Many of us in the B2B demand generation space are targeting the same companies: Global 2000, Fortune 1000, and Fortune 500/100/50.

In other words, large companies with complex problems, multiple functional areas, and global operations ripe for us to solve problems for.

In Marketo, though, you need to filter these firms out to do three things:

• Score leads who match from these firms.
• Route these high value leads over to sales
• Segment these leads for nurturing, dynamic content, or whatever.

And wow is it painful to copy and paste that list in from Hoover’s or other databases. So here you are, the lists, in an easy to copy format. Many thanks to Jason Long for the Fortune 500 list and for reminding me to find my files :).

• Fortune 500. [xls]
• Fortune 1000 Company List [xlsx]
• Global 2000 Company List – with name variations for “Contains” and “Is” lists. [xlsx]

After working with a few companies now, I have seen various Salesforce and Marketo combinations. Each one has its unique characteristics, workflows, and record types. In the end, few things are truly unique, except in how each is managed.

I am continually surprised at how few firms are taking advantage of SFDC Campaign Hierarchies. Even if you have Revenue Cycle Analytics or are using Marketo Programs full capabilities, someone in your firm is using Salesforce as the database of record.

So why use Salesforce Campaigns and the hierarchy feature?

Easy. Using campaign hierarchy lets you do several key things faster if your SFDC Administrator has done her job:

1. Group campaigns by channel, year, or whatever makes sense for your firm.
2. Roll up campaign data to quickly see totals, averages, and metrics directly in Salesforce. So if you click on Webinars 2012, Salesforce instantly tells you the total count on Leads, Contacts, Conversions, Opportunities, Costs, and Won dollars.
3. Grouping campaigns makes it easy to see what you have already done this year and in other years.
4. Grouping campaigns can make your dashboard or report creation easier.
5. You can clone Campaigns more easily for each type of campaign, even when you use Marketo Programs. Why? You’ll know where they all are.

Here’s my Quick Guide to Using SFDC Campaigns. [pdf]

Enjoy!

Whether you are preparing for a new marketing automation solution or switching to a new vendor, you will need to do diligent research on the available options. To do this, I have created two documents to help you in your quest for sales funnel bliss.

Preparing a Marketing Automation RFP

You will likely need to go through a request for proposal process to make sure you have fully evaluated each vendor’s capabilities. These helpful documents should make the RFP process move faster, at least on your end. Using these documents, several vendors quickly submitted completed RFPs to me which had far more detail than they offer on their websites.

• RFP Cover Letter Example [doc]
• RFP Feature Matrix [xls] and new 2014 [xlsx]

Feel free to edit the letter and matrix to meet your own business needs. It is best to find out at the start of the process what a vendor is able to do now, and what their roadmap looks like over the next year. You may find it better to grow your ability to use the system along with their feature list, rather than have to install features you are not ready to use. For firms switching to a new vendor, it is important to understand the reasons for the switch (technical, capabilities, or cost) and how much the new vendor will help you make the transition.

Managing the sales process

During your evaluation process, be sure to ask as many questions as you can come up with to ensure you understand what you are buying. Many salespeople are happy to help, while a few will find too many questions a sign of a “tire-kicker.” My bias is toward salespeople who will explain everything or find me a technical sales consultant to answer those questions. Unresponsive or irritated salespeople are not a welcome part of my team, internally or externally. A vendor is there to help you solve your lead funnel problems, not for you to buy their product on their schedule.

As you narrow down the vendors, ask two or three of the best to come in for a full sales presentation with your marketing, sales, and technical teams. For larger firms, you may want to have these as separate meetings so each team can ask the questions they want. Successful meetings mean you have coached your teams as well as the vendor team on what to expect. I have found pre-coaching your own team will let you cover more ground during a vendor call while exposing unspoken concerns your colleagues have.

Negotiation Tips

My friends in automation firms will hate me, but you can use their sales pressure to ask for additional concessions, such as free months, an email IP address, more customized training, or free trials of add-ons.

A few vendors offer free trial months, however, those usually involve the entire integration process to work well, effectively ensuring you will buy their solution. Be careful if you want to test their system with your own data. Ask if you can upload your own data on a standalone instance instead of integrating the system up front. Run a few campaigns or test lead scoring systems. Use the month to better understand how automation works with their tools so you are better prepared for potential pitfalls or workarounds. No vendor is perfect, so make sure your deal-breakers involve fundamental issues of functionality or price.

Good luck with your funnel construction!

PS: here are a few additional resources for those considering automation solutions

• Sirius Decisions (research)
• DemandGen Resources

Country and State Picklist Value Help for Marketo

If you’ve ever made a form anywhere, then you know how hard it is to fill in state and country values in just the right way. Fortunately, we’ve done some of the hard work to save you time. These lists can be used to copy and paste values directly into Marketo filter choice boxes or into a Marketo Form or even a Salesforce Report Filter.

Here are lists of countries, industries, and states formatted for easy copy-paste to Marketo multi-select boxes or to the Marketo Form Editor. Be sure to adjust these lists for your own needs. Enjoy!

• Country and State ISO Code List for Marketo choices [xlsx] [Corrected misspellings, Sept 10, 2016]

Remember, you’ll need to know some advanced form options to use the above.

Good news everyone!

The Marketo User Guide survey results are here!

The survey showed most of us have been using Market for 0-2 years, which is consistent with the growth of the platform. While over half of respondents understand “most of Marketo,” only 17% consider themselves Power Users. Nearly everyone wanted to learn more about Nurturing Flows and Analytics.

And everyone wanted a single, definitive resource for answers to using Marketo effectively.

Based on these results, here is the proposed outline for the first edition of the User Guide.

Email me at jdhill [at] marketingrockstarguides.com if you would like to contribute a Case Study or definitive How To based on the Outline. Many thanks!

Future Topics

• Segmentation Uses
• Segmentation and AB Testing
• Revenue Cycle Modeler
• Revenue Cycle Analytics
• SalesForce.com Integration
  • Managing your database cost effectively.
  • Creating gated asset areas.
• Tokens
• Landing Pages
• AdWords Integration