OfficeAutoPilot: Simple, Powerful, Low Cost Demand Generation for Small Business

My personal definition of demand generations systems (see Introduction to Demand Generation Systems from the Raab Guide site) explicitly states that they do not incorporate sales automation. The division makes sense in most organizations, since marketing and sales are separate. (See Should Demand Generation and Sales Automation Be Separate Systems? for whether this will change.) But small businesses are different. Sales and marketing are often handled by the same department, if not the same person, and owners want as few systems as possible...

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Webinar April 2: Does On-Demand Business Intelligence Make Sense?

I just realized I hadn't mentioned this upcoming Webinar in the blog. It's on April 2 at 2 p.m. Eastern. I'll be talking about whether and when to use on-demand business intelligence. Webinar is sponsored by Birst, an on-demand BI vendor. (I guess that eliminates most of the suspense about how I'll answer to the title question.) Birst co-founder Paul Staelin will also present, and of course we'll take questions. Please register he...

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Multi-Step Campaign Interfaces: A Quick Vendor Survey

If you read this blog regularly (and who doesn't?), you know that I see a lot of demand generation systems. Naturally, the vendors showing them to me have all thought very carefully about their designs and made the best choices they could, typically based on feedback from their customers. As a result, they tend to be quite certain that they have made the right decisions and are correspondingly unreceptive should I suggest otherwise.The area where this comes up more often than any other is the design of multi-step campaign flows. There are two basic...

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Act-On Software Adds Webinar Integration to Small Business Demand Generation

Summary: Act-On Software provides a solid set of demand generation features at a small business price. This review was revised in May, 2010 to reflect developments since the original post of March, 2009.If you look at the Web site of Act-On Software, you’ll see a typical set of demand generation features: email marketing, demand generation (equated with landing pages and forms), lead nurturing, Website visitor tracking, channel (partner) marketing, and lead scoring. Oddly, it does not highlight Act-On’s most distinctive advantage, which is tight...

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Should Demand Generation and Sales Automation Be Separate Systems?

I’ve been focusing (obsessing?) recently on the idea that the boundaries between marketing and sales are breaking down because leads now interact with both departments throughout the purchase cycle. This is clearly inevitable: if nothing else, leads still visit your Web site (controlled by marketing) even after they are “turned over” to sales. More fundamentally, the very idea of a lead being “turned over” is now obsolete: today the buyers are in control; neither department ever owns them in the first place.The sheer volume of interactions also...

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Treehouse Interactive MarketingView Combines Demand Generation with Campaign ROI Tracking

I originally spoke with Treehouse Interactive in late January, but didn’t write about them because weren’t quite ready to talk about their Salesforce.com integration. Since that’s critical to many demand generation users, I didn’t want to give a false impression by leaving it out. They officially announced the Salesforce integration and other changes (more about that later) on March 3. So now the story can be told.It’s actually quite a long story, dating back to the company’s initial sales automation system in 1997, followed by its MarketingView...

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Notes from SAS Analyst Conference

I spent yesterday at an analyst conference for SAS, being briefed on the company’s plans for 2009. The presentations are considered confidential, so I can’t go into details. But I think it’s okay to share a few points that struck me.- credit and other financial risk analysis are a very strong business for the company right now. Of course this makes perfect sense, but it’s nice to see on two levels: first, that financial institutions are working on the issue and second, that there’s some good news somewhere.- SAS sees itself as selling software...

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Demand Generation Usability Scores - Part 4

I spent a good part of yesterday talking with demand generation vendors about the usability scores I've been publishing all week. As a result, I've made a number of small adjustments which have been retroactively edited into the previous posts. There might still be some others: two of the vendors haven't spoken with me, which could mean they agree with my ratings but, more likely, means they just haven't been paying attention.Perhaps I'm just starved for attention, but I do in fact appreciate the feedback. The main result of the conversations...

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Demand Generation Usability Scores - Part 3

Usability Items for Complex Marketing Programs(note: this is a slightly revised version of the original post, reflecting vendor feedback.)This post will complete the demand generation vendor usability scores by looking at items that contribute to usability for complex marketing programs.Explicitly direct leads from one campaign to another. Users can directly send leads from one stage in a campaign to a different campaign. The underlying logic was explained in last Friday's post: marketers running complex programs need precise control over flows...

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Demand Generation Usability Scores - Part 2

Usability Items for Simple Marketing Programs(note: this is a slightly revised version of the original post, reflecting vendor feedback.)Yesterday's post described the background of this usability scoring project and gave scores for several items that apply to both simple and complex marketing programs. This post will continue with the scores for items that apply to usability for simple campaigns.Build a campaign as a list of stages. Users can build a simple campaign by defining a linear sequence of stages. As discussed in last Friday's post ,...

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