As part of the marketing automation masters’ series, I took some time to speak with Alexander Pelletier. Alex is a good friend from the Marketo Community and a recognized RCA guru. Alex just launched his full time marketing automation consulting agency, Perkuto. (Perkuto means “percussion” in Esperanto, so Alex’s team will have a real impact on your revenue generation).
How did you get started in marketing automation?
That’s a while back! At that time, the term “Marketing Automation” did not even exist. I began to be interested in lead generation by reading Brian Carroll’s blog Start With a Lead in 2004 while I was doing online marketing consulting. I learned all the key concepts that define Marketing Automation today, namely scoring, nurturing, and routing.
In 2006, I started my own software-as-a-service company to develop a lead management solution. We built a nice landing page creation and management tool. We were a top download of the Salesforce AppExchange. Google selected us among a few others to be integrated to Website Optimizer.
In late 2008, I was not able to close the second round of financing so I sold the technology IP and started consulting around marketing automation and Salesforce.com. Since then, I alternate between consulting and full time positions as Director of Marketing in technology companies.
Why did you decide to start your agency?
While working with several marketing departments, I realized that all marketing managers are facing the same challenges: How do you demonstrate the value of the marketing efforts? How do you track ROI in a multi touch point complex B2B sale process? How do you combine the marketing and sales process to create a revenue process? So I teamed up with a Lean Six Sigma Blackbelt partner, Youcef Bouayad, with exposure to Sales and Marketing to launch our marketing automation consulting agency. Actually we just launched it this month! It’s called Perkuto. Our mantra is to help sales and marketing executives to have an impact on their business.
Tell me about your approach to client engagements.
I think that one of the critical steps in any marketing automation project is the process definition portion. Too many projects are driven by quick implementation of the technology, while the process of managing leads is not well defined and that there a misalignment between sales and marketing. So we like to take the necessary time with our clients to properly define the Revenue process. We like to focus for instance on the bright spots. What’s the story behind the successful deals? When did the Sales and Marketing work well together? How can we reproduce and automate this? Once the Revenue process is aligned with the business objectives, we like to breakdown the project in very small bites to deliver value as quickly as possible.
What’s your favorite platform?
I was Marketo customer number 163 the first time I implemented it! So we developed a niche expertise with this platform and I believe this is beneficial for our clients. We have clients that are using other platforms, but we like to maximize the knowledge and make sure that we stay on top of our game with Marketo first.
What’s been your favorite engagement so far?
The favorite ones are often the most challenging ones. For one client, the goal was to put in place ROI tracking for campaign investments. That’s easy when visitors buy online after clicking an AdWords campaign. But when the visitors are buying online and offline, sometimes after speaking to a sales rep via a chat application or by phone, you just multiplied the possibilities and the number of systems. We were able to deliver a solution that not only informs the CMO about ROI of campaigns, but also to feed the AdWords campaigns on a daily basis to automate bid modifications based on offline sales. That’s exciting!
How many people do you have on your team?
Like I said, we just started this month. We are currently 4 and we are always looking for talented people!
Why should people choose you?
Not to sound too cliché, but we know Marketing Automation! Together, we have been in that field for almost 10 years. I also think that our focus on building the right process first and then continuously delivering value ensure the client that the project will be a success.
Which areas do you specialize in?
We focus on the lead management process, Marketo implementation, and Marketo best practices as well as tracking marketing ROI.
Do you have a Package or Pricing Summary?
At this point we have not created any packages. Our approach is to tailor the solutions to the client needs.
What kinds of firms would find you the most helpful?
Any company who needs to optimize the way theirs leads are managed. In term of company size, we have client who have between 2 and 15 people in the marketing team.
What do you do for fun?
Mountain biking & snowboarding.
What’s the best way for marketers to get in touch?
Our website: perkuto.com or my LinkedIn
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