Archive for the ‘eMail Marketing’ Category

Market Talk: Marketing Automation in 2007 (2008)

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

As 2007 draws to a close, I thought I’d post my version of a “Year-In-Review” blog covering activity in the marketing automation space. Certainly its been an active year with some M&A and IPO activity, and new startups ramping up, and some complimentary market players diving in. This is, no doubt, a hot space to be in (kinda of reminds me of the early JBoss days), and what makes this an even more exciting time is that there are no clear leaders in the space.

What you will note is a common theme; that everyone (even those in complimentary markets) are moving toward the same objective – a complete and consolidated solution for all marketing (and sales) needs. Its a natural progression, I believe, as the email marketing folks are trying to differentiate themselves out of the race-to-the-bottom pricing effects, analytics companies are under pressure from cheaper and sometimes free alternatives, and marketing automation companies are looking to beat everyone else to be the first with this holy grail of solutions (I don’t believe anyone has it “right” just yet).

So here goes, what I believe were considerable moves in this space for 2007 that will set the stage for it in 2008…

  • Unica: Acquired MarketingCentral (7/07). A good play that helps round out their offering. Not really in the marketing automation space, but I believe to be slowly moving in that direction.
  • ManticoreTechnology: If I get one more resume from anyone working there, I’m going to blow a fuse. Seriously now, can someone just acquire them, and put them out of their misery already? I’m sure there’s something there worth buying, right? Aeron chairs? Foosball tables?
  • Omniture: Acquired WebSideStory (10/07), also launches closed-loop-marketing addition to their offering as a SalesForce.com plugin. I’m betting they’ll make big moves in to this space in ‘08, possibly through further acquisitions and likely with the intent to
    • differentiate themselves with the other web analytics companies they have a history of competing with (enter B2B)
    • seize this soft market in one fail swoop before anyone else can dream of it.
  • Eloqua: Closed a whopping $23m round (11/07) one year after their last round. New CEO seems to have cleaned house of the old guard that were taking the company in to the upper regions of the Canadian tundra (ie. nowhere). Even though they’re hobbled by a surprisingly dysfunctional and overpriced technology offering, they are eagerly locking unsuspecting customers in to multi-year contracts. Smart move, as you’ve been voted most likely to get steamrolled during the mad-dash to consolidate the space. I do sense IPO coming soon for them.
  • Marketo: Popped on the scene early this year with a bucket of cash. One half-baked and feature-lacking product later, they’ve resorted to employing tactics from the”3D Startup Manual”. You haven’t heard of the 3D Startup Manual? It has one page, and it reads “Dillute! Dillute! Dillute!”.
  • Market2Lead: Injection of cash (10/07) by partner Rainmaker Systems may keep these guys afloat a while longer. Their technology is lacking, but its nothing $1m can’t fix, right?
  • SilverPOP: Ye old stomping grounds. Acquired vTrenz (05/07) marketing automation. A good play for the Pop, seeking to break away from the rest of the pack in email marketing. I blogged about this earlier.
  • WebTrends: I have no idea whats happening there. My guess is that 2008 has them following Omniture’s lead in to this space.
  • Aprimo: Filed for IPO (9/07) with a $50m run-rate. Clearly a potential leader in the space that has the potential to swallow up a large chunk of it on its own.

So thats my rather narrow view of the world (well, at least the bits I’d openly share). I won’t share any major plans regarding where LoopFuse is headed in ‘08, except to say that we will strive as hard as possible to shatter the dreams of all of those mentioned above by continuing to build a world-class platform, while providing solutions for our growing clientèle. ;-)

Sales Alerts, its all about timing

Monday, November 12th, 2007

In the last LoopFuse release, we added sale alerts per a customer’s request. This new feature would allow sales persons to be notified via e-mail if any lead they owned visited their web site or opened an e-mail from them (immediately after the event occurred). I admit, I didn’t fully understand why it was so important for the sales person to be notified in real time, but as the saying goes, the customer is always right.

Recently I was on a call with the same customer about some of the other new features we had added. I felt compelled to ask about why it was so important that they know about lead activity as it was happening. He proceeded to tell me about a lead that he been trying to reach for a week. He had left voice mail, sent e-mails, etc. and could never get in touch with his lead. Then a few days later (thinking the lead had gone cold), he got an e-mail alert that his lead was on their web site at that very moment. He immediately called the lead, knowing that the lead was at his desk and thinking about his company. His lead picked up the phone and he was able to engage his lead and start a meaningful conversation about the value his company could provide to the lead.