Holiday Carol: Eloqua Fideles
Sung to the tune of the carol “Adeste Fideles” (O Come, All Ye Faithful).
Eloqua Fideles potens efficax,
Ventum, ventum ut vestrum website.
Factus vidéte, Regem Venalicium!
Veníte nurtureus,
Veníte nurtureus
Veníte nurtureus Prospicio!
Cantet nunc io chorus vendelorum
cantet nunc aula gubernatorium:
Gloria in excelsis venditio!
Veníte nurtureus,
Veníte nurtureus
Veníte nurtureus Prospicio!
The Marketing Consigliere requests that Latin teachers refrain from putting a contract out on him for hacking up their dear language.
Ah, yesterday’s blog featured a song that at least was in English, but The Marketing Consigliere felt it was necessary to raise the bar. Obviously most of you will not take the time to translate this Christmas Carol parody, but it also serves a point – smart marketing means a lot of work. And Eloqua, a leader in the Marketing Automation arena, put together a great holiday greeting that underscores the greater importance of Marketing in a network centric world.
Many Marketing Automation vendors including Eloqua, Marketo, Manticore, and Marketbright have each created platforms for marketers that solve fundamental and historical problems which have plagued Marketing’s effectiveness within an organization, especially with respect to its relationship with sales.
What happens to leads? What is a qualified lead? When should a lead be turned over to sales? What campaigns are more effective than others? What frequency and intensity of lead nurturing are most successful? What issues are most important to a particular prospect? The vendors listed above all provide the tools that can help Marketers better gather, store, analyze, share, and act upon data that provides answers to these and many other questions. However, there is a catch.
Your Marketing department must evolve to use it. “Branding,” “Marcom,” and other “creative” professionals must take a back seat to the new breed of Marketers – consisting of technologists, analysts, and linguists who can run sophisticated interactive dialogue with an audience. The former group is still important, but the latter group with their skills must be given the leadership positions to forge the organization ahead. Do you have these kind of people?
Using Marketing Automation requires more skills; this is not just “email blasts;” the tools are complex to set up and must be managed; they are not “plug and play.” They take time to configure and master. They tend to be expensive, especially in light of the current economy and the “we’ve never done anything like this before” attitude that pervades organizations with Marketing departments that are overworked, underpaid and understaffed. But the cost of not deploying these solutions is greater. Unfortunately most organizations do not understand these opportunity costs.
However, the Marketing Consigliere has yet to meet a Marketer with tools like Eloqua et.al. who hasn’t said that they couldn’t do their job properly without Marketing Automation now. It makes a huge difference in their relationship with Sales and makes them feel a greater stake in helping with the top line.
Will your organization make the leap forward in 2010? You better. As the business world gives you more opportunity to reach out to prospects and customers who are candidates for the types of solutions you offer, will you know when they are ready, or will you simply have some green salesperson cold call them when they aren’t in a buying mode and turn them off?