May 6, 2013
It’s been a few weeks since the Marketo User Summit took place in downtown San Francisco, the largest Summit yet with approximately 2,800 current and prospective users in attendance. The theme for this year’s conference was “A Brave New You,” with various Marketo experts and industry thought leaders speaking on our abilities as individual marketers within the Marketing Nation.
Now that the keynotes and breakaway sessions are over, I’ve had some time to mull over my thoughts from the Summit. Here are a couple of takeaways I think are worth mentioning from the conference:
- Marketing automation is not a replacement technology
Marketing automation is a great way to take control of the customer experience, measure marketing ROI, and drive revenue, but marketers need to remember that automation is only a portion of their customer experience strategy. When it comes to marketing automation, creating and keeping content relevant is key-especially as what is “relevant” is always evolving.
As marketers, we have the ability to know what content people are interested in by what they look at and click on, or understand important details about a person’s buying behavior (i.e. see who wants to talk to sales and who doesn’t, or see who likes to correspond via email and who likes speaking to someone directly)– Always keep these things in mind when you’re building your campaigns.
- The importance of social marketing – B2B still means people to people
Social marketing grants your customers a forum for open communication with your company and allows you to stay engaged, get to know your customers as individuals (not just a company), and find out what their needs are. After all, marketing is about addressing people and problems, not just the product, so find out what people are saying and respond to it.
When you post content, encourage readers to share it. Social media “shares” and “likes” give direct insight to who your influencers are and enables you to reward them for speaking positively about your company. Providing quick social share buttons with your content make the task of sharing easier and the act of sharing more likely to occur.
During the Summit, many of the speakers were encouraging attendees to post their learnings on their social media pages. If you were questioning the impact of social media, it was made a little more evident when #MUS13 started trending on Twitter that week.
- Get to know the people behind the titles/company
People shouldn’t just be viewed as “leads” or “contacts.” More often than not, a sale involves interaction with more than one person at a company, each with their own unique buying journey. Maintain quality engagement with each person individually and track your progress through lead scoring in your marketing platform. The key is to know the people behind purchasing decisions and help prepare them for a sale.
With all the marketing tools currently available to us, we as marketers have the ability to be change agents in our companies and industries. As Phil Fernandez, CEO of Marketo, puts it: “You are moving your industries forward. We’re calling this the Marketing Nation– the network that allows you to help your companies and organizations go from good to great… You are pioneers in changing yourselves, your business, and your careers.”