On January 24, Marketo released the long awaited “Forms 2.0” creator, which changes the game for many of us non programmers. Instead of having to find a JQuery and Javascript programmer to assist with iFrames or making fancy looking forms, you can do nearly all of that yourself from the comfort of your own screen. I very much want to thank Eric Hollebone for championing this project with the Marketo product team.

So Forms 2.0 sounds great, but what can it do? How do you use it to avoid all of that complex programming? The simple choice is to turn it on and get in there. I did just that and this is what I learned.

Forms 1.0 vs. Forms 2.0

The new form system allows you to more easily tweak your forms for design as well as for specific situations. Here’s a quick rundown:

• Progressive Forms still exist, but now you activate them in a more intuitive manner.
• Form Masking is now available and super easy to use. (This is where you force the input to conform to a certain standard, such as a Phone Number: (XXX) XXX-XXXX). This is only if you change Input Type=Text.
• Design elements are easier to control, such as Instructions, Width, Defaults.
• Auto populate is now available at the field level. Wow that is a big change from doing this at the Form or Page level.
• Visibility – you can ask Marketo to show certain fields based on the fill out. This helps create Country > State as well as all sorts of other options. This should help you build more interesting forms with fewer initial fields.
• Custom CSS and Javascript options on the Form.
• Lightbox option.
• A wide variety of button styles that automatically pull in your CTA.
• Forms can now be in Draft Mode, taking away the worry of making a tweak. Of course, you will still have to approve the Form and pages with the form.
• Replace the form with a message if you already know the Lead.
• Add Rich Text anywhere in the Form.
• Multiple Columns – drag and drop.

In a word: wow.

As far as I know, no other system does all of these things for the Form editor. As you are now salivating in ecstasy, let’s see how this might work in real life.

Migrating From 1.0 to 2.0

According to the webinar, Marketo instances turned on from January 24, 2014 have access to only Forms 2.0. Of course 99% of us can still use Forms 1.0 editor and all existing forms will continue to work just fine.

But what if you are already thinking, “Let’s migrate now!”? Is that a good idea?

My recommendation is to use Forms 2.0 for all programs in the future. Yes, you will have to recreate many forms and you can now do so without calling up your web team. In fact, this might solve some of your issues just by setting up new Form 2.0 forms. A couple of points before we move on:

• Naming: add “2” or “Form 2.0” to the end of any new forms if you still have Form 1.0 forms.
• Organization: Keep your new forms in a separate folder.

Jeff Coveney at RevEngine had a deeper migration suggestion that may help everyone.

Starting Out with Forms 2.0

Most of this post will focus on the newest features. To get started with Forms 2.0, go to Design Studio > Forms and press New Form.

Here you get to choose which type of Form to use. Keep the defaults and press Create. Now you see Step 1: Form Theme and Settings. If you click the arrows, you can select from 1 of 7 Themes. A Theme is a basic look and feel. If you want, you can modify the CSS later using the gear icon.

Not happy with your Theme? Click on Settings to discover some new options including Social Form Fill and Thank You Page Choices. If you later decide to include custom CSS, please note that your code will overwrite Marketo’s default CSS.

What? TY Page choices?? Awesome. You might want to design the Form first, then return to this. You can always modify this when you bring in the Form to the Landing Page.

Now click Next to get to the juicy field editor. In the beginning, you are given three starter fields. Then you can add and modify to your heart’s content.

I will leave it to the webinar to go through every last detail, however, there are some very useful features worth discussing in-depth.

Conditional Fields (Country and State)

Always the bane of the marketer’s existence is setting up picklists and conditional fields like Country > State and Product interest. Now Marketo makes this incredibly easy.

Add your desired field, such as Country, and then change its Field Type to Select. Add Instructions and then click on Values > Edit.

When you click on Edit, you will insert the values for the picklist. Unfortunately, Marketo won’t bring in an existing value list (not a change from Forms 1.0). If you have a pipe delimited list, click on Advanced to enter it there. Note: you can also just enter in “Display Values” if they are the same as the Marketo Value and Marketo will populate the second column automatically.

 

Now you still have to make State show up conditionally if someone selects “USA”, “Canada”, and “Australia”. To do that, press Save and then select the State Field.

Click Visibility Rules. Now you have the familiar Choice Editor.

Remember that you can use this Visibility Rule choice to display fields of any type based on any other field on the Form. I believe this may work also with known records and fields that are not on the Form.

Field Groupings

This is a display feature that some people like to use. It is also useful for grouping fields that are conditional on another response. Just click on the big + and choose Fieldset.

Then drag fields into the box. This is a great tool if you want to ask product interest questions or have a guest at an event.

Progressive Form Changes

Similarly to Fieldsets, Progressive Forms involve dragging the desired fields into the Progressive Fields box. You can edit the number of blank fields to show regardless of the number of fields you drag in. Remember that fields outside of the progressive box are always shown.

Lightboxes are Built In

Once you are done with the Form, you can select the form in Design Studio and then do Form Actions > Embed Code. Select Lightbox for the form to appear as a light box on the page.

Adding the Form to a Page

This works almost exactly like it has, with the exception that if you defined a Thank You Page on the Form, you can choose to follow that or make a new follow up selection.

Troubleshooting Forms 2.0

As with any new major change, there have been a flurry of possible bug reports and ideas about how to best use Forms 2.0. Here’s one that could be important:

• Forms 2.0 and Layers

Marketo Forms 2.0 Video Tutorials

• Jan 28 Webinar
• Official Community Page

Remember to sign up for email updates!

Marketo’s Sales Insight has a few features that not many marketers use enough. These tips can help you work with Sales in a scalable way with write once emails that can be used repeatedly by Sales. You will have to remind Sales how to make money off of Sales Insight:

Sales reps will ask this question before they tune MSI out. Salespeople want to focus on sales and not spend time on new systems. Great sales reps, however, will spend time preparing for calls using the best intelligence they can. Sales Insight is their intelligence tool.

Sales Insight provides more visibility into the behaviors of people on your Site, your Emails, and your Events. Certain behaviors indicate the Lead is starting, engaging, or closing the Buying Process. Use the information MSI provides to help prepare for Sales calls:

• Ask better questions.
• Ask relevant questions earlier to demonstrate understanding of their needs.
• Know when to call.
• Know when not to call.
• Spot potential RFP activity early using Activity, Anonymous Web Activity.
• Use Anonymous Web Activity to prospect and call Leads before our competitors.

Sales Insight Exposed Emails

You can “expose” an email in Marketo to Sales Insight where your Sales Team can then see it using the Sales Insight Send Email action inside Salesforce.

When should you allow Sales to see one of your emails in MSI or the Outlook Plugin?

Type of Email	Expose to MSI?	Duration
Webinar Invitation	Yes	Only until event starts then turn it off.
Event Invitation	Yes	Only until event starts then turn it off.
Nurturing Emails	Use Campaign IS Requested instead.	Usually better to allow Sales to insert a Lead into the flow.
White Paper Download	Sometimes	I prefer to let sales write a persona note instead.
Newsletter	No.	Never. This is a marketing email.
Brochure Email	Sometimes.	I prefer to let sales write a persona note instead.

Some teams love using the Outlook Plugin or the MSI Email Tool to send and record all the emails they need. In that case, exposing more basic emails such as White Paper blasts and pre-made Brochure links can speed things along.

Let Sales Determine Next Steps with MSI Exposed Campaigns

You can expose any campaign to Sales Insight whenever you use the Trigger

Campaign Is Requested by Source IS “Sales Insight”

Many firms choose to allow Sales to drop Leads or Contacts into special nurturing campaigns to push out information automatically. Marketing can also allow Sales to adjust data or throttle email using this technique. The most common options are nurturing and Marketing Suspended.

Here’s what this looks like to Sales:

Monitor Sales Insight Email Use

Remember that you can monitor use of Sales emails with the filters. These actions will also appear on the SFDC Activities list and Sales Insight Email tab.

• Opened Sales Email
• Was Sent Sales Email
• Clicked in Sales Email
• Sales Email Bounced
• Sales Email Was Received

Trigger Emails or Programs with Sales Insight

You can also use Sales Insight to trigger a marketing campaign. For instance, if Sales sends out more than 2 Sales Emails, maybe that Lead is hot and marketing should back off with a Marketing Suspended campaign. Use these Triggers:

• Is Sent Sales Email
• Opens Sales Email
• Sales Email Bounces
• Sales Email Is Received

Ultimately, the success of Sales Insight is up to your reps. Spend some time with them to help them understand how the tool solves the common problems of sending out common product emails or invitations. Show them how much detail they are missing by not using it. Then show them how much their buddy is making – because she’s using Sales Insight.

Remember to sign up for email updates!

This is a post about how to use Marketo Sales Insight’s interesting moments and when Salesforce Tasks/Activities might be better. I cannot tell you definitively if one is always better than the other. There are good reasons to use both, even if you do not technically have Sales Insight running on Salesforce. First, a bit about what Sales Insight does.

Sales Insight  is a tool designed to help sales people understand more about their leads and customers. If you can, make it a part of everyday life for your sales team by placing it on the Lead, Contact, and Account records. Sales just goes into the Lead record to see the information that will help them have a conversation with the Lead.

Marketo is able to collect additional information on what someone is doing on your site, with your emails, and with your offers. Sales Insight puts this detail in a useful format for Sales to understand what the Lead is interested in and what they have been up to.

Inside Sales Reps (ISRs, SDRs) use Sales Insight for:

• Preparing for the First Call
• Preparing for the Discovery Call

Sales Managers, Field Reps, and BDRs use MSI for:

• Preparing for the Discovery Call.
• Preparing for meetings or calls at any stage in the sales process.
• Monitoring Lead→Contact→Opportunity progress. Instead of guessing what is going on with a Proposal, you can see if your Contact and his colleagues are on your site, thinking of you, even if they are not responding to your calls.

Marketing uses MSI to enable Sales with more tools, faster:

• Watching test leads.
• Collecting data on what Interesting Moments tend to lead to Won Opps. (Opportunity Analyzer – Revenue Cycle Analytics only).
• Creating Interesting Moments and useful data for Sales.

Sales Insight is the tool I wish I had when I was in Sales. The additional details on current Leads and Clients would have given me an edge in focused solution conversations. The Anonymous Web Activity would have given me brilliant new prospecting ideas.

Use Interesting Moments Even if You Don’t Have MSI

With three other Sales behavior methods below, why would I tell you to setup Interesting Moments without MSI?

Three letters: RCA

If you are even remotely considering a subscription to Revenue Cycle Analytics in the future, then interesting moments is a key component of this, along with Programs. When you setup RCA with Opportunity Analyzer, you will suddenly have a wealth of touch points helping you to understand what’s working to deliver revenue. If you wait until you have RCA to setup Interesting Moments, then you will have to wait several months to get a useful view into Opportunity Influence.

Here are examples of common Interesting Moments. I usually setup generic Moments that operate outside of Flows and Programs. If you use System and Interesting Moment Tokens, you should be able to push out notifications with details of specific Emails and Webinars the lead engaged with.

Interesting Moment Tokens are Your Friends

Use the Interesting Moment Tokens to pull in detail from the original Trigger, such as the Email Name, Link, or Web Page. You can also use Flow Tokens or My Tokens here as well.

What About Other Sales Information?

In Marketo, you also have three other major channels of information transfer to Sales:

1. Activity Auto Sync
2. Behavior Based Activity Sync and Reminders
3. SFDC Campaigns and Member Status

Tell a Lead Story with Activity Auto Sync

Marketo automatically syncs certain lead activities to SFDC as Activities on the Lead/Contact record. During your Marketo implementation, you had the option to turn on or off several of these items. Go to Admin > SFDC Integration > Sync Options.

Most firms select the options shown above, because they show sales the key engagement behaviors a lead makes during the buying journey. Activities like “Email Sent” and “Added to List” are marketing activities that don’t always help sales know the lead is ready for a call. Occasionally “Email Sent” is preferred by Sales because they want to know which emails are going out. Instead of using the auto sync, however, it is better to set a Trigger for

Email is Delivered IS ANY

with a Task flow action describing the email. This will reduce unnecessary API calls and data in your SFDC.

You might disable most of the activities auto-sync to reduce API calls. It’s up to you and your SFDC level. I do not recommend turning off all Activities because you will likely want to use Activity Tasks as a backup of data in case you ever discontinue using Marketo.

Wait, Why Should I Bother with Interesting Moments When I Have Activity Sync?

But why setup Interesting Moments when Marketo is already posting Activities to my Salesforce records? I get the same info, right?

Yes…and no. The Email list is identical, but look how MSI shows the Conversation more clearly with Opens and Clicks, while Activity History is a stream of behaviors which is harder to scan.

There are good reasons to use both at the same time, even though Activities often overlap with the possible Interesting Moments.

Activity History and Data Ownership: some firms are nervous about switching vendors in the future. If you outgrow Marketo (gasp!) or the CEO loves another system and you have to switch, you will always retain your Activity History in your CRM. It is possible to export Interesting Moments out of Marketo, but it will be hard to re-import to a new system.

Interesting Moments are more customizable than Activity History. The funny thing is your Sales Team may be used to looking at Activity History now, so getting them to use MSI regularly is always a challenge. Interesting Moments however, are customizable. You get to write the messages to Sales telling them about what their Leads and Contacts are up to. You can also more easily trigger other flows using Has Interesting Moment.

Double Checking: it can be helpful to have an automatic recording to check against if an Interesting Moment or other triggered flow is not working as you expected.

Backup From Sync Failure: if your SFDC Sync ever fails, Activity History is not recorded back to SFDC during the failure period. Interesting Moments will continue to be recorded by Marketo and then synced over to MSI once the sync is restored.

Behavior Based Activity Sync with the Task Flow Action

A little while ago, I hinted that you can trigger task insertion with Marketo. To augment the Activity Sync, you can craft a message to Sales (and to your future self) about a lead’s behavior. Simply do something like this:

Trigger: Opens Email IS ANY

Use tokens of any sort to add value here. Just remember to keep it brief so Sales will use it, rather than get overwhelmed.

Train Sales to Use SFDC Campaigns and Member Status

In addition to the behavioral details that Marketo provides, similar data is also directly in Salesforce. Each Contact and Lead record can show you these details at the bottom of the page or by placing your mouse over the links at the top of the record. If you’ve been syncing Programs to SFDC Campaigns, then all of this data is automatically available. (You have been using Program sync, right?).

This area provides details on Events, Webinars, Trade Shows, and certain email campaigns, which we use to engage our target audience. You can use this detail as part of your follow up or to know their original sources. Marketing relies heavily on this data to manage campaigns, report on successes, etc. Sales people can use it to better understand how the firm is communicating with the Lead.

This is another great reason to always connect your Programs to SFDC Campaigns. The status is updated automatically, providing you and Sales with helpful details about a lead.

Watch Out for Sales Information Overload

Like everyone else, Sales people can get overwhelmed with detail. They may say they want to know all there is to know about a lead, but the reality is they cannot process it all. I have seen too many sales teams with too much information stop using Salesforce+Marketo features to filter out data. When you are considering your Sales-Marketing Alignment, be sure to confirm the minimum amount of detail they need. You can always add more later if you must.

Also keep in mind each sales person processes information and takes action differently. Some sales people LOVE Tasks. Some are more visual and will love MSI and some find the customized Interesting Moments easier to read than SFDC Member Status. If you have been meeting with Sales often, you will have a good idea of what’s going to work best.

Need to train your sales team? Download Selling Faster with Sales Insight. 

 

 

Marketo Forms are a key building block to your lead generation efforts, allowing you to request your audience to provide their contact details in exchange for something. That something could be a Road Show registration, dinner at a trade show, your next webinar, an important white paper, or requesting help. The possibilities are only limited by your ability to market…and your ability to program.

Marketo provides the capability to add nearly any field from your database to a Form. The Form Designer permits all the typical form options you see elsewhere, however, it does have some limitations on the look and feel. The good news is you can customize nearly everything about the Form if you know where to look and how to use Javascript.

Planning and Organizing Forms

Creating a Form is a key skill in Marketo because it helps drive the Email > Page > Form > Database flow of collecting names and activities from Leads.

It is recommended to keep your Forms in Design Studio because you should always have a set of 5 or so standard forms. While it is tempting to allow local asset Forms for Programs, doing this tends to cause issues when less skilled team members create Forms that are not consistent with data rule and don’t bring in the right data. Because so many firms use customized forms and JavaScript, it is crucial that you restrict Form creation to specific power users or heavily train your team on proper use.

Now that you had a chance to try out a Form or two, take a few moments with your team to decide on 3 to 7 standard forms you will use in various situations. Here are some recommendations:

Form Name	Why	Level of Detail Requested
Trade Show Form	For a registering leads for Trade Show meetings.	Medium
Standard Form	Any content sign up (Content Program)	Low
Standard Form Progressive	A progressive version	Progressive
Roadshow Registration	Event sign ups require more detail in most cases.	High / Progressive
Webinar Registration	Quick form for online events.	Low /Progressive
Newsletter Sign Up	For a newsletter or blog email sign up.	Low
Subscription Management	The enhanced and required email preferences form.	Special
Unsubscribe	Marketo’s default Unsubscribe Form	Default, email.

Of course, the fields and names are up to your unique business requirements. Just remember your audience is filling these out, so treat them the way you would want to be treated in the same situation.

As discussed in Naming and Organization, it’s good to keep a solid folder structure and naming scheme for Forms, especially since everyone can see them across the system. Here are a couple of examples:

Trade Show Event – Production
Webinar Registration – Dev (not for use)

Here’s a good example of the folder structure you should use for Forms. This also works well for Landing Pages and Emails.

Refrain from using Forms in Programs, mostly because there’s a tendency for less technical marketers to not use Forms well. Forms are critical to the success of a landing page and data collection. If a step is missed or a form doesn’t ask the right questions, there is a ton of extra work to do.

Social Sign On Forms

Marketo added social sign on where a Lead can use LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter to login, providing you with key details from that network automatically. This data can be fed back into your CRM instead of using another service to pull it. Interesting fields are available to you;

• Gender
• Display Name (Social Displayed Name)
• Photo URL
• Profile URL
• Reach (number of connections)

To do this, you need to Enable Social Sign-on. In the form, just select the option:

Forms and Data Appending Services

A number of firms like DemandBase, ReachForce, and RingLead allow you to pre-populate fields based on the lead’s company. These services are surprisingly accurate. If you can afford it, data appending up front is a great addition to your forms. Marketo has used these services with great success.

Auto Populating Source Data: Hidden Fields and URL Parameters

Often you will have a situation with multiple lead channels coming into an event or webinar. You may need to pay a vendor on a per lead basis or you want to know which promotion channels are working for that event. In Marketo, you have at least two options:

1. Multiple Landing Pages – one for each source.
2. Hidden Fields and URL Parameters, one URL per source, pointing to one page.

Multiple Landing Pages per Partner: One way to keep your data clean is to have 1 page per channel partner or paid referrer. Each page will collect conversion data, allowing a clean audit trail. For example:

• LinkedIn Ad Page
• LinkedIn Discussion Link Page
• Main Webinar Schedule Page
• Facebook Ad Page

Limitations: you will have a lot of forms and pages. It will be hard to manage.

Hidden Field for URL Parameters: In this system, we use the same two fields, but now we set them to use URL Parameters. We can generate a long list of URL combinations for each channel partner. There will be 1 page and 1 form for your Program. To report on this system, you will use a Smart List to pull Leads from this Program who meet Lead Source and Promo Source criteria from the URL Parameters.

In this method, we will add a field to SFDC or Marketo called “Promo Source.”

Note you can use dashes if you like. Here’s an example URL for the field PromoSource (PS) and Lead Source (source).

http://go.yoursite.com/some-page/page-name.html?PS=some-referrer&source=LEADSOURCE-NAME

Setting up URL parameters can be a tedious process, but once it is done, it works very well. The basic steps involve:

1. Set up a table that maps the promotion source to a code you choose “PS=XXXX”.
2. Select the fields that should be hidden, such as Lead Source.
3. Set  Input Type to Hidden.
4. Edit Settings: Default Value=X; Get Dynamic Value: URL Parameter; Parameter Name = source
5. Save
6. Test this form to make sure the values from the URL are being inserted properly.

Caution! Make sure fields like Original Lead Source are field blocked to avoid overwriting data.

Limitations: You may need to setup workflows to manage this and keep a record for each Program. You can make this a bit more complicated, so read up:

• URLs and Hidden Fields
• URL Parameter Creator (xlsx)