I attended Marketo’s Social Marketing RockStar Tour today in Costa Mesa, California. It was headed up by an enthusiastic Sanjay Dholakia and his team. There were about 100+ attendees, participants, and customers there. There were several excellent panels and presentations given. Here are are few highlights.
Jason Reiher, a Marketing Analyst for Insight Integrated Systems and a Marketo client since 2011, presented their business case for Marketo. Their key drivers for choosing Marketo included:
– Process Automation
– Integration with Salesforce
– Consolidation of Marketing Assets
– Customization
He feels that Marketo has transformed their business by giving them more accurate metric information in the following areas: Lead scoring, List choices, marketing activities, rankings, segmentation, reporting, ROI, business intelligence, and social media.
A panel consisting of several Marketo consultants included Craig Probus of RevCult, Anja Miller of CRMFusion, Jack Volkov of Rightscale, and Luke Freiler of Centercode. The group shared several online tools and ideas that they liked. Here is a list of some of those resources:
http://www.olark.com/ – To help you track live chat sessions
http://jquerymobile.com/ – Helps you to build mobile friendly content
http://www.getflow.com/ – Collaboration systems
http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/overview – Collaboration software
http://www.printsf.com/ – allows users to integrate print with their Salesforce data
http://www.crmfusion.com/peopleimport/ – allows easier imports to Salesforce
http://www.dudamobile.com/ – make your website mobile – many free options
http://insight.ly/ – a CRM for Google Apps
Jason Romley, of Column Five does content marketing consulting, specializing in PR and Infographics. I loved his presentation.
“Visual is the future.” Said Jason. He pointed out that we’re drowning in content and “dying through text” and that visual content is the solution. His list of visual solutions included:
– Comics
– Memes
– Infographics
– Videos
– Visual Note-Taking
But he also highlighted the need for a strategy to ensure that our visual content is successful. You must know who you’re reaching out to and use that information to customize and choose content and formats that they will care about. You also need to focus on great design and branding that includes appropriate colors and themes.
He asked, “Where will you promote? What blogs? What sites? What social networks?”
Column Five has done work for software companies (Microsoft) and hospitality providers (Marriott). Some of their work has brought as many as 60k unique visitors to client’s sites within a few days.
Here are a few of the categories and highlights he discussed in his presentation:
– Static Infographics – the most common type – They tend to be editorial or brand-centric but editorial infographics are more sharable.
– Thought leadership is effective too. He pointed out that there is no true formula for “virality” (except for cats – :-))
– Motion and interactive infographics encompass adding video, motion, or interactivity.
These can be created using:
– Fixed Information, Manual Updates
– Fixed Information, Automated Updates
– Dynamic Information, Automated Updates.
On how to share your story, he pointed out that there are two important considerations:
– On-Page Optimization
– Distribution Of Your Content
It is important to make sure you have your social graph buttons on page and that you collect email addresses on your page to build your email list. Also, don’t forget to add working embed codes to your pages. Partnering and co-brand with another organization is a good way to expand your reach.
Finally, Jason said, “CopyPasta puts viewers into copycomas. You need more than just white papers.” He feels that it is very important to develop a relationship with a visual design firm. He was generous to give us an infographic resource: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/
Summary
I like Marketo. They will make MarketingAutomation.com’s Top 20 Small-Business-Friendly Vendor’s List this year. This is not because of their pricing (which is why they were number 21 on my list last year) but because of their valuable outreach efforts. Marketo is a company that “eats their own dog food”, practices what they preach. Their outreach educates small business owners, salespeople, and marketers who need this valuable content. I like poetry and music. On the way home this little jingle came to my mind:
Marketo is strong and delicious
For marketers, salespeople too.
It helps them to both come together
Old systems we will bid adieu.
Impl-e-ment, Impl-e-ment
Implement Marketo today, today
Impl-e-ment, Impl-e-ment
Implement Marketo today!
(Sing to the tune of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”)
Call me corny; Guilty. BTW, I thought of changing the end of the first line to “effective”. I ended up liking “delicious” better. Tell me if I’m wrong; you’ll end up humming this tune for the rest of the day. 🙂
