Social Media Meets Marketing Automation

Marketing automation software is a natural fit to harness the power of social media and Marketo has released Marketo Sales Insight to do just that. Marketo Sales Insight is a native Salesforce.com application that integrates data from Marketo’s existing lead management tool with Salesforce.com’s sales force automation platform.

According to Marketo, the application is social because it allows salespeople to define a network of prospects or current customers and monitor their activity within the Salesforce.com interface with Facebook-style “status updates.” Updates pulled from activity data include visits to pages on the corporate site, e-mail opens and collateral downloads.

The app also can check such business networks as Demandbase, Jigsaw and LinkedIn for additional information on anonymous leads, which are identified by regional or Internet domain details. The application, which adds tabs to the Saleforce.com interface, also provides automated rankings, including “Best Bets” and “Watch” lists. Users can set up instant alerts to be notified of status changes via e-mail or text messages.

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Would Microsoft Buy Salesforce.com?

Bob Evans from Global CIO postulates the idea of a Microsoft aquisition of Salesforce.com in his article entitled Should Microsoft Buy Salesforce.com? Both Salesforce.com and Microsoft CRM are players and in the marketing automation space and while a marriage is highly unlikely, Evans makes some decent points in his article.

Think about it: Microsoft's in a bit of a funk these days and, in the category of broad-based enterprise players, is in danger of being relegated to second-tier status behind Oracle and SAP. It's also been outflanked in high-impact specialty areas such as virtualization by VMware, and business analytics by SAS and others, and enterprise search by Autonomy. Meanwhile, Google presents more threats on multiple strategic fronts from personal apps to enterprise search to the Android operating system, and IBM is making a full-frontal assault on cloud computing and business analytics.

After 10 years of stunning growth, Salesforce last quarter reported for the first time that its first-quarter new-business signings came in below last year's as customers took longer to sign, opted for smaller deals, and pulled back on add-ons and upgrades. That slip led the company to reduce its guidance on full-year revenue growth by 4%. Even with that adjustment, Salesforce still expects revenue for the 12 months ending Jan. 31, 2010, to grow 17% to $1.25 billion, so the company is clearly still expanding. The question is, was that slip in new-business signings purely a factor of the weak global economy, or are the competitors it always calls out -- Oracle, Microsoft, and SAP -- asserting themselves in segments that Salesforce used to dominate?

While Microsoft has been expressing its interest in virtualization and its interest in cloud computing and its interest in SaaS and its interest in business analytics, other companies have been taking leadership roles in those areas: VMware and Citrix in virtualization; Salesforce and Amazon and IBM in cloud computing; Salesforce and Workday and lately Oracle in SaaS; and SAS, IBM, and Oracle in business analytics. And when it comes to those critical and strategic enterprise categories, some CIOs are beginning to wonder whether Microsoft is just interested in participating or if it's fully committed to being a powerful and innovative leader. In that regard, acquiring Salesforce could help Microsoft reset those perceptions more in its favor.

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Manticore Launches Partner Program

Manticore Technology has joined other marketing automation companies like Eloqua in launching a worldwide partner program, which is aimed at increasing distribution of Manticore's platform.

There are two options that partners can choose from.  First, an agency program is said to allow consultants to offer the Manticore Technology solution and associated consulting services to their customers, which will help them to generate new revenues. The agency partners will be allowed to design and execute demand generation and lead nurturing campaigns which is said to improve both the number and the quality of leads passed to sales.

Manticore is also allowing the agency to rent the Manticore marketing automation platform in three, six, or 12 month increments. Above all, the agency will receive a license to utilize Manticore Technology.

The second option is a consultant program, where marketing and sales consultants can deliver strategic services such as marketing-sales alignment, sales pipeline optimization and nurturing campaign design in conjunction with Manticore Technology. Consulting partners under this option will receive training on Manticore Technology and will also receive compensation for introducing Manticore Technology to clients.

"Manticore Technology's Partner Program creates a win-win," said Jeff Erramouspe, president at Manticore Technology, in a release. "The program will offer valuable services to companies in our growing customer base looking to take their marketing automation to the next level, while enabling agencies worldwide to deliver value to their customers through our unrivaled platform.”