FatStax is Phat for Marketing Automation

Allinio was at Marketo‘s 2013 User Summit last week.  Yes, it was fantastic.  Yes, Marketo is clearly doing some innovative things for its customers.  Yes, their platform is poised to proliferate more Marketer’s devices in light of its fortchoming IPO.  However, we’re not talking going to comment on Marketo directly today.  Rather, we are going to share with you the efforts of a company that is part of their “LaunchPoint” ecosystem of companies that add value to the Marketo platform…

Those big bashes at conferences do make for good networking.  While savoring mini-carnitas tacos, we had the pleasure to meet Josh Krasengor, CMO of Red Funnel Consulting, the developers of FatStax.  FatStax is a mobile app that basically records a salesperson’s use of a touch screen when presenting customers in a face-to-face scenario.  We had some questions for Josh to explain this useful too.

Allinio: How does your product/service allow Marketers to better gather, analyze, share, and act upon data?

Krasengor: Corporate marketers don’t have visibility into real-time sales activity in the field.  Additionally, field marketers and salespeople are often too busy to enter leads in a timely manner or document the details about face-to-face interactions with prospects. They also sometimes lack the appropriate tools. Consequently, organizations miss out on the opportunity to coordinate their sales and marketing efforts to earn optimal returns on their marketing automation investments.

FatStax Marketo Mobile Marketing Automation Integration allows organizations to eliminate the disconnect between sales and marketing operations when it comes to capturing leads and documenting sales engagement. With just a few taps on an iPad, field personnel can document leads and interesting moments, and send them to marketing automation, like Marketo in real time. At the same time, reps can send product information to a lead or respond to a lead inquiry via email.

Allinio: What is the value proposition of your product/service to Marketers?

Krasengor: This mobile marketing automation process eliminates the communication gap between field sales teams and marketing by giving field reps the ability to quickly and easily enter leads and interesting moments into their marketing automation tool directly from their iPads. Lead data can be instantly included in marketing automation nurturing programs and your organization can make the most of each acquisition dollar spent.  What you’re actually doing is extending the reach of marketing automation campaigns into the field, thus creating an onsite marketing automation channel

Let me spell out the benefits clearly for your readership:

1. Extend the reach of marketing automation campaigns into the field creating an onsite marketing automation channel
2. Improve collaboration between sales and marketing
3. Capture a larger number of interesting moments and gauge the level of product interest for more leads
4. Generate more MQLs
5. Start the lead nurturing process sooner
6. Target leads more appropriately
7. Track the effectiveness and usage of marketing assets to identify the content that best drives conversion
8. iPads are cool and much more effective way to engage prospects and sell

Allinio: What is a common misconception that the market has about your product/service?

Krasengor: The FatStax Mobile Marketo Automation Integration is a new concept that solves the business problem and fixes the disconnect between marketing in sales. There is not much misconception, however since it is a new concept, people are just beginning to realize the potential that mobility brings to sales and marketing. Mobility, via the iPad, opens a new channel for marketing automation. Right now, we want to educate marketers that mobility can fix the disconnect with marketing and sales and make your marketing automation programs much more successful. And, sales can be more productive with the right content on their iPads.

Allinio: What is the most successful or innovative use of your product/service by a business to date?

Krasengor: We just announced the FatStax Mobile Marketo Integration partnership and we have a few customers that are also Marketo clients, and some have a strong background with marketing automation, so there is big interest in this integration. We have existing customers with global sales teams using FatStax. Think about how many interesting moments those sales teams can be capturing in the field and sending to marketing for nurturing in a marketing automation campaigns?

Allinio: What is your greatest challenge as a marketing organization?

Krasengor: If you asked me this question two years ago, I would have told you the disconnect between marketing and sales around leads and CRM was my biggest challenge to solve. But now, since we use our own products and put our money where our mouth is, we don’t have this challenge. Now the biggest challenge as a marketing organization is communicating our solution to the world. When you have a powerful new concept like mobile marketing automation and are leading a new mobile revolution, you really have to educate people about what it is first and peak their interest before you run out and sell. Being a smaller company that is growing, this process takes time and is a challenge, but once people start to understand mobile marketing automation and see results, this challenge will minimize and it will become standard.

Allinio: Josh, thanks for the demo and explanation.  This fills a need out in the field and saves a rep time.  Rather than do something and log it or vice versa, you are doing both at the same time.   Plus you can’t count on the prospect to download things on their own time so this is a good way to see that it gets done, especially when it comes to initiating them into a nurturing program.    It will really become valuable when a company has a wide range of content that the rep can send based on buying role, buying stage, and some personal attributes.  Hopefully the reps will adopt this tool when they see how easy it is to use.  Good luck in the rest of 2013!