Eloqua – Page 9

August 1, 2012 by Marc Hausman

Say “Hey” to All About Experience

A constant in my two decades of work in the technology industry is the fact that life at an emerging growth software firm is not for the faint of heart.

It takes a Herculean effort to balance the intensity of product definition and development, sales and marketing execution and customer implementation and support, with ever mounting capital requirements. Regardless of how innovative the solution, the vast majority of start-ups are destined for irrelevance.

That’s why now is such an exciting time to be associated with Eloqua, a firm considered to be the most successful marketing automation software company in the industry.

Led by CEO Joe Payne, Eloqua helped create the marketing automation space and then convinced a myriad of corporate marketers to adopt their innovative platform. Moreover, Eloqua’s Revenue Performance Methodology has redefined how many organizations approach the sales and marketing process.

My consultancy – Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) – is an Eloqua referral partner. Three of our marquee clients (Blue Coat Systems, Mandiant and Polycom) use Eloqua. We’re working with each to utilize Eloqua for lead scoring and lead nurturing in a field sales environment.

This brings me to Eloqua Experience 2012, the company’s annual user conference scheduled for November 6 – 8 in Orlando, Florida. I’m excited to participate as one of the featured speakers on day two. My topic:

Fortune One: How to Grow Your Company’s Business in the $41B US Federal Government Market

I also sought to identify a way to contribute to Eloqua’s continued success, while enhancing my own prospects at Eloqua Experience. That desire led to the creation of this special section on my Strategic Guy blog.

Entitled “All About Experience,” I will publish high value content weekly in a couple of areas:

–Exclusive interviews with Eloqua executives

–Profiles of conference speakers and attendees

–A round up of Eloqua related news, analysis and insight

Please subscribe by Email, add this site to your RSS reader and visit often. I also encourage you to Email me at mhausman@gotostrategic.com or call me at (240) 485-1080 if you plan to attend Eloqua Experience. It would be great to meet up.

July 25, 2012 by Marc Hausman

In Social Media, Top of the Funnel is About Lead Introduction – Not Creation

Yesterday I gave a presentation to a field sales team at Pitney Bowes Software about how we can work collaboratively on our Engage Today social media marketing program to support their tactical success.

I focused the discussion on the four high value sales outcomes we have been able to consistently deliver:

-Lead introduction

-Lead nurturing

-Deal capture

-Competitive intelligence

This was the first time I swapped out lead generation for lead introductionin a presentation.

Why the change?

As Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) has matured its business-to-business and public sector focused “social media for sales” programs on behalf of clients like Pitney Bowes, Polycom, British Telecom (BT), Intelsat, Blue Coat Systems, Mandiant and others, we have recognized that a lead generation expectation simply isn’t realistic.

Companies place considerable weight on quantity when evaluating the effectiveness of a tactical approach for lead creation. It’s understandable because corporate marketers can model top of the funnel leads to an anticipated revenue output.

While our programs have demonstrated the ability to produce new leads through premium content offers, they are not at a level that survives a cost per lead analysis. It’s because of this that my recent pitch to two exceptionally qualified and interesting prospects fell short.

Lead introduction though is achievable and, in my opinion, of equal (if not greater) value in a business-to-business and public sector context. That’s because the majority of vendors sell multimillion dollar, enterprise solutions to executive level decision-makers.

Whether a company is pushing product, service or a combination of the two, it is a consultative sell. Executive buyers have to be educated and, equally critical, a relationship defined by trust must be established.

Education via thought leadership content and customer or prospect intimacy – those are the core tenets of an effective social media initiative.

Andrew Gaffney, Editor, DemandGen Report — DemandGen Report's Gaffney: Execs are socially engaged.

A wonderfully composed guest post on Marketo’s blog by Andrew Gaffney of DemandGen Report validates my view on lead introduction as a realistic social media for sales outcome. Gaffney presents three key points:

1. Executives play a prominent role in the buying process;

2. These executive rely heavily upon peer reviews, feedback and content-sharing to inform their buying decisions; and

3. Social media even more popular among executives than it is among their subordinates.

Say “Hey” to All About Experience

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