Marketo Declares a Revenue Revolution

Marketing and Sales Alignment Achieved at Last with Marketo Lead Insight for Sales

San Mateo, CA (EMWNews) July 14, 2008 — Lead management firm Marketo today called for a Revenue Revolution by declaring that marketing and sales professionals must at long last stop fighting and unite to create growth and drive revenue. As the spark to ignite this Revolution, Marketo also announced its new on-demand product, Marketo Lead Insight for Sales, which allows marketing and sales to collaboratively identify and interact with the best sales leads and unlock explosive revenue growth. Along with Marketo’s acclaimed Lead Management software for marketing, companies now are armed and ready to join the Revenue Revolution.

You Say You Want a Revolution?

“The fighting between marketing and sales has gone on for way too long, and it’s costing companies lost revenue to the tune of $1 trillion a year,” said Phil Fernandez, president and CEO of Marketo. “It’s ridiculous that over 50% of a sales rep’s time is spent on unproductive prospecting even as they ignore 80% of marketing leads. Addressing this lost opportunity should be on every senior executive’s agenda, and that’s why it’s time for a Revenue Revolution!”

The Revenue Revolution occurs when marketing and sales stop pointing fingers, cease working within their own silos, and unite to create dramatic improvements in marketing ROI, sales productivity, and most importantly top-line growth. CEOs and marketing and sales leaders who care about revenue are invited to join in and demonstrate their own commitment to marketing and sales alignment by signing the Revenue Revolution Manifesto at http://www.marketo.com/revenue-revolution.php.

Viva the Revenue Cycle

Why is this revolutionary? Marketing and sales alignment is not a new topic, but prior efforts to bring the organizations together have focused too much on point initiatives such as common lead definitions and better communication. Although important, those approaches miss the fundamental issue: marketing and sales need to throw out old notions of marketing leads, sales cycles and departmental boundaries. Instead, they need to find ways to work collaboratively as co-owners of what Marketo calls the Revenue Cycle.

“Traditionally companies have talked about and analyzed the ‘Sales Cycle’, but that only looks at a portion of the complete revenue process and is insufficient to manage and guide growth over time,” said Jon Miller, vice president of marketing for Marketo and author of the Modern B2B Marketing blog. “By focusing on the ‘Revenue Cycle’ – which starts from the day a company first meets a prospect and continues through the sale and beyond – companies get a complete picture of the revenue process. Of course, this means more than just tacking marketing onto to the front of an existing sales cycle; it’s about coordinating marketing and sales activities throughout the entire process to generate maximum impact.”

The Revenue Revolution requires collaboration between marketing and sales activities, yet each function works differently, thinks differently, and has different usage requirements. Traditional sales and marketing automation solutions have failed to eliminate the organizational dysfunction because they’ve focused primarily on automation within departmental silos. That’s why Marketo Lead Insight for Sales is designed to meet the specific needs of the individual sales rep but also works with Marketo’s flagship Lead Management solution to enable perfectly synchronized processes between marketing and sales.

“When marketing and sales teams coordinate their activities as part of a unified revenue process, companies get better at properly identifying and prioritizing opportunities,” said Barry Trailer of CSO Insights and a strategic advisor to Marketo. “This is important since better quality leads result in easier and better quality sales cycles, with more wins and ultimately more revenue. The Revenue Revolution means it’s finally time for marketing and sales to stop fighting each other and start collaborating around a common goal: meeting and exceeding the company’s revenue goals.”

Customer Momentum

Early customers of Marketo Lead Insight for Sales are already talking about how the new solution helps their marketing and sales achieve new levels of collaboration and alignment.

“I manage both marketing and sales for my organization, and one of our greatest challenges has been coordinating the two functions – making sure qualified campaign leads are delivered to sales, recycled back to marketing if the deal doesn’t close, and returned to sales at the right time,” said David Politis, executive vice president and general manager for Vocalocity. “Marketo gave us this coordinated integration immediately, and it’s so efficient it’s like I got another full time person for free. With Marketo Lead Insight for Sales, we’re in a stronger position than ever to work together and meet our revenue targets.”

“We noticed immediate results with Marketo. Almost instantly, we had more transparency between marketing and sales, allowing us to operate efficiently as a single unit,” said Erik Stenson, vice president of sales for Picateers, “With Lead Insight for Sales, sales reps can actually see the entire history of the relationship with the prospect, while enabling the marketing team to bridge the gap with more meaningful visibility into their prospect activities. Now, we’re armed for success with the right information and the right context at the right time, which means we can close more deals more quickly than ever before.”

Marketo Lead Insight for Sales – Features and Benefits

Marketo Lead Insight for Sales helps close more deals faster by allowing marketing and sales to collaboratively identify and interact with the best sales leads. Using Microsoft® Outlook® or salesforce.com, field and inside sales reps can send email campaigns, track how prospects respond to marketing and sales communications, and get instant alerts when leads open emails, visit the website, or show key buying signs.

Unlike so-called “smart” sales and email marketing solutions, Marketo tracks prospect and customer interactions across all online and offline channels, not just clicks from emails. Combined with complete lead management capabilities including lead nurturing, lead scoring, and workflow automation, marketing and sales can coordinate activities as part of a single revenue cycle. Other capabilities of Marketo Lead Insight for Sales include:

• Sales alerting: get instant notifications about key buying behaviors such as opening an email or visiting the website
• Lead activity tracking: create more relevant pitches by tracking behaviors across all channels to understand what the lead wants
• Microsoft® Outlook® integration: create trackable emails from best practice templates or scratch and send them directly from Microsoft® Outlook®
• Salesforce.com integration: get sales lead insight including an instant snapshot of your most qualified contacts right inside salesforce.com
• Personalized, professional email campaigns: stay top-of-mind with prospects by sending email campaigns that are personalized to come from individual sales reps

“Marketo has experienced explosive growth since launching our on-demand marketing automation solution,” said Fernandez. “With the combination of Marketo Lead Management and now Marketo Lead Insight for Sales, we are delivering on the promise of a solution that brings marketing and sales together for dramatic revenue results. There’s no question in my mind that the Revenue Revolution is upon us, and with these solutions our customers are armed and ready to join in!”

Marketo Lead Insight for Sales is currently in beta testing and will be generally available to help customers accelerate their own revenue revolution in September, 2008. Visit http://www.marketo.com/lead-insight-beta to apply to participate in the beta.

About Marketo

Marketo (http://www.marketo.com) is the leading provider of sophisticated yet easy B2B marketing automation software that helps marketing and sales at large and mid-sized companies work together to drive revenue and improve marketing accountability. Marketo’s demand generation solutions automate and measure lead management activities — including email marketing, lead nurturing, and lead scoring — to help marketing and sales generate and qualify sales leads, shorten sales cycles and demonstrate results. Unlike traditional marketing automation solutions, Marketo is powerful yet easy to use without training and offers an on-demand model to get customers up and running quickly, with no charges for set-up or integration. Marketo’s Modern B2B Marketing blog (http://blog.marketo.com) and marketing best practices community are recognized as industry destinations for marketers to share ideas and help each other drive results. For more information on Marketo, visit http://www.marketo.com or call 650-655-4830.