In May 2014, I posted a review on HubSpot’s Marketing platform. The review was the culmination of several months of testing and discussions with HubSpot staff. Since I approached it as a competitor to Marketo, my recommendation was to stick with Marketo if that’s what you were using. [Updated June 26, 2016 with new links].

I stand by that recommendation.

In the past 18 months, HubSpot has shifted to become a Sales and Marketing platform firm for very-small businesses to SMBs. This change indicates that HubSpot is less interested in the SMB-Enterprise segments where Marketo and Eloqua are dominant.

In this updated review on HubSpot’s Marketing platform, I will go over a few of the things that have changed and which type of firms may benefit.

Design Manager is Updated

One of my gripes with the last version of HubSpot was the interface, especially the lack of a good user interface for files and Campaigns/Workflows. While the Campaign interface still lacks good visibility, the Design Manager is much improved.

• File Manager – now you can easily upload files and manage domains if you post files for download. You can even archive older files without losing data.

• Tabs – this new feature seems like a way to view and manage multiple templates.

• CSS Files – this is a much improved method of controlling one or more layouts. Marketo could definitely use this.

• Template Creator – akin to Marketo’s Guided Page Templates, HubSpot offers an easy to use Landing Page Template creator.

Workflows Beta

I came across the new Workflow system. In HubSpot, Workflows are distinguished from Campaigns, even though they are similar in function. The changes appear to be mostly at the Smart List level, allowing the user to more easily select groups of leads on a behavior basis. There are also more Flow Actions available. In many ways, it does make sense to differentiate workflows from campaigns, however, I tend to think of a workflow as any set of steps from an email to a data change…but that’s just how Marketo works too.

As of today, the Beta Workflows are available to Professional or Enterprise customers or members of the Beta Program.

Native Salesforce Sync Support

In my original review of 2014, HubSpot had API capabilities, but few native connectors. In fact, Salesforce syncing was limited and not native at all, in contrast to major competitors. At the end of May 2015, HubSpot announced a new partnership with Salesforce to continue their work together, despite competing in the lower end of the MAP space. It turns out that only 20% of HB customers use SFDC and many more use no CRM at all. (Clearly a reason to build HubSpot CRM, no?).

A native SFDC connector was not high on the priority list until this year. The good news it does exist now. What does HubSpot’s SFDC connector have and how does it work?

• Bi-directional sync, which Marketo, Pardot, and Eloqua users enjoyed for years. You will note that the HubSpot interaction area, akin to Marketo Sales Insight, looks just like the native HubSpot Timeline seen in the MAP and CRM tools. To me, this is a real visual leg up on the competiton for Sales.
• Field Support – it appears the sync covers all of the data fields you would expect.
• API Call Limit – HubSpot estimates 4 per lead-day.
• Sandbox support.
• Behavioral Activity Sync – yes, just like in Marketo, although it only covers Form and Email Opens.
• Account and Opp syncing.
• Sync Control – you can use a smart list to select leads at a Lifecycle Stage or just sync everyone. This is interesting because it is a part of the setup process instead of the usual Lifecycle system setup in other tools.
• Integration Test – the wizard even encourages a test and final sync.

From the docs, it appears to be a solid SFDC integration process. Marketo users will find a couple of interesting differences, including clear Sandbox support and clearer Account and Opportunity sync, although I am not clear how bi-directional those objects are.

Updated Integrations

Other integrations are now native and easily accessible in the control panel, including:

• Wistia
• GoToWebinar
• SurveyMonkey
• Zapier
• Google Calendar
• Eventbrite
• UberConference

HubSpot has a strong marketplace as well for other integration needs as you build your stack. 

How does HubSpot Compare to Other Tools?

It is harder to compare each MAP firm as most now target certain size companies and have evolved to solve slightly different sets of marketing problems. Sirius Decisions did a quick summary in 2014 that may be helpful as well.

Pardot and the SFDC Marketing Cloud

Since I have yet to personally experience the latest SFDC offers here, I can only compare on feature sets. My expectation is that Pardot’s capabilities are aimed at the lower end of SFDC’s customer base while they figure out how to compete with Eloqua and Marketo on something other than price. I continue to hear SFDC pressuring smaller firms to switch to Pardot, using package pricing as the key lever. Should a HubSpot user switch to Pardot? I would say no, because of the loss of features and the cost of switching.

HubSpot may experience competition in that 20% of their base that uses SFDC and any customers that grow to a point that SFDC is an option for them. Firms that rely heavily on SEO will want to stay with HubSpot. Firms that are looking for more automation and reporting will lean toward Salesforce or Marketo.

InfusionSoft

InfusionSoft has emerged as a powerful automation platform for Pro-Bloggers and certain small businesses. The system is designed to support ecommerce, such as web businesses selling products or information products, InfusionSoft has a lot to offer. I do not see HubSpot competing directly with InfusionSoft except with firms still in the education phase of what they need.

Maropost

I recently came across this firm and found their platform covers many of the key MAP features. This may be an alternative to HubSpot and Marketo for smaller firms. Curious if anyone has experience with Maropost, let us know below.

Act-On

Act-On’s feature list reads like a list of complaints about Marketo. Indeed, the G2Crowd rating now is neck-and-neck with Marketo. While I haven’t used the system in a long time, the site indicates to me that the tool has much improved in capabilities. I would say Act-On claims a spot somewhere between HubSpot and Marketo and competes more directly with Pardot. It would be interesting to hear from anyone who has used Act-On and HubSpot and/or Marketo.

Update (Dec 29): I had a brief demo of the latest Act-On system. While they made the same claims about being up and running in 45 minutes, they did admit that the Time to Value is about 90 days. What did impress me is the tool covers key workflow issues out of the box as features, instead of asking the marketer to figure it out. For instance, RSS-to-Email and Subscription Management are listed features and easy to customize. Scoring is also a customizable walk-through instead of something to build. Act-On claims this is the result of trying to help marketers focus on the big goals instead of complex operations setup. Even the lead detail view is a clean view of touches (although not quite a timeline) rather than a database listing. The toolkit also lets marketers focus on Outbound vs. Inbound issues along with asset building. For marketers at smaller to medium firms lacking a marketing operations function (or skillset), Act-On could be a good entry point vs. Marketo or Pardot. The development team has clearly improved since 2012.

Marketo

I continue to hear about firms moving from HubSpot to Marketo or Pardot to Marketo once they reach a certain size, or maturity level, in the use of their MAP. Marketo lacks a few things HubSpot has: integrated SEO and Keyword suggestions; CTA module; robust interface for dynamic content; a timeline tool; and the asset builder.

Marketo, however, is far more robust on workflow; marketing attribution, organization of the system; and lead nurturing. It is more purely a MAP than HubSpot, since HubSpot has added sales and CRM tools to meet their smaller sized customer base. Thus, for SMBs through Enterprise, Marketo will continue to be the best choice for building a constellation martech stack.

Is that bad for HubSpot? No. Now that HubSpot has fully embraced smaller firms, their system will reflect those needs more and likely shy away from being a platform rather than an all-in-one solution for small business. If one of their customers is successful and grows into a medium firm or enterprise, I would expect them to migrate to a different martech stack altogether.

If you are looking for a new vendor or making a case to switch (or stay put), take a look at my Marketing Automation RFP and SBI’s Vendor Scorecard. Sirius Decisions’ latest overview may also help.

Things that work better in HubSpot

First, the updates to HubSpot make the system a more complete small business marketing platform, especially with the integrations to other CRMs as well as HubSpot CRM. The workflow and guided template tools are welcome upgrades. HubSpot’s asset builder continues to outperform every other product out there. Marketo has Guided Templates now, but HubSpot has truly created a system to build templates, rather than just install them. For a VSB, this ability is likely a major difference and time savings instead of hiring expensive designers. Should HubSpot spend a lot of time on that area? Hard to say for sure, but I suspect their targets love it.

There are several tools in HubSpot that, while good on their own, are not organizationally well integrated with the rest of the platform:

• Calls to Action – this module shows you exactly which CTAs exist, how they are doing, and where they live. This is just not possible in other systems because the CTA is part of the asset (Email, Page, etc) instead of a separate asset like it is in HubSpot.
• SEO – this tool has been central to HubSpot’s story and inbound methodology. It is true that other MAPs do not provide direct, in workflow advice on keywords, nor do they natively report on such data. Is this a replacement for a massive 150MM page site and the power tools for it? No. Is it amazing for a VSB or SMB who rarely looked at SEO before? Yes.

ROI of HubSpot and Marketing Automation

I’ve said before that the ROI of marketing automation is in time saved, especially in the first year. I’ve also said as your use of the MAP improves, the next ROI is in transparency, because you can now improve allocation of resources across the funnel.

HubSpot now has an ROI page on its site. The challenge with ROI of any tool is correlation vs. causation.

Is using HubSpot (or another MAP) actually encouraging you to do more simply because you now have a daily control panel for your marketing? Could that actually be the source of the increase? Do marketers do more because they feel they have to justify the thousands of dollars they are spending, and thus create the ROI themselves?

HubSpot and MIT Sloan claim “72% of customers saw an increase in sales revenue within one year” and the average increase in list volume was 4.77x in one year. While I have no reason to challenge the data, I wonder how much of the change is caused by a mindset vs. the actual software?

Each application, and especially MAPs, have a worldview that forces the marketer to adopt that model of the sales funnel for their daily activities. If you adopted the inbound-funnel mindset without HubSpot, would you see similar results? If you chose Marketo and Pardot’s demand generation approach, would you see similar results, or different ones? At one firm, I doubled blog visits in 3 months with regular content, but I did not need HubSpot to achieve that.

The OverGo Studio Report

Using 14 of his clients, Rick Kranz analyzed the results of HubSpot users vs. non-users. The control group used just about anything other than HubSpot. Key results:

• Organic Traffic Growth in 1 year – 590% vs. 170%.
• B2B Lead Generation – 125% more leads with HubSpot.
• Conversion Rate (B2B) – 43% more.

While the numbers sound impressive, this is a flawed study. The sample was 14, which can never be statistically valid given that HubSpot has over 10,000 customers. As I mentioned earlier, is it the tool or the fact that the marketers could do more or were “forced” to do more because they had this tool? Neither this study, nor the MIT Sloan study explain this correlation question.

Either way, HubSpot and MAPs do have an ROI. The MAP itself does not generate anything – it’s always up to you. Most firms fail when they do not prepare their business process to match the tool, or vice versa.

Conclusions

HubSpot will continue to dominate the smaller firm segments, while Marketo and Eloqua continue to dominate the larger firm sized segments of the market. While Marketo Spark and HubSpot compete, I suspect that is happening only with firms at 5,000 to 30,000 contacts or high growth startups. In other words, if you are using Marketo today, stay there. If you are a VSB, you will likely find HubSpot to be a good fit, or possibly Pardot. As HubSpot becomes a VSB revenue platform, the bifurcation of the marketplace will be more obvious, leaving an interesting gap for competitors.

Disclosure: I had a free trial to HubSpot Marketing, CRM, and Sidekick. I was not asked by HubSpot to provide this review.

 

Permission marketing is the foundation of all marketing automation. Without permission from interested members of your audience, you are effectively blocked from direct marketing on the internet. Marketing automation systems cannot send out email content without permission from your leads.

[A version of this post first appeared on HubSpot’s blog in April 2015, revised September 4, 2015]

Just what is Permission Marketing?

Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing helped give birth to the communication rules marketers now must follow around the world. But Seth Godin was not trying to write anti-spam legislation, he was pointing out a fundamental shift in how people and companies communicate with each other. The shift is from interruption marketing to permission marketing: advertising vs. requested; outbound vs. inbound.

The second point Seth Godin made is that asking permission is the right thing to do. Why trick people into filling out warranty cards only to bombard them with junk mail they never wanted? Why pepper thousands of people with sales literature when only 1% will ever be interested?

A permission marketer asks, “Why not invite our audience to opt-in for further communication on the topic?”

Finally, permission marketing leads to better results because your communications are:

• Anticipated – the lead is waiting for your email.
• Relevant – the content is something the lead is interested in
• Personal – the content is relevant to the lead.

Building Permission Marketing into Marketing Automation

Now that initial marketing is done entirely online, marketers need a way to collect permission, manage permission, and use permission effectively. Marketing automation tools enable these three activities.

• Collect permission – need a form and content offer on your site.
• Manage permission – so that communications are Anticipated.
• Use permission: ensure the content is Relevant and Personal.

Marketing automation platforms (MAP) are designed with these three marketing actions in mind. What your vendor may not tell you, however, is that you will need to build out the workflows and rules for your business and location to use Permission Marketing correctly.

Collecting Permission

Your audience provides permission for you to send them deeper information on the topics you discuss. Your MAP does this with tools for you to create opt in forms for use on your blog and website. Remember “opt-in”? That’s because opted in leads are the most engaged group. Even if CANSPAM permits “opt out” in the United States, (meaning you can email people until they tell you to stop), this is not a good way to make friends fast. Use opt in permission for the best results. It’s easy with marketing automation.

To collect permission with opt in, always ensure your Forms have an opt-in check box or statement like, “Providing your email address means you are opting in to future communications.” Or this example from the HubSpot Blog. It is clear that entering your email is providing permission to subscribe.

Managing Permission

There are three components your MAP uses to help you manage permission: subscription management; filtering; and preventing blunders.

Subscription Management is the ability to have multiple subscription options. Let people opt in to your blog, your webinars, event invitations, and product communications. Your MAP can handle it all automatically once you set it up. To setup a system usually means going beyond the Unsubscribe checkbox. You will need to add new checkboxes for each subscription type, and then determine rules for when those checkboxes are changed.

• User action – did they Unsubscribe All, or just one box?
• Emailed Request for Removal – is someone manning the “unsubscribe@yourcompany.com” box? Is Sales able to pass along requests to the right person?
• Automated action – if the email hard bounces, should we remove the lead from future communications?

Filtering lets you see a list of opted-in leads with a particular set of behavior. Your MAP will have this built in. It is often called a “smart list,” that looks for the leads you request. Using smart lists to be ready with opted-in leads that are interested in Product X is vital to using permission.

Preventing blunders is about people processes and built in safeguards your MAP has. One example is preventing an email send to over 10,000 leads unless a senior manager approves. Another process is to always have two people look at a campaign. It is all too easy to blast out 8 emails or 8 million–just ask the New York Times. In Marketo, you can set rules to prevent leads from receiving more than a few emails per day or per week; you can also block non Admins from running campaigns larger than say, 50,000 at a time without further oversight.

These marketing automation features work together to make sure the lead anticipates your next communication.

Using Permission

Seth Godin explains that as a lead progresses through your funnel, she is giving you increasing permission to communication and to build a relationship. This permission can be revoked any time, thus using permission must be done carefully by making content that is Relevant and Personal to the lead.

Your MAP helps you do just that. Each day, new features are added in the world of automated personalization, which sounds like an oxymoron, is in reality a low cost way of managing a giant mail merge system in near real time. Tools like HubSpot and Marketo can personalize emails and even web pages based on the information your audience has provided you, with permission!

Focused messages will encourage the lead to download more of your remarkable content via pages and forms you create with your MAP. Each time a lead fills out a new form, they provide more detail on who they are and how you can help them all while providing additional permission for you to send more information. A lead may even be ready to ask you to call them.

And if you setup your workflows with permission marketing and your customers in mind, all of this permission is collected, managed, and used automatically.

Does Permission Marketing Really Work?

Surprisingly, there are still marketers out there who believe opt-out is good enough and that there’s no evidence batch and blast unpermissioned lists is harming their efforts. Fortunately, marketing automation data can prove otherwise for your audience as your list degrades rapidly. And you can also look at a third party study (often conducted by email service provides): In a 2011 study by Clickz, Open and CTR were compared to opt-in lists and opt-out lists.

• Opens in the opt-in lists were twice as high as the opt-out lists
• Click Through Rates on opt in lists were also twice as high on average: 1.5% vs. 3.0+%.

In 2014, I audited several companies’ databases. Every time, without fail, the real marketable database was roughly 20% of the total number of records. (I define “marketable” as permissioned and active in the past six months). If you could increase this marketable database size by just 50%, what would that mean for your pipeline?

Way back before marketing automation, I used to send email just to the US and Canada (before CASL). I would send maybe 500-3000 messages per run, and send once a week until my event registrations were at my target. Each time, I would lose 2 to 5% of my send list to opt-out. I knew each time this was not good, but there were very few alternatives other than to run a better list selection. So when I had the chance to build out full subscription management, I asked people if they wanted Event Invitations, Webinar Invitations, etc…and this reduce unsubscribes to under 1% very quickly.

Permission marketing is not just about following government regulations. It is about treating your customers as you would want them to treat you in the same situation. Remember to focus on the audience, what they want, and asking their permission to give them what they want. Marketing automation just makes managing all that easier.

Image Credit: flickr slopjob

In 2015, an interesting article from Chiefmartec described a report that 9% of firms are fully using their marketing tech stack. This trend has continued to evolve, but the martech stack and its options keep expanding. As companies scale up their efforts, so must their stack.

While all this keeps changing, one thing remains constant, The Martech Maturity Model™.

Yes, the survey from the article discusses “marketing technology,” so this could be the entire range of tools. But most marketers think of their email platform and MAP (marketing automation platform) as their primary tool or the center of their martech stack. If 91% of marketers are not using the entire system, then it stands to reason that roughly that number are not even making the most of their MAP’s capabilities.

The question those marketers have is probably not, “How can I use more of my stack?” the question is, “How can I generate more revenue? Or more SQLs?” In fact, anotehr stat says that 52% of marketers want more sales revenue and 50% want more leads. Surprisingly, less than half are interested in personalization, targeting, or efficiency, which are strongly correlated with increased responses. And the big vision “Predictability” is dead last at 13%. To me, that should be a concern for companies like Marketo and Lattice Engines because the big vision goal of predictable revenue and predictive scoring is likely not high on most firms’ lists – except that 9% leading edge group.

What is on most marketers’ minds is getting the most out of their marketing automation tool with things like nurturing and funnel visibility. If they cannot reach those goals, those marketers are going to be increasingly dissatisfied with their stack.

This data continues to confirm what I often tell people: Marketing Automation is a journey and it will take two to three years to fully realize the vision. Most marketers are not ready at all to even track the Lead Lifecycle in their first year with a MAP, let alone have the data, experience, and sales alignment to successfully use predictive scoring or other match tools.

As a consultant, I often came across situations where the MAP had been purchased, implemented, but never fully used. The company knew this and was willing to restart the process because they still believed it was possible to reap efficiency gains or even achieve the Vision of revenue performance management in the future. Rarely does a consultant get called in to help a high performing marketing organization, of course! But with 57% of marketers rating their martech program “Somewhat Successful” and 27% less happy than that, there are a lot of opportunities for both vendors and agencies to help companies achieve so much more with relatively little investment.

The good news is most marketers seem to believe that technology can change marketing performance positively, with the survey saying this is at 87%. However, I often heard the CMO or Director of Marketing say that a MAP was only helping marginally, or not at all. According to the Survey, at least 55% of marketers are in that camp today. To me, marketers who say this are likely using their MAP as a glorified email tool. They did not take the time to go through the evolution of marketing or the training needed to fully use the MAP to achieve the Vision. Naturally, their view of performance is that not much changed.

According to the survey, 50% of firms find the complexity challenging and 39% find the lack of budget slowing down their implementation. I would say that the critical piece is the budget or resources to achieve success. If you cannot find the budget and/or right people to help you implement a martech project, then that alone will stop your plans regardless of “complexity” or “inefficient processes.” A new tool will be complex to the uninitiated and inefficiency will abound until someone helps you create the right plan and sets up the tools correctly for your business. Thus, this again supports my advice to CMOs: understand your marketing strategy and firm first, then hire the right team (or agency) to help implement the technical side well. Is it better to spend $50,000 this year to set up success for the next three years, or to spend $15,000 today for a poor implementation that means $70,000 in software fees are flushed away? Going for a cheap option now usually means more expense later when the new consultants have to spend twice as long ripping out what the last agency tried.

Now, let’s discuss how a firm can implement a marketing technology plan successfully and a firm can implement a turnaround to move into that 9% over the next 12 to 24 months.

Getting to the 9% of “martech nirvana” as Scott Brinker puts it does not inherently require a lot of martech vendor solutions. In fact, you may only need a MAP, CRM, Website, and Social Media tool. What you do need is a clear plan for your marketing strategy, tactical mix, matched against available martech vendors. By plan, we also mean what you plan to do over time.

Here is a framework I have been developing to help guide your marketing technology plans. The MarTech Maturity Model is not quite like Marketo’s Maturity Model. The model here is focused on the use and implementation of marketing technology and when each piece should begin.

Each Stage has a set of pain points that emerge as you make the marketing automation journey. Each Stage has a corresponding Solution involving people and technology that is used to help create leverage for ROI. And each Stage takes time.

The single biggest impediment I see in achieving the Vision is thinking that the change will happen in one year or less, “because the vendor told me so.” And when that naturally does not happen? The vendor is fired and you have to start all over again. Far too many CMOs have said as much to me during evaluations. This is surprisingly short-term thinking from strategic executives. If you are a CMO, set better expectations with your team and with the C-suite colleagues. If you are a demand gen or marketing operations manager, explain this model to your CMO to avoid the uncomfortable calls to cancel your MAP contract, or to “go with a cheaper solution.”

Stage 0: Marketing Transformation

• Pain Points: batch and blast emails not bringing in sales; marketing ideas are stagnant; list purchases and rentals are primary lead source; lack of content strategy; website is brochure-ware; Roadshow events are product and sales based. Yes, these firms still do exist. If this describes your firm, don’t worry, you are not alone.
• Solution: New inbound marketing strategy. Website improvements to facilitate inbound content and lead collection. Begin sales-marketing alignment discussions for lead ranking and improved routing.
• Marketing Ops/Tech Considerations: Do not feel the need to invest beyond the website or CRM. Stay on plan, as doing too much now will create the perception of failure very quickly.
• ROI Potential: strategy change invigorates team and sales sees action is happening. Increase in leads and lead quality, decrease in CPL.
• Timeframe: 6 to 24 months.

Stage 1: Begin Automation

• Pain Points: lead volume is too much to rank easily; not all leads are ready to speak with Sales; content plan needs more coordination; demand generation requires more structure around the buying process. Marketing needs a faster turnaround on landing pages and website control.
• Solution: CRM+MAP implementation with intense Sales-Marketing Alignment framework.
• Marketing Ops/Tech Considerations: larger firms may want to go with a robust MAP for future work. Smaller firms can consider a 1 year smaller MAP tool to get started and plan to switch once everyone is comfortable with Marketing Tech.
• ROI Potential: marketing saves time for investment in demand gen and content planning. Data quality costs decrease, sales cycle is faster.
• Timeframe: 6 to 12 months with MAP implementation.

Stage 2: Lead Quality Management

• Pain Points: sales is complaining that you send too many leads over the wall, so you need to hold more back, but content and nurturing aren’t quite ready.
• Solution: additional sales-marketing alignment and workflow adjustments. Time is now to start building drip nurturing if possible or hire more campaign managers.
• Marketing Ops/Tech Considerations: growing firms may need to prepare to switch MAPs to handle the lake of leads and to nurture them in Stage 3. Workflows will need adjustment and new campaigns developed.
• ROI Potential: marketing saves time for investment in demand gen and content planning. Data quality improves.
• Timeframe: about 3-6 months in most organizations.

Stage 3: Nurturing and Sales Context

• Pain Points: Sales is asking for more context of why a lead is MQL; requesting more “sales-ready leads”; batch and blast still not working and campaigns require more coordination.
• Solution: install behavioral data tools in CRM to give Sales visibility into scoring and lead actions; train Sales on using the tools; content shifts to storytelling framework which is then operationalized as “lead nurturing.”
• Marketing Ops/Tech Considerations: sales context tools may already be in the CRM at this point, so careful training and improved timing of alerts may be what you need here. Use the Nurturing Operations framework to take your content into a serialized novel format to keep leads engaged; automate this in your MAP. If you need to upgrade your MAP, do so. Most firms struggle to achieve this on a consistent basis.
• ROI Potential: lead quality improves, sales cycle reduction, time saved for Marketing after initial investment.
• Timeframe: about 6 months if it is a focus.

Stage 4: Funnel Visibility

• Pain Points: difficult to answer questions about impact of marketing programs and sales efforts on funnel metrics like conversion percent and days to next stage.
• Solution: Build and improve the lead funnel and lead lifecycle systems.
• Marketing Ops/Tech Considerations: this requires a serious plan with the CRM and MAP teams working closely to ensure the right data collection and the right workflows are set up to achieve the desired Reporting.
• ROI Potential: you will be able to confidently discuss the impact of programs on moving leads through the funnel. Reduce funnel conversion times to reach revenue faster.
• Timeframe: 3-12 months depending on the size of firm and database complexity. Some reports may take longer to show data.

Stage 5: Attribution and Allocation Visibility

• Pain Points: All those ROI questions have built up and the dam is going to explode unless you can show the data: How do we know marketing’s efforts are paying off? How do we know which sources and offers are working for us? Is marketing even contributing to revenue?
• Solution: Proper data collection across all channels, tied together by the MAP and special reporting technology.
• Marketing Ops/Tech Considerations: Ideally you should have already set First Touch and Last Touch Attribution from Stage 1 or 2. Now you have to ensure Multitouch record keeping is collecting data on every touch and can report on it in relation to the Funnel you set up in Stage 5.
• ROI Potential: your promotion comes through. Everyone now sees just how much that massive Tradeshow costs and how little it brings in; you now see how Whitepaper Series 1 tanked, but Whitepaper Series 2 resonated with Audience 3 and you re-allocate resources there. Legendary Marketing Ops Manager status; full ROI visibility.
• Timeframe: depends on how much groundwork occurred previously. Could be 3 to 12 months.

Stage 6: Reliable, Automated Predictability

• Pain Points: can you help us predict pipeline and revenue based on marketing spend?
• Solution: add in predictive scoring and modeling tools with Finance and Sales help. (The Prediction Vendors won’t like me putting this last!).
• Marketing Ops/Tech Considerations: in theory, you may be able to add Predictive Scoring in during Stages 2 and 3. Be sure you are comfortable with the collection of data (behaviors, opportunities, and revenue) to support such a model and that Sales and Marketing are trained properly. Most firms are not ready for this until Stage 5 or 6.
• ROI Potential: instead of making up lead scoring (don’t worry, everyone is doing this), and using Pipeline waterfall reports, now you can rely on a real data model, which will do a much better job of statistical analysis. This becomes a real Revenue Table discussion that helps you allocate marketing spend for impacts 9-12 months out. If these are accurate, you keep your job!
• Timeframe: vendors say this is doable within days. I would expect about 3 months to be comfortable with the tools.

This maturity model is a bit linear the way I wrote it out here today. In reality, each of the Solutions in each Stage could happen concurrently with enough resources and people. Stages 0 and 1, however, should never be done concurrently for the plan to be truly successful. Marketing strategy transformation and sales alignment could impact your technology choices, so take the time to communicate these plans and work them into your team’s culture.

The way to use this Model is to focus on Stage 0, then 1. Your plan should then have sprints where Stages 2, 3, 4, and 5 have a focus at different times. For instance, do not promise full attribution reports during Stage 1, but you could build in parts of the data collection during the implementation, even if you could not use them fully yet.

First time marketing automation implementers should focus on one Stage at a time and not expect the Visionary reports and predictions the vendors sell us. More experienced marketing ops managers and consultants can use the Model to build in components of later Stages earlier in the process, but this requires careful client expectations management.

Marketing automation is a catalyst for a marketing strategy change and a way to force Sales-Marketing Alignment to occur faster. Unless this is managed well alongside the Marketing Tech plan, there is a high likelihood of adding in the wrong workflows and even the wrong martech vendors.

Marketing Technology Maturity Model™ and Martech Maturity Model™ are Trademarks of Marketing Rockstar Guides.

Today I had the privilege to speak with Alex Polamero, Director of Marketing Automation at The Lewis Group of Companies. Alex is a Marketo Certified Expert as well as a demand generation expert. Currently, Alex leverages marketing automation, social media, and digital advertising to generate new sales leads, recycle leads, and acquire top talent for a large real estate developer in the U.S.

Alex brought marketing automation to the real estate industry and is one of leading marketing ops people outside of Technology and Publishing.

JH: How did you get involved with marketing automation?

Alex: I had about 10 years experience in traditional marketing. I took an opportunity to develop enterprise social media for a real estate developer, which turned into a project improving email marketing. Ultimately, I was looking to improve lead generation and sales nurture processes. In researching a software solution that would help me bolster our ROI for both social marketing and email campaigns I came across marketing automation and Marketo.

JH: That’s really interesting, I was led to Marketo because I had to improve email marketing and lead routing, so you took a different route. What else made you think Marketo was the right system?

Alex: One of our needs was to manage dynamic content and segmentation. We also needed better tracking to understand how a lead would engage with us on email, social, pay per click advertising, and on various owned web domains. We wanted to track behaviors to a specific sale.

We also wanted to nurture leads over time, especially once they leased. We saw an opportunity to influence apartment renewals, cross sell other products, and improve our overall brand recognition.

JH: Real Estate is a new industry for marketing automation, so we should explore that. What does the sales funnel look like to you in the MAP?

Alex: First, we drive people to our website or landing pages using hundreds of organic and paid sources. Our goal is to have a prospect call us directly or fill out a form so that the prospect can be segmented based on behavioral and demographic scoring criteria and either added to a nurture process or sent to the appropriate sales team member.

We track prospects part of the way using URL parameters, so that when a lead does fill out a form, we have a sense of the last click attribution. While Google Analytics helps, Marketo can store behavioral data longer, enabling our term to see trends and the impact of campaigns on revenue. We realize that last click attribution can be limited, so we are developing other attribution models to better suit our business needs.

Yes, we do lead scoring: we look at behavioral and demographic criteria to determine when a prospect is warm enough for the Leasing Team to pursue. Once we have their name and email, we begin the automated nurture process. Nurturing includes content on leasing vs. buying, localized offers, and information about communities they are interested in.

JH: Since you track all of this data, did you discover anything that helped you sell better?

Alex: Absolutely! Using Marketo, we were able to identify that over 30% of prospects became qualified leads outside of our standard sales cycle. We found that prospects were doing research longer and making decisions further from the initial point of contact. The data challenged long held assumptions by property managers, and proved extremely useful in redesigning our sales processes. Now we do not give up on leads so quickly, adapting nurture times by segment and product type as well as capitalizing on cross sell opportunities over time.

JH: Leasing sounds more complex than a typical SaaS software sell or business service. How do you manage the details with the other teams?

Alex: Marketo helped me create synergy between departments to drive more sales. I see my role as an internal consultant to every division of our company and can apply my understanding of marketing automation, digital lead generation, social marketing, and traditional marketing to each division. I identified unique challenges facing a variety of business units; then applied the software tools, industry best practices, and our own new strategies to improve lead generation and sales using marketing automation. Marketo has also helped us track the flow of prospects and customers across company products. For example, I can see that people are interested in apartments, retail specials, and often-new homes over the lifetime of the customer. This data has encouraged departmental teams to consider how to better communicate with one another and leverage leads that move between products.

JH: In our conversations, we discussed how Marketing Automation is now making the leap to new verticals. What other functions and verticals do you see gaining from taking on a demand gen approach to marketing and then automating it?

Alex: I see huge opportunity and rapid growth for marketing automation in verticals like education, ecommerce, financial services, and healthcare. I also see functional areas like human resources using MAPs for their talent funnels and retention. I spoke about this at the 2014 Marketo Summit.

JH: Does a rules engine like Marketo require special enhancements for real estate? Or can a marketplace like Launchpoint make the necessary extensions for verticals?

Alex: I see how Marketo and a CRM could be used as the core of any sales funnel workflow. Certainly some verticals can benefit from a platform app, but I’ve been able to do what I need through the basic system and my CRM. The key is to ensure the MAP you choose has an open API and budget for additional resources whether software partners or training to achieve your desired growth targets Another question during any implementation is, “How much time do I have and do I have the team necessary to reach our goals in the right time frame?” If not, you will have to adjust the team, time, or tools.

JH: What is the big gap right now in Real Estate marketing?

Alex: There are always areas for opportunity for any company to grow and improve. For example, we are considering how to better engage prospects that do not sign an apartment lease. We are thinking about how to communicate with apartment residents that move out but continue to live in our general geographic area. So I see the gap as more about what information can we provide to these people to help them make a good decision about their property and living options. Can we build enough trust where they seek us out first for their apartment, retail, new home, office, or industrial needs?

JH: Do you have any Marketo Launchpoint partners you think have been helpful?

Alex: Yes, in particular, consultants have been helpful in adding skills and teaching us best practices we would have struggled to discover on our own. For example, consultants like Grazitti Interactive and Perkuto have helped us with workflow concepts as well as API programming.

JH: What is one thing you wish you knew about MAPs three years ago?

Alex: I wish I knew to allocate more resources for training and third party support, especially for ongoing training of new software updates, consultant support, and integration of new tools. Also, I’ve found that building relationships within the Marketo community has been hugely beneficial for trouble shooting and brainstorming new ideas to grow revenue.

Perhaps three years ago I did not see MAPs as a competitive advantage. Now I do. If you are in business and do not have a MAP, you are already behind a competitor who does. My advice is that MAPs are being adopted by every business and you need to have one. Firms are investing more to add new technology, and marketing teams will be able to leverage MAP systems to improve marketing campaign effectiveness, reporting, and become more efficient with how they spend advertising dollars.

[updated Aug 17, 2015 for grammar]