Two other toughts — the opposite POV from my original post — on how going ’simple’ with SFC.com and a few add-ons may have additional impact that still requires a more-robust demand-gen or marketing automation/EMM platform:

> One overall goal in becoming more customer-centric is in personalizing both the dialogue and the communication channels. The stronger automation platforms already handle a number of diverse channels, and top-tier demand-gen platforms also are multi-channel. This is something that may be critical even if you have a smaller number of customers.

> Related to this, smart ‘automated’ dialogue in nurturing requires smart content management strategies, and this is a component of several of the more-robust platforms. Again, I think that — particularly for sales to less clients but with more-sophisticated, consultative purchases — this is something you may not want to walk away from.

So my challenge in re-designing your system would be this: What steps will make you more customer-centric and help you improve your customer engagement and subsequent revenue opportunity? vs. Can I get the same functionality for less money?

This has been a really great thought excercise. Thanks, again, for this post.

Our take:
- The CRM should become a source of information instead of a data entry system.
Data from website, email, Internet all has to come together
- Email marketing has had its’ best time
- People prefer to find information on the Internet themselves instead of being pushed.
- Trade shows might just be on their path to extinction due to the search engines who have turned the Internet into a 24/7 worldwide trade show.

What I would miss the most:
-The community. It’s difficult to put a price on having fellow marketers around you that you can meet with and discuss your common challenges and opportunities. In addition, marketing automation organizations typically understand your marketing goals from end to end from campaign management, lead management, contact management and marketing effectiveness. They can guide you down a path or “marketing journey” that will help you achieve your goals more quickly.
@chadhorenfeldt

This is the ‘third camp’ I’ve discussed in my own blog pieces (see link), and I think it is worth not discounting this segment.

http://propellingbrands.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/top-20-integrated-marketing-management-platforms-1-of-3-marketers%e2%80%99-needs-technology-landscape/

Add-on (i.e., sitting on top of CRM) demand gen and marketing automation/EMM is powerful and critical today, but what’s to stop Salesforce.com, Oracle/Siebel CRM et al. from moving ‘upmarket’ and becoming more robust. Nothing.

I think this also speaks to the need for the demand gen and marketing automation/EMM segments to maintain their value-add.

Good dialogue, Jep.

I feel there we should look for some standard qualification questions to determine the amount of value that you can get out of marketing automation.

For example: how many new leads are added to the database every week? How many are clearly unqualified (e.g. students)? Of the remaining leads, is it useful (and feasible) to contact all of them personally, or is it better to nurture them via email until they reach a certain lead score, and then contact them?

With these questions you’ll find out whether lead scoring and email drip-campaigns are valuable. If you choose a marketing automation system that is strong in these areas, but you don’t use them, that’s of course a waste of money.

The other thing that I pick up from all comments is that easy-of-use is essential. David Raab already did a lot of work to try and quantify this. Using only Salesforce.com add-ons may not score very high on the usability scale. I’ll look into this some more.

I’ll try and write some more about this in the next couple of weeks.

Please continue adding comments: this is an interesting discussion! Thanks, Jep

1. Time/cost of setup
2. Ease of management
3. Gained/lost functionality

You may find you do not need some of the functionality that you were paying for previously.

The things I would miss the most:
1. Having a lead “holding pen” so I don’t have to put junky records into my CRM
2. Prospect level activity tracking

We then purchased a solution that was probably overkill (this was before the SaaS vendors we know today were available). Today, there are choices that integrate through Salesforce.com to deliver some of the functionality an ESP does not (as Fred mentions) which can be used in conjunction with the ESP and SFDC. Also, there are now reasonably priced demand generation solutions that can deliver ESP functionality, integrate well with Salesforce.com, provide marketing automation capabilities, and are not costly or complex. Genius.com is one of these.

Because of SaaS and the AppExchange, it seems like a major step backwards to abandon marketing automation systems in general, though the particular one in use may indeed not meet the needs. Still, you should be able to find a system that meets the 80/20 rule for your requirements, delivers value within your budget, and beats the time and hidden costs/effort of trying to cobble something together to do the job.

Scott

Many marketing automation systems require too much hand holding, and have gotten too complex. We find that most companies, aren’t really interested in campaigning ALL the time.

If their system is 2 years old, the client originally bought fairly primitive capabilities – the ability to tell when someone is interested. Not everyone needs to go beyond that – professional salespeople know what to do with a lead that has a ‘heartbeat’.