the way, you are gone and won’t be back.

So, take my advice and live by my 2011 mantra: Live boringly.

Sincerely,

The Bore-aholic

A few weeks ago, I wrote a pretty popular post about the blogosphere wars in the marketing automation space: Who’s Going to Run This Town. I didn’t plan to post on this again, but with a new breakout of marketing-automation-vendor-on-marketing-automation-vendor violence, I had to jump in. Actually to be clear, this should be defined as marketing-automation-vendor-on-marketing-automation-reseller-(with-another-marketing-automation-vendor-jumping-in) violence.

If you live in a hole, here is my timeline (note: I may not know everything and am open to “timeline” changes):

9/20 - 9/23: Rumors start swirling that Eloqua is going to sever its relationship with prodigal son Jeff Pedowitz and The Pedowitz Group (TPG). I am the Funnelholic, I heard this.

9/24: Eloqua posts that it is losing TPG.

9/27: TPG press release states that the company will no longer represent Eloqua.

9/27: Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez jumps into the fray with “Putting the Customer First in the Channel” blog post, which is very “gangster” of him.

9/24 - present: Chatter, rumors, tweets, rumors, dire predictions, back-channel clarifications, etc.

God, I love this game. Again, I am not a reporter, so the object here is not to inform you of this public battle, but rather to offer some thoughts. A number of people have asked me to comment, but I have avoided talking about it. (I have been working on a list of sales experts and another list of email marketers. I’m addicted to lists. I also need to do a post about my new position at Focus.)

Alas, I have been smoked out of my foxhole.

Funnelholic takes:

1. This whole thing smells of Biggie/Tupac. If you don’t know what I am referring to, in the 1990s there was a “war” between East Coast and West Coast rappers. Biggie was The Notorious B.I.G., who represented the East Coast, and Tupac was a rapper from the West Coast. Now, there was more to the story on those two, but the important part is the very public warring between factions from both sides. Basically, the hip-hop guys (who are genius viral marketers - more on this sometime later) realized that these “beefs” were adored by the press and viral as hell. It totally works: No one wants to write about some boring press release when they can talk about war. War is good for the economy.
2. The major difference is that the end user couldn’t care less. Unlike hip-hop, where the press translates into more consumers buying albums, the marketing automation war will not sell more pieces of software. Sure, a lot more people know who The Pedowitz Group is now, so (despite losing Eloqua) maybe TPG ‘wins.’ But at the end of the day, the consumers of these battles are marketing automation wonks. The VP of marketing is not looking at this and choosing sides. Phil nailed it in his post, characterizing the brouhaha as purely “inside baseball.”
3. Biggie and Tupac are both dead - morbid, I know - and I definitely don’t mean to suggest that Marketo and Eloqua will die (quite the contrary). However, while Marketo and Eloqua battle it out through deals and in the press, there are a lot of vendors waiting in the weeds. This market is far from done, and frankly the software is far from done (I hope). While the market leaders argue out loud, will someone sneak up?

How about that for some marketing automation and gangster rap? (@Chris_Snell)

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.

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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).

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