Marketing Deal Offers

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Wednesday, 25 February 2009

First Look: Genius.com Adds Nurturing Campaigns to MarketingGenius

Posted on 20:25 by Unknown
Yesterday’s chance to write the first review (I think) of Marketo’s 3.0 release seems to have awakened a long-dormant journalism gene. I spoke today with Genius.com, whose new nurture marketing system, Genius Enterprise, will officially launch next week. Knowing I’ll have another scoop if I write about it at once, I find I can’t resist.

Genius.com itself has been around since 2006, when it launched SalesGenius. This gave salespeople a desktop “Tracker” that instantly alerted them when prospects responded to their emails, and showed which pages the prospects visited on their company Web site. What made SalesGenius special was doing this without installing tracking scripts on the company Web pages. Instead, links embedded in a Genius-generated email point to a proxy server that relays the visitor to company Web pages but keeps a record of the interactions as they pass through. This allows instant deployment without any involvement of the company’s Web or IT team.

(Note: in addition to the original proxy server technology, Genius also now offers a tracking solution based on inserting conventional tags into Web pages. This allows it to track all site visits, not only those routed to the proxy server by a Genius-generated link.)

The product was soon extended to integrate with Salesforce.com and to let the proxy server add Genius-generated popups that display personalized messages or offer an online chat. Later, the company added MarketingGenius, which lets marketers send email on behalf of salespeople and can react to Salesforce.com workflow rules. The two products are now offered in combination as Genius Pro.

Genius Enterprise expands the company’s beachhead in marketing by adding automated lead nurturing and lead scoring. This makes it more of a competitor to traditional demand generation systems, although Genius Enterprise still lacks landing pages and surveys. Genius.com plans to add those fairly soon, but in the meantime feels its easy deployment and real-time sales alerts are already reason enough for marketing and sales users to buy its product.

As to the landing pages and forms themselves, companies can build their own, have Genius.com professional services staff build them, or use Web to Lead pages created in Salesforce.com. The pages would need to be added to the company’s own Web site, since Genius.com will not host them. Data captured by the forms will be loaded first into Salesforce.com and then copied into Genius.com during the regular synchronization process. Setting up the synchronization is fully automated and updates are shared between the systems in real time. Although real-time synchronization is not unique to Genius.com, the company sees it as essential to frictionless coordination between sales and marketing, ensuring immediate reactions to prospect behaviors. Genius.com’s term for this is “dynamic engagement”.

So much for the theory. In practice, Genius Enterprise delivers a cleanly designed lead nurturing and scoring tool that meets basic needs quite nicely.

The system is organized around campaigns, called workflows, which are laid out as a sequence of steps. Each step has three components: a trigger with rules to select leads; actions to apply to those leads; and directions for what to do next.

The triggers can be based on profile data from Salesforce.com, the end of a waiting period, or activities including opening an email, leaving a message, visiting a specific Web page, and starting or ending a Web site visit or chat session. Leads enter a campaign when a data change qualifies them for its initial trigger, so there is no explicit campaign schedule. This is part of the system’s real-time approach. Users can build a static list and attach it to a campaign, to send a conventional outbound mass email.

The list of available actions is small but captures the essentials: send an alert to sales, where it will appear on the salesperson’s real-time “tracker”; change a lead score; send the lead an email; or set a data value. Changing the data value is a key ability, since it could trigger another campaign or system action. Possible directions include moving to the next step in the sequence, removing the lead from the campaign, or watching for the same trigger again. Again, that’s a minimal set of choices but does what’s necessary.

The simplest possible step contains one rule, one action, and one next direction. But users can also build multiple rule sets, and then assign multiple actions and different directions to each set. This gives the system considerable power. The interface seemed quite intuitive to me: users drag triggers onto the screen to add a step to the sequence (there is no branching, but a new step could be inserted between existing ones). They then open up the step to specify the rules, actions and directions. Rules and directions are defined by filling in blanks and picking from lists; actions are dragged in from a box on the side.

Genius Enterprise does not send leads directly from one campaign to another. Rather, leads are added to independently to each campaign whenever they qualify for its selection rules. This is a somewhat unusual approach but avoids complicated flow charts. Lead scoring can be handled by a dedicated campaign that operates separately from the other campaigns. Most vendors take a similar approach. Users do have the option of modifying scores within individual campaigns.

The system’s approach to sending leads to sales is more distinctive. In addition to the primary workflow, each campaign has a “conversion event” with its own trigger rules and actions. Outcomes can either convert the lead to sales and remove it from the campaign, or to keep it in place. This technique has two advantages: no need to build a separate conversion rule into each step, and no delay while waiting for any pauses built into the main workflow. It’s a pretty good solution, although I’m not sure whether leads are removed from all campaigns or only the one the conversion event is attached to.

Genius Enterprise includes the email builder from earlier Genius systems, which seems perfectly serviceable. It provides the usual features: Word-style editing, personalization, send emails on behalf of the assigned sales rep, previews, list definition and immediate or deferred delivery. In addition, users can set up the popup messages I mentioned earlier and specify whether the email should be included in the “Tracker”. There’s also plug-in to send Genius-trackable emails from Microsoft Outlook.

I didn’t explore whether Genius includes more sophisticated demand generation features, such as split testing, rule-driven content selection, and profitability analysis. Probably not. But if all you need are basic email nurturing and lead scoring, and can live for the moment without landing pages, it’s a solid, easy-to-use package at a reasonable price (starting around $1,500 per month).

Yet evaluating Genius Enterprise like conventional demand generation system is largely missing the point. What sets Genius apart is its proxy-based technology, Web site popups, real-time alerts to sales, and tight integration with Salesforce.com. Companies attracted by those features—which probably means companies where sales and marketing are working closely, or plan to—are the ones who should consider it most carefully.
Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to Facebook
Posted in demand generation, lead management, marketgenius, marketing automation, salesgenius, software selection | No comments
Newer Post Older Post Home

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • eBay Offers $2.4 Billion for GSI Commerce: More Support for Marketing Automation
    eBay ’s $2.4 billion offer for e-commerce services giant GSI Commerce has been described largely in terms of helping eBay to compete with ...
  • Infer Keeps It Simple: B2B Lead Scores and Nothing Else
    I’ve nearly finished gathering information from vendors for my new study on Customer Data Platform systems and have started to look for patt...
  • NICE Buys Causata to Extend Its Customer Experience Management Position
    So, there I was around 7:30 Eastern time this morning, sending out reminder notices to vendors I need to interview for an upcoming report on...
  • thinkAnalytics Helps Marketers Optimize Customer Treatments
    Summary: thinkAnalytics provides a robust decision engine to help make optimal recommendations across channels. Too bad more people don...
  • Selligent Brings a New B2C Marketing Automation Option to the U.S.
    I’m writing this post on my old DOS-based WordPerfect software, to get in the proper mood for discussing business-to-consumer marketing auto...
  • So Many Measures, So Little Time
    I’ve been collating lists of marketing performance metrics from different sources, which is exactly as much fun as it sounds. One result th...
  • 4 Marketing Tech Trends To Watch in 2014
    I'm not a big fan of year-end summaries and forecasts, mostly because I produce summaries and forecasts all year round.  But I pulled to...
  • Marketo Raises Another $50 Million: Where Does the Money Go?
    Marketo this morning announced a new $50 million funding round, almost exactly one year to the day after raising $25 million in November 2...
  • James Taylor on His New Book
    A few months ago, James Taylor of Fair Isaac asked me to look over a proof of Smart (Enough) Systems , a book he has co-written with indust...
  • Vocus Marketing Suite: Still Mostly Social But Marketing Automation is On the Way
    If you’ve heard of Vocus at all, it’s probably as vendor serving public relations professionals. Its core offerings include a huge databas...

Categories

  • [x+1]
  • 1010Data
  • 2009 trends
  • 2010 predictions
  • 2011 predictions
  • 2013 marketing automation revenues
  • 2014 predictions
  • account data in marketing systems
  • acquisitions
  • acquistions
  • act-on software
  • active conversion
  • activeconversion
  • acxiom
  • ad agencies
  • ad servers
  • adam needles
  • adobe
  • adometry
  • advertising effectiveness
  • advocate management
  • affiliate marketing
  • agilone
  • aida model
  • aimatch
  • algorithmic attribution
  • alterian
  • analysis systems
  • analytical database
  • analytical databases
  • analytical systems
  • analytics tools
  • app exchange
  • app marketplace
  • application design
  • aprimo
  • are
  • artificial intelligence
  • ascend2
  • asset management
  • assetlink
  • atg
  • attribution analysis
  • attribution models
  • automated decisions
  • automated dialog
  • automated modeling
  • autonomy
  • b2b demand generation
  • b2b demand generation systems
  • b2b email marketing benchmarks
  • b2b lead scoring
  • b2b marketing
  • b2b marketing automation
  • b2b marketing automation industry consolidation
  • b2b marketing automation industry growth rate
  • b2b marketing automation revenues
  • b2b marketing automation systems
  • b2b marketing automation vendor rankings
  • b2b marketing data
  • b2b marketing industry consolidation
  • b2b marketing strategy
  • b2b marketing system comparison
  • b2c marketing automation
  • b2c marketing automation vendors
  • balanced scorecard
  • balihoo
  • barriers to marketing success
  • barry devlin
  • beanstalk data
  • behavior detection
  • behavior identification
  • behavior targeting
  • behavioral data
  • behavioral targeting
  • big data
  • birst
  • bislr
  • blogging software
  • brand experience
  • brand marketing
  • business intelligence
  • business intelligence software
  • business intelligence systems
  • business marketing
  • businses case
  • callidus
  • campaign flow
  • campaign management
  • campaign management software
  • causata
  • cdi
  • cdp
  • channel management
  • channel marketing
  • channel partner management
  • chordiant
  • cio priorities
  • clickdimensions
  • clicksquared
  • clientxclient
  • cloud computing
  • cmo surveys
  • cms
  • collaboration software
  • column data store
  • column-oriented database
  • columnar database
  • community management
  • compare marketing automation vendors
  • compiled data
  • complex event processing
  • consumer marketing
  • contact center systems
  • content aggregation
  • content distribution
  • content grazing
  • content management
  • content marketing
  • content matrix
  • content recommendations
  • content selections
  • content syndication
  • context automation
  • conversen
  • coremetrics
  • crm
  • crm integration
  • CRM lead scores
  • crm software
  • crm systems
  • crmevolution
  • cross-channel marketing
  • crowd sourcing
  • custom content
  • custom media
  • customer database
  • customer analysis
  • customer data
  • customer data integration
  • customer data management
  • customer data platform
  • customer data platforms
  • customer data quality
  • customer data warehouse
  • customer database
  • customer experience
  • customer experience management
  • customer experience matrix
  • customer information
  • customer management
  • customer management software
  • customer management systems
  • customer metrics
  • customer relationship management
  • customer satisfaction
  • customer success
  • customer support
  • cxc matrix
  • dashboards
  • data analysis
  • data cleaning
  • data cleansing
  • data enhancement
  • data integration
  • data loading
  • data mining
  • data mining and terrorism
  • data quality
  • data transformation tools
  • data visualization
  • data warehouse
  • database management
  • database marketing
  • database marketing systems
  • database technology
  • dataflux
  • datallegro
  • datamentors
  • david raab
  • david raab webinar
  • david raab whitepaper
  • day software
  • decision engiens
  • decision engines
  • decision management
  • decision science
  • dell
  • demand generation
  • demand generation implementation
  • demand generation industry
  • demand generation industry growth rate
  • demand generation industry size
  • demand generation industry trends
  • demand generation marketbright
  • demand generation marketing automation
  • demand generation software
  • demand generation software revenues
  • demand generation systems
  • demand generation vendors
  • demandforce
  • digiday
  • digital marketing
  • digital marketing systems
  • digital messaging
  • distributed marketing
  • dmp
  • dreamforce
  • dreamforce 2012
  • dynamic content
  • ease of use
  • ebay
  • eglue
  • eloqua
  • eloqua10
  • elqoua ipo
  • email
  • email marketing
  • email service providers
  • engagement engine
  • enteprise marketing management
  • enterprise decision management
  • enterprise marketing management
  • enterprise software
  • entiera
  • epiphany
  • ETL
  • eTrigue
  • event detection
  • event stream processing
  • event-based marketing
  • exacttarget
  • facebook
  • feature checklists
  • flow charts
  • fractional attribution
  • freemium
  • future of marketing automation
  • g2crowd
  • gainsight
  • Genius.com
  • genoo
  • geotargeting
  • gleanster
  • governance
  • grosocial
  • gsi commerce
  • high performance analytics
  • hiring consultants
  • hosted software
  • hosted systems
  • hubspot
  • ibm
  • impact of internet on selling
  • importance of sales execution
  • in-memory database
  • in-site search
  • inbound marketing
  • industry consolidation
  • industry growth rate
  • industry size
  • industry trends
  • influitive
  • infor
  • information cards
  • infusioncon 2013
  • infusionsoft
  • innovation
  • integrated customer management
  • integrated marketing management
  • integrated marketing management systems
  • integrated marketing systems
  • integrated systems
  • intent measurement
  • interaction advisor
  • interaction management
  • interestbase
  • interwoven
  • intuit
  • IP address lookup
  • jbara
  • jesubi
  • king fish media
  • kwanzoo
  • kxen
  • kynetx
  • large company marketing automation
  • last click attribution
  • lead capture
  • lead generation
  • lead management
  • lead management software
  • lead management systems
  • lead managment
  • lead ranking
  • lead scoring
  • lead scoring models
  • leadforce1
  • leadformix
  • leading marketing automation systems
  • leadlander
  • leadlife
  • leadmd
  • leftbrain dga
  • lifecycle analysis
  • lifecycle reporting
  • lifetime value
  • lifetime value model
  • local marketing automation
  • loopfuse
  • low cost marketing software
  • low-cost marketing software
  • loyalty systems
  • lyzasoft
  • makesbridge
  • manticore technology
  • mapreduce
  • market consolidation
  • market software
  • market2lead
  • marketbight
  • marketbright
  • marketgenius
  • marketing analysis
  • marketing analytics
  • marketing and sales integration
  • marketing automation
  • marketing automation adoption
  • marketing automation benefits
  • marketing automation consolidation
  • marketing automation cost
  • marketing automation deployment
  • marketing automation features
  • marketing automation industry
  • marketing automation industry growth rate
  • marketing automation industry trends
  • marketing automation market share
  • marketing automation market size
  • marketing automation maturity model
  • marketing automation net promoter score. marketing automation effectiveness
  • marketing automation pricing
  • marketing automation software
  • marketing automation software evaluation
  • marketing automation success factors
  • marketing automation system deployment
  • marketing automation system evaluation
  • marketing automation system features
  • marketing automation system selection
  • marketing automation system usage
  • marketing automation systems
  • marketing automation trends
  • marketing automation user satisfaction
  • marketing automation vendor financials
  • marketing automation vendor selection
  • marketing automation vendor strategies
  • marketing automion
  • marketing best practices
  • marketing cloud
  • marketing content
  • marketing data
  • marketing data management
  • marketing database
  • marketing database management
  • marketing education
  • marketing execution
  • marketing funnel
  • marketing integration
  • marketing lead stages
  • marketing management
  • marketing measurement
  • marketing mix models
  • marketing operating system
  • marketing operations
  • marketing optimization
  • marketing performance
  • marketing performance measurement
  • marketing platforms
  • marketing priorities
  • marketing process
  • marketing process optimization
  • marketing resource management
  • marketing return on investment
  • marketing ROI
  • marketing sales alignment
  • marketing service providers
  • marketing services
  • marketing services providers
  • marketing skills gap
  • marketing software
  • marketing software evaluation
  • marketing software industry trends
  • marketing software product reviews
  • marketing software selection
  • marketing software trends
  • marketing softwware
  • marketing suites
  • marketing system architecture
  • marketing system evaluation
  • marketing system ROI
  • marketing system selection
  • marketing systems
  • marketing technology
  • marketing tests
  • marketing tips
  • marketing to sales alignment
  • marketing training
  • marketing trends
  • marketing-sales integration
  • marketingpilot
  • marketo
  • marketo funding
  • marketo ipo
  • master data management
  • matching
  • maturity model
  • meaning based marketing
  • media mix models
  • message customization
  • metrics
  • micro-business marketing software
  • microsoft
  • microsoft dynamics crm
  • mid-tier marketing systems
  • mindmatrix
  • mintigo
  • mma
  • mobile marketing
  • mpm toolkit
  • multi-channel marketing
  • multi-language marketing
  • multivariate testing
  • natural language processing
  • neolane
  • net promoter score
  • network link analysis
  • next best action
  • nice systems
  • nimble crm
  • number of clients
  • nurture programs
  • officeautopilot
  • omnichannel marketing
  • omniture
  • on-demand
  • on-demand business intelligence
  • on-demand software
  • on-premise software
  • online advertising
  • online advertising optimization
  • online analytics
  • online marketing
  • open source bi
  • open source software
  • optimization
  • optimove
  • oracle
  • paraccel
  • pardot
  • pardot acquisition
  • partner relationship management
  • pay per click
  • pay per response
  • pedowitz group
  • pegasystems
  • performable
  • performance marketing
  • personalization
  • pitney bowes
  • portrait software
  • predictive analytics
  • predictive lead scoring
  • predictive modeling
  • privacy
  • prospect database
  • prospecting
  • qliktech
  • qlikview
  • qlikview price
  • raab guide
  • raab report
  • raab survey
  • Raab VEST
  • Raab VEST report
  • raab webinar
  • reachedge
  • reachforce
  • real time decision management
  • real time interaction management
  • real-time decisions
  • real-time interaction management
  • realtime decisions
  • recommendation engines
  • relationship analysis
  • reporting software
  • request for proposal
  • reseller marketing automation
  • response attribution
  • revenue attribution
  • revenue generation
  • revenue performance management
  • rfm scores
  • rightnow
  • rightwave
  • roi reporting
  • role of experts
  • rule-based systems
  • saas software
  • saffron technology
  • sales automation
  • sales best practices
  • sales enablement
  • sales force automation
  • sales funnel
  • sales lead management association
  • sales leads
  • sales process
  • sales prospecting
  • salesforce acquires exacttarget
  • salesforce.com
  • salesgenius
  • sap
  • sas
  • score cards
  • search engine optimization
  • search engines
  • self-optimizing systems
  • selligent
  • semantic analysis
  • semantic analytics
  • sentiment analysis
  • service oriented architecture
  • setlogik
  • setlogik acquisition
  • silverpop
  • silverpop engage
  • silverpop engage b2b
  • simulation
  • sisense prismcubed
  • sitecore
  • small business marketing
  • small business software
  • smarter commerce
  • smartfocus
  • soa
  • social campaign management
  • social crm
  • social marketing
  • social marketing automation
  • social marketing management
  • social media
  • social media marketing
  • social media measurement
  • social media monitoring
  • social media roi
  • social network data
  • software as a service
  • software costs
  • software deployment
  • software evaluation
  • software satisfaction
  • software selection
  • software usability
  • software usability measurement
  • Spredfast
  • stage-based measurement
  • state-based systems
  • surveillance technology
  • sweet suite
  • swyft
  • sybase iq
  • system deployment
  • system design
  • system implementation
  • system requirements
  • system selection
  • tableau software
  • technology infrastructure
  • techrigy
  • Tenbase
  • teradata
  • test design
  • text analysis
  • training
  • treehouse international
  • trigger marketing
  • twitter
  • unica
  • universal behaviors
  • unstructured data
  • usability assessment
  • user interface
  • vendor comparison
  • vendor evaluation
  • vendor evaluation comparison
  • vendor rankings
  • vendor selection
  • vendor services
  • venntive
  • vertica
  • visualiq
  • vocus
  • vtrenz
  • web analytics
  • web contact management
  • Web content management
  • web data analysis
  • web marketing
  • web personalization
  • Web site design
  • whatsnexx
  • woopra
  • youcalc
  • zoho
  • zoomix

Blog Archive

  • ►  2013 (55)
    • ►  December (4)
    • ►  November (5)
    • ►  October (4)
    • ►  September (3)
    • ►  August (5)
    • ►  July (5)
    • ►  June (5)
    • ►  May (6)
    • ►  April (6)
    • ►  March (1)
    • ►  February (6)
    • ►  January (5)
  • ►  2012 (56)
    • ►  December (4)
    • ►  November (3)
    • ►  October (6)
    • ►  September (4)
    • ►  August (7)
    • ►  July (3)
    • ►  June (4)
    • ►  May (5)
    • ►  April (3)
    • ►  March (4)
    • ►  February (8)
    • ►  January (5)
  • ►  2011 (74)
    • ►  December (9)
    • ►  November (8)
    • ►  October (6)
    • ►  September (5)
    • ►  August (5)
    • ►  July (3)
    • ►  June (6)
    • ►  May (5)
    • ►  April (6)
    • ►  March (8)
    • ►  February (7)
    • ►  January (6)
  • ►  2010 (75)
    • ►  December (9)
    • ►  November (9)
    • ►  October (5)
    • ►  September (6)
    • ►  August (7)
    • ►  July (3)
    • ►  June (6)
    • ►  May (9)
    • ►  April (4)
    • ►  March (6)
    • ►  February (6)
    • ►  January (5)
  • ▼  2009 (96)
    • ►  December (2)
    • ►  November (4)
    • ►  October (5)
    • ►  September (9)
    • ►  August (7)
    • ►  July (16)
    • ►  June (9)
    • ►  May (5)
    • ►  April (11)
    • ►  March (11)
    • ▼  February (11)
      • Getting Closer to My Usability Ratings
      • First Look: Genius.com Adds Nurturing Campaigns to...
      • First Look at New Marketo Release
      • Three Options for Measuring Software Ease of Use
      • How to Compare Demand Generation Vendors: Choosing...
      • How Demand Generation Systems Handle Company Data:...
      • Infusionsoft: Impressive Marketing Power for a Ver...
      • Will Twitter teach us to be concise and save the w...
      • Blog Posts I'll Never Write (With Apologies to Bor...
      • Low Cost Systems for Demand Generation
      • QlikView Is Champion In Aberdeen AXIS (But Is This...
    • ►  January (6)
  • ►  2008 (59)
    • ►  December (6)
    • ►  November (3)
    • ►  October (8)
    • ►  September (1)
    • ►  August (5)
    • ►  July (8)
    • ►  June (5)
    • ►  May (5)
    • ►  April (6)
    • ►  March (3)
    • ►  February (3)
    • ►  January (6)
  • ►  2007 (84)
    • ►  December (4)
    • ►  November (6)
    • ►  October (6)
    • ►  September (1)
    • ►  August (4)
    • ►  July (7)
    • ►  June (16)
    • ►  May (20)
    • ►  April (20)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

Unknown
View my complete profile