LoopFuse Launches CRM Integration Tool

LoopFuse’s new CRM Integration Wizard enables Marketing staff to kick-start their CRM integration by themselves, without having to rely on IT staff or wade through lengthy implementation manuals, or take the historical approach of spending additional budget in costly consulting engagements.

According to LoopFuse, the CRM Integration Wizard is a simple 4-step, event-driven process that walks users through a process that typically takes 5-minutes or less. Users can initiate advanced settings with the user-interface or get additional support and information from contextual articles or community-driven knowledgebase links that are readily available throughout the process.

Upon completion, users can immediately sync their marketing automation database and get leads flowing into their existing CRM system like Salesforce.com or SugarCRM. Click here to read more.

Salesforce.com Hungry for Marketing Automation?

Kevin Joyce is the chief marketing officer at Market2Lead and makes some interesting observations in his article on DestinationCRM entitled Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf? Is Salesforce.com a threat to vendors of marketing automation solutions?

According to Joyce, the most likely technologies to become commoditized and be fully absorbed by midmarket CRMs are:

• all sales person-related functions, such as notifications, alerts, outlook integration, etc.
• lead scoring from the sales perspective
• data quality tools and data enrichment
• technologies related to social media tracking (knowledge management extension)
• telesales and tele-qualification functionality
• pay-per-click tracking
• email marketing
  
• channel management functionality

Least likely to be absorbed within the next two years include technologies such as:

• Web analytics
• asset and content management
• marketing calendars and project management
• marketing planning, budgeting, and financials
• production management
• campaign automation
• response management (dynamic profiling with forms, landing pages, microsites, etc.)
• PR-related technologies
  
• marketing data warehouse

Joyce believes Salesforce.com will likely absorb functionality that has wide appeal to its installed base. That means low end marketing automation vendors and email marketing firms will need to be worried and marketing automation vendors catering to the high-end and midmarket will be in friendly cooperation with the CRM vendors.

Marketing Automation Myths

Marketbright partner, Left Brain Marketing, put together the 5 most common myths about marketing automation.

Myth #1 - It's Easy

The concept isn’t too difficult to grasp, but taking that high-level concept and determining how many touches, what frequency, and which collateral is far from obvious.

Myth #2 - It's Set It and Forget It

Unless you’re working with a consultant, you’ll need time to engage in some trial and error. And regardless of how thorough and comprehensive your analysis process, when you begin you’ll be forced to make assumptions about content, number of touches, lead scoring values, and other key components.

Myth #3 - Complicated Is Better

The reason for starting simple is that you probably don’t know what you don’t know, and that will force you to make many assumptions.

Myth #4 - One Person Can Do It All

The bottom line is that in almost all cases you’ll need two separate people because the tasks require completely different abilities and aptitudes.

Myth #5 - It's Just Like Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is a sales enablement tool that is largely plug-n-play. Sure, you can “customize” it, but that’s a relatively technical project that requires little strategic planning. By contrast, marketing automation is a long journey that will enable the adopter to become a more effective, analytical marketer.

Click here to read the entire article.

Marketing Automation Who's Who

The folks at ReachForce put a nice summary of some of the key players in marketing automation space on their B2B Lead Blog. Here are links to their postings...

Loopfuse

Genius.com

Marketo

Manticore

Marketbright

Pardot

Eloqua

Balihoo Gets $7 Million in VC Funding

Balihoo Inc., a Boise, Idaho-based provider of local online marketing automation for franchises and national brands, has raised $7.05 million in third-round funding. OpenView Venture Partners led the round, and was joined by return backers Highway 12 Ventures and Lacuna Gap Capital. Balihoo previously raised around $5.5 million.

OpenView has invested in other successful software and technology firms like Exact Target.

Balihoo's nich is providing local marketing automation to franchises and national brands with local marketing needs. Clients include Quizno's, Carpet One, and Flooring America.