LoopFuse Blog – The Mouth of the Funnel

Welcome Cindy Ryan, Director of Marketing

July 20th, 2010 by Sean Dwyer

I would like to welcome Cindy Ryan to the Loopfuse team. Cindy joins us as Director of Marketing at a time of rapid growth for our company especially with the recent launch of Loopfuse Freeview, the first and only freemium marketing automation offering. Without question, Cindy’s marketing experience and Loopfuse knowledge will be a huge asset both internally and externally. Specifically, Cindy led and executed marketing campaigns for JBoss (acquired by Redhat), a highly successful open source software company and where she worked with our founders, and led daily marketing operations for Joe McGonnell at Openspan using Loopfuse OneView. As a Loopfuse user, Cindy will be invaluable not only to Loopfuse internally but also to our prospects and customers by sharing her Loopfuse OneView experience to help them make marketing profitable within their own organizations. So if you are a Loopfuse prospect or customer, please expect to hear from Cindy on how she uses Loopfuse to drive opportunities and ultimately revenue.

Cindy, on behalf of the Loopfuse community, we’re glad you joined us to help transform the marketing automation industry.

Tags: Marketing
Posted in LoopFuse, Market Talk, Marketing | No Comments »

Why APIs Matter

July 14th, 2010 by Tom Elrod

One of the primary functions of a Marketing Automation system is to automate tasks that would otherwise be a manual process, just as the name itself would imply. However, what is often missed is this automation can expand outside of the product itself. Using application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate with internal systems can also help automate systems running outside the Marketing Automation system as well. LoopFuse offers a wide variety of webservice APIs to allow for such automated integration.

For example, with the LoopFuse webservice APIs, users can make programmatic calls into their account to send out email campaigns. This can be useful for internal processes such as an account management system where automatically sending out a warning email that a client’s account is about to expire would be desired. There are LoopFuse customers using this functionality today within their internal account management system to trigger the sending of a pre-build email campaign with the notice of expiration via the LoopFuse webservice API. This not only allows for their marketing team to control and manage the content and messaging of the email notice, it also allows them to track the email campaign to see if the recipient opened the email and took action based on the email. It is even possible for them to then put the recipient into an automated lead nurturing program to monitor these tracking events and automatically follow up via a follow up email or CRM activity if the recipient had not performed an action within a given amount of time.

Not only does LoopFuse allow for inbound webservice calls, but users can utilize outbound webservice calls within their lead nurturing programs. This is important because it allows automated workflows to incorporate specific internal business data points within the decision logic of the workflow.

One LoopFuse customer uses the outbound webservice call feature within their lead nurturing program to determine how best help their users who may be having trouble. Once an end-user downloads their demo software, they will be placed into a lead nurturing program within the customer’s LoopFuse account. The next day, their lead nurturing program will make a webservice call to their internal system to see if the end-user has installed and run the downloaded demo. If not, an email will be sent to the end-users asking if they are having trouble installing the software along with troubleshooting tips. If they have installed and run the software, then the end-user will be sent an email covering more of the advance features of the software to help them progress further. The lead nurturing program will even monitor via an outbound webservice call to see if the software has been uninstalled and email the end-user a survey to get feedback on their experience with the demo.

For more information on the LoopFuse webservice API, check out our reference documentation on outbound webservice API and lead nurturing nodes.

Posted in LoopFuse, Marketing Automation, OneView, Technology | 1 Comment »

The Value in Free Marketing Automation

July 6th, 2010 by Roy Russo

End the Status Quo in Marketing Automation

Last week marked a dramatic turning-point for us at LoopFuse and the general Marketing Automation sector, with the unveiling of our Free Marketing Automation offering, FreeView. The release of FreeView and a new low-cost, zero-risk pricing model, marks an almost year’s-worth of work in planning and infrastructure investment geared to accelerate the adoption of Marketing Automation.

The Value to Marketers

While most in the industry often reference a Forrester report claiming 5% penetration in the Marketing Automation sector, the unusual thing is that no one seems to wonder (publicly) why the rate of growth isn’t much higher given the value Marketing Automation provides.

So allow me to rain on the price-gouging parade. Many of our competitors would have you convinced that Marketing Automation is reserved for marketers with million-dollar budgets, dedicated staff to manage the tools, and a bus-load of expensive professional services representatives to “help” them manage it. “Oh, marketing automation is much too complex for you mere mortal marketers…”, the million-dollar-quota sales-rep claims. In many ways, our competitors are distorting the market by projecting their own enterprise-sales commission structure on to you. The model works for them, at the cost of the consumer (your arm, and your leg). In a market with single-digit penetration, and many competitors continuing to follow Eloqua in to the realm of pricing-out the masses, it is evident that many marketers are simply priced-out of the market. And so now the high price barrier to entry for marketers wanting to adopt marketing automation is lowered to ZERO.

The benefits to marketers under this innovative model are clear:

Zero-Risk: Sign-up and use a full-featured marketing automation product for FREE. Forever.
Easy-to-Use: A complete wizard-based user-interface will have you up-and-running in minutes, identifying high-quality leads, sending email campaigns, and tracking lead conversion rates.
Help at your fingertips: Our comprehensive knowledge base and community site is backed by LoopFuse support staff and community members exchanging ideas and best-practice advice.

The value in “free, forever” to marketers is clear with a zero-risk, easy-to-use, supported, and proven product.

The Value to Partners

As individual marketers benefit from a free offering, so do our Partners. The benefits are actually much more clear to partners, as they are now able to fully-implement a customer for FREE and not have to worry about the product vendor affecting their pricing structure. To a Partner, the relationship becomes pure-profit, and not revenue-sharing, as our competitors would enforce.

Last week, the status-quo of distorting the market with overpriced products ended. Marketing Automation is now open to any and every marketer, to use it for Free Forever. No strings attached, no bait and switch, no credit cards required. Just Sign-up and you’re ready to go in minutes.

Thoughts on the announcement, by others:

Tags: Demand Generation, Freemium, LoopFuse, Marketing Automation, Marketing Channels, Salesforce.com Integration
Posted in Forrester, Freemium, LoopFuse, Marketing, Marketing Automation, OneView | 1 Comment »

Why Free? Why Now?

June 30th, 2010 by Matthew Quinlan

Earlier today we announced the release of LoopFuse FreeView, a free version of our popular OneView marketing automation service. The decision to take LoopFuse freemium was made almost a year ago and we have spent much of that time preparing for this launch. After briefing some of the analysts, journalists, and bloggers who cover this space I realized that many of the questions they posed regarding our adoption of freemium may be of interest to others.

Why Now?

The timing of this move is based on several factors. Digital marketing is no longer a niche part of the overall marketing budget. It is quickly becoming the dominant channel for marketers to reach their prospects and their budgets are reflecting this trend. Zenith Optimedia reports in their Advertising Expenditure Forecasts that online advertising spend has doubled in the past 4 years and Forrester’s data indicates that it will likely double again in the next 4-5 years.

We have also witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of digital touchpoints over the past few years from traditional email marketing and website click tracking, to banner ads, SEO, paid search, online events, communities, and the onslaught of social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. By tracking every one of these touchpoints for each prospect we can create an extensive behavioral dossier that allows marketers to gauge and engage prospects more effectively before they are handed to sales.

If DIGITAL is the future of marketing then MARKETING AUTOMATION is the future of digital. However most analysts in the space estimate market penetration for marketing automation is between 5 and 10%, meaning that the space is still in its infancy. The most technically sophisticated marketing organizations (e.g. software companies) are, of course, the early adopters. These organizations pay a premium to gain a strategic advantage through the adoption of new technology and marketing automation vendors are likewise able to charge a fat premium to provide this advantage.

Unfortunately, many of these services require require 12 or 24 month subscription contracts, professional services implementation consultants, onsite training, and often a pricing model based on the size of your wallet. All of these factors create artificial barriers to adoption, especially for SMB companies. Organizations who do take the plunge face a daunting task of evaluating an overcrowded vendor list with minimal distinction and hope that they make the right decision. The time is right for marketing automation to “tip” and become a tool for the 90-95% of B2B companies who have yet to adopt it.

Why Free?

As certain markets mature, a disruptive player sometimes steps in to challenge the accepted pricing model in the interest of mass market adoption. Sometimes it’s a free on-ramp that lowers the barriers to adoption. Other times it’s a massive price reduction in the market. Either way it provides the opportunity for a de-facto provider to emerge. Over the past decade we have seen several examples of this : PayPal did it to Western Union, opensource software did it to proprietary software, Skype did it to the telcos, AVG and Avast did to McAfee and Norton, and DimDim is doing it to Webex right now. A highly efficient sales, distribution, and support model can disrupt high-touch / high-margin industries by providing a cost effective alternative for the masses.

Freemium business strategies can be very challenging to organizations who are not well prepared. For example, sales teams and processes must be able to adapt to the internal competition provided by the free offering. Infrastructure and architecture must be designed to scale for massive volume. The user experience must be refined to enable mere mortals to be productive without week-long training courses. And dozens of other changes must be undertaken to support freemium. Balancing what is provided gratis against what is available to paying customers. Lucky for us, all of the members of LoopFuse’s executive team have experience in freemium and/or opensource (which is a flavor of freemium).

With the introduction of FreeView, LoopFuse provides an on-ramp that will allow SMB marketers in the B2B space to adopt marketing automation without the hassle and cost previously required. Use it for free and prove to yourself that marketing automation can benefit your organization with zero risk.

Posted in Blogroll, Freemium, LoopFuse, Marketing Automation, OneView | 2 Comments »

LoopFuse OneView 3.26 Released!

June 21st, 2010 by Roy Russo

Enhancements in this Release:

The Company Fuse Bar

The Company Dashboard now sports a nifty new feature, we’ve labeled the “Company Fuse Bar”. The Company Fuse Bar is meant to serve as a visual indicator of how your marketing efforts have penetrated a specific company. The key set of metrics used are WebPage visits, Email Campaign opens and clicks, CRM Leads and/or Contacts created, and Lead Capture forms submitted.

Company Dashboard Enhancements

Several new enhancements were made to the Company Dashboard, but aside from a general face-lift, you can now view all marketing touchpoints for a specific company: From Lead Capture Forms submitted to Email Marketing Campaigns opened and clicked…

Current users will see a new set of tabs along the top of the Company Dashboard page. Each of these tabs displays content and charts that focus on a specific set of marketing events or touchpoints your organization has had with a specific company. Read the Documentation

CRM Lead and Contact Reports with GeoIP

Two new reports were added that enrich the Reports Manager experience. These new reports display daily view of all Leads and/or Contacts created within the CRM. Additionally, we have added GeoIP information to these (and many other) reports.

Special thanks to our customers for submitting these and other feature requests via the LoopFuse Community!

Tags: Demand Generation, LoopFuse, Marketing, Marketing Automation
Posted in CRM Integration, Lead Management Automation, LoopFuse, Marketing, Marketing Automation, OneView, Sales, Salesforce.com, Web Analytics, eMail Marketing | No Comments »

The Most Interesting Marketer in the World

June 18th, 2010 by Sean Dwyer

While you have all heard of the most Interesting Man in the World…..

Introducing

the

most Interesting Marketer in the World: http://bit.ly/b5OhIs; http://bit.ly/aWzGXc

Tags: Marketing Automation
Posted in Lead Management Automation, LoopFuse, Marketing, Marketing Automation | No Comments »

The Future of Marketing Automation

June 16th, 2010 by mtewksbury

Over the last couple of years, particularly in the marketing space, nothing has been hotter than the marketing automation space. The promise of doing more with less, speeding response times, and focusing sales efforts on the most likely prospects have held wide appeal during these lean times.

Looking to the future of the space, however, I think the near term promise is going to have less to do with the automation and more with the data capture. As digital begot social, and social continued to fuel the adoption of digital it cumulatively is changing the face of marketing.

When the current crop of marketing automation tools was built email marketing was pretty much the centerpiece of an online strategy. Connect an outbound email to eventual web site behavior and you really had something. Largely this really is no longer the case. Email is rapidly approaching extinction as an acquisition vehicle. Today you need more diversity in your mobile mix that equally represents web, search, email, display, social syndication, social engagement, and some cases mobile.

One of the most intriguing early features of marketing automation was the ability to spot and track the behavioral trends of customers. Steven Woods over at Eloqua did a great job of describing this in his book Digital Body Language. As digital volumes grow his perspective becomes more and more relevant. The challenge now lies in figuring out how to do this in the multi-channel, digital world.

The future of marketing, all marketing, lies in the ability to craft relevant offers to much smaller audiences. What will fuel this is the ability to capture integrated customer profiles that span all the relevant channels. Customers are sharing more data than ever before and the smart marketer will use that to inform their creative, improve their offers, and begin a dialog with their customer.

Tags: Demand Generation, Digital Body Language, Eloqua, Integrated Profile Management, Marketing Automation, Steven Woods
Posted in LoopFuse, Market Talk, Marketing, Marketing Automation, OneView, Sales, Uncategorized, Web Analytics | 1 Comment »

OneView Plugin for WordPress

May 28th, 2010 by Richard Murdock

As companies look for comprehensive CMS website solutions, a site powered by WordPress is an increasingly popular option. They find that WordPress sites are flexible and powerful enough to serve their business needs at the right cost.

With that in mind, LoopFuse is happy to announce that we have made the process of incorporating our tracking code in to your WordPress website very simple. The LoopFuse OneView plug-in for WordPress allows you to quickly instrument your website to take full advantage of OneView without having to edit the template directly. This makes instrumentation much faster and easier.

Simply enter your Customer ID in to your WordPress settings screen to enable the LoopFuse OneView tracking code on each page of your site. You’re now collecting data on visiting prospects and ready to use that information to help qualify Prospects and Leads.

Tags: instrumentation, Marketing Automation, OneView, WordPress
Posted in LoopFuse, OneView | No Comments »

Oracle acquires a million lines of code

May 26th, 2010 by Roy Russo

Yesterday, Oracle announced the acquisition of long-time Marketing Automation vendor, Market2Lead. The acquisition marks the first in the space by a major player in the CRM market, and a public company. Although many of the pundits have suggested a coming wave of acquisitions, I’m not so bullish on that transpiring any time soon as we are living in an economy that’s in the doldrums and are working in a space that’s overcrowded and growing slowly (less than 5% penetration to-date, according to Forrester). Good/Healthy acquisitions don’t happen on this setting.

So let’s paint the picture with our reality brush…

Oracle acquires a company’s IP, throws up a one-line blurb on their site, and releases no further details on the move. So we have no big PR announcement, no big analyst briefing… nothing, nada, niente. The company never took a round of funding and seemed to have stalled on growth over the last few years.

Now that the picture is painted (it’s really more like a doodle), it should be pretty clear that this thing was not Oracle buying a winner in the space for its customers and wanting to extend its reach. This was Oracle buying quicker time-to-market for tech they can integrate in to their offering. Tech-buys are low-dollar, scuttle-the-ship acquisitions, by nature.

We don’t care about your customers or your revenue, because it’s insignificant.

We want your bits and bytes. Everyone can go work at Wal-Mart, now.

Kind Regards,

Larry!

Here’s why the acquisition does matter to the rest of us (in the short-run):

If Oracle can integrate this thing in to their offering and make it work, now we have a major player in the CRM market with true Marketing Automation capabilities. Oracle is very good at acquiring, and integrating companies. If they can make MA grow within their product-line, that is a signal to other players to start buying. Will that push SalesForce.com in to a buy? SFDC seems to only buy Java, so there are slim pickings in this market… who knows? (Did I mention LoopFuse was built on Java?)
This is a sign of things to come… sort of. Jep Castelein and David Raab point to the fact that the space is overcrowded. The herd will be thinned, and I believe the shake-out will look more like this over the next couple of years. Those executing, innovating, and performing well will carve out their niches, all others will either go belly-up or get acquired for assets. The potential market is enormous, larger than the CRM market, so there will be room for several players at the top (LoopFuse is one of those and maybe Eloqua) .
Expanding on #2 above. Look for Email Marketing and Web Analytics vendors to gobble-up some Marketing Automation players. The world is moving away from batch-n-blast marketing and simple Web Analytics tracking. MA is the future. A few years ago, my old stomping grounds SilverPop (Hi, Bill!) acquired vTrenz. Expect more of that in the next 2-3 years. Again, these are mostly tech-buys.

Personally I believe this to be a non-event in the immediate and short-run. The impact may be felt in the long-run, once Oracle re-brands and integrates this thing.

Posted in LoopFuse, Market Talk, Marketing Automation | No Comments »

Welcome Cindy Ryan, Director of Marketing

Why APIs Matter