The face of marketing is changing.  Techniques and approaches that worked as recently as 18 months ago will fall by the way side within the next 18.

I’ll paraphrase Gretzky here; the goal is to not be where the ball is, but where it’s GOING TO BE.  To take advantage of the emerging opportunity you need to start preparing today.

While there will be other components to the messaging mix, the most important ones, that I call the Big 6, are going to be key.  Review the following list.

Are you ready, or do you need to get to work?

1.  Website
- Optimizing page structure and wording for SEO
- Setting up tailored landing pages for cross channel campaigns
- Hosting webinars and other rich media destination content

2. Email
- Eliminating acquired list mailings
- Growing list of 1st party opt-ins
- Using for retention campaigns

3. Search
- Building a link back network
- Optimizing all forms of content for specific keywords
- Exploring emergent search engines like Facebook

4. Display
- Incorporating as part of a broader cross channel campaign
- Utilizing highly targeted, verticalized networks
- Tracking all of your referral sources

5. Content Syndication
- Developing content specifically for off-site deployment
- Establishing outlets on YouTube, SlideShare, Scribd, etc.
- Using simple syndication through RSS, Feedburner, etc.

6. Social Engagement
- Targeting specific communities to penetrate
- Actively commenting and publicizing others content
- Growing followings and connections

If you can put a check next to all of these you are in pretty good shape.  You have a strong foundation to work from and are ready to start innovating!

VisiStat is pretty darn interesting.  For a long time I’ve been saying the most important aspect of the marketing automation tools is their ability to produce an integrated multi-channel profile.  VisiStat’s story is as strong as any that I’ve seen other than Knotice.

http://www.markhodes.com/my_weblog/2010/04/cross-channel-funnel-management.html#

The Gretzky quote is one of my favorite of all times.   So applicable to business.   I think Mark also speaks truth when he talks about the need for marketers to achieve integrated profiles today.  Those that don’t won’t be able to capitalize on what comes next…

via Free Marketing Automation System Anyone? -Courtesy of Loopfuse.

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a vendor review, but gosh are they worth it!  This is one of the most exciting companies I”ve come across in quiet some time.

So… what makes them so exciting?  They not only understand the future face of marketing, but they’ve built a tool that will help marketers capitalize upon it.

At the core their application is build like a marketing automation tool like LoopFuse, Eloqua, or Marketo.  Where the tool is designed to be a consolidated tracking tool that reports on the life of a prospect / lead as it matures and is pushed through to the CRM (a.k.a. Salesforce.com).

All of these tools do some form of integrated profile management.  Not to the level or sophistication of someone like, Knotice, but still they usually cover the principal big 6 (web, email, search, display, content syndication, and social engagement).

What differentiates Optify is that they’ve focused on the social channels (content syndication & engagement) as the principal awareness tool  / lead generator as opposed to email.  As a matter of fact, they’ve outsourced the email engine entirely.  Granted, this puts limitation upon their pricing model, but it really puts the emphasis on where it needs to be.  Email is rapidly becoming a retention tool, not awareness.  This is going to cause big problems for marketing automation vendors who can’t innovate.

Yet more accolades for Optify, in rolling out this social engagement suite they’ve baked in functionality from a couple of my favorite tools Alterian‘s SM2 and SpredFast.  One for doing the indirect social monitoring so useful for targeting and planning and the other for efficiently syndicating content in a trackable way.

Too often, the CMO is pigeon holed into a creative / program / communication type of role.   This may be justified in some cases, but a top notch CMO should be a whole lot more.  Arguably the CMO should be one of the most cross functional people in the organization.  Lets enumerate all the areas:

PR - the world has evolved away from solely targeting key media sources, but the skills are still the same.  Whether we call it social engagement, community development, what have you, the objective is still about earning free advertising.

Programming – whether direct or brand advertising this is covers structuring and executing successful advertising campaigns.  This is the traditional blocking and tackling of any marketing organization.

Market Research – staying briefed on the the competition and waxing and waning interests of customers is key to keeping everything else on target.  Highly analytical and the critical secret sauce to consistently producing winners.

Sales – at the end of the day, sales is the only thing that marketers.  Marketers, like salespeople, exist to do one thing – sell.  Granted, the unit of measure may not always be units sold, but the output of marketing is always monetizable.

Product – understanding what a product needs to do to meet the need of the market is central.  Regardless of how well you message, if the product isn’t desirable things will not be successful.  This covers not only feature / functionality, but also the price, packaging, etc.

Distribution – in a way, distribution can be thought of as a sub-discipline to sales.  Convincing other organizations to give up their shelf-space (whether virtual or real) is no easy task.  A whole separate set of skills is needed to build out a partner or channel network.

Granted each individual will have their strong suits, but the best ones will be able to speak to each.  I tried to initially rank these areas, but with the exception of sales being #1, I think cases could be made for a number of different orderings.

A lot of people have awoken to this and are rushing to fill the growing need. This is reflected in the surge of vendors entering the marketing automation space.  At this point the ranks have swelled to some 15 vendors.  If you include the established crm, database marketing type of firms that number could run as high as 25.

One big problem, however, has been the vendor messaging and vision have outpaced the market.  Largely, marketers are just beginning their migration towards an integrated approach and it’s going to take time for them to develop cross channel skills.  To date vendors have been unable to shape  their offerings to the market’s need and have continue to pound out functionality to justify their relatively costly monthly pricing.

This is why I think the LoopFuse Freeview offering is so compelling.  By establishing a free price point LoopFuse eliminates a significant barrier for marketers to begin exploring the possibilities of marketing automation. Further, with their specific channel evolution plans they are doing a great job of building community and help educate marketers on how to extend and expand their cross channel communication.

The freemium pricing model is going to be very disruptive to the SMB market.  Pardot, Leadlife, Office Autopilot, Acton, and others are going to struggle justifying charging for less functionality and their code base and existing sales structures will make it difficult, or infeasible for them to pursue a similar model.  Larger, enterprise deals with total cost of ownership approaching or exceeding 100k won’t be as directly impacted.

So… stand up and take notice. Loopfuse has been one of the quieter vendors in the space, but this is going to spice things up.