Salesforce Marketing Blog - April 2007

• Marketing in the Google Era, Part 2

  Kraig Swensrud Apr 9, 2007

  We're pleased to post the materials from our recent webinar Marketing in the Google Era, Part 2.  In this presentation, we discussed many of the 21st century techniques that the salesforce.com marketing organization uses to deliver results.  Below you will find the details from the presentation, delivered by Sean Whiteley (one of the founders of our Google AdWords tracking technology) and Andrea Wildt (our campaign management and marketing operations guru).

  Marketing in the Google Era, Part 2: Webinar Slides (Adobe PDF, 5.5MB)
  Marketing in the Google Era, Part 2: Webinar Recording (Adobe Flash, Streaming)

  
  

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• Marketers Turn to Web2.0

  Kraig Swensrud Apr 6, 2007

    James Connolly published a good article in B-to-B magazine this week titled Techs Turn to Web2.0.  The article the covers new-era web technologies that have changed the game for marketers, and folds nicely into the content that we've recently been delivering in our Marketing in the Google Era webinar series. 

  For marketers... Web 2.0 may present the first real opportunity for them to listen to their customers, according to experts who say marketers have tended to be insulated from their customers by sales and engineering groups.

  The topics in the article of particular relevance include corporate blogging and community development.  Although the content is geared to technology marketers, the concepts are generally applicable across a wide variety of industries.

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• Batting Averages and Clickthrough Rates

  Sean Whiteley Apr 5, 2007

  John Gartner is obviously a fan of the book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, as am I.  Moneyball is a book by Michael M. Lewis released in 2003 about the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, Billy Beane, and his team's approach to running the organization.  One of the central tenants of Moneyball, is that in the game of baseball, real statistical analysis has shown that on base percentage and slugging percentage are better indicators of offensive success, and that avoiding an out is more important than getting a hit.  In his article, Do Your Metrics Measure Up, John analogizes a batting average in baseball, to a clickthrough ratio for marketers.  This begs the question, which metrics are most important to your marketing organization?

  The Internet has fundamentally changed the way we all live an work. This has never been more true for marketers.  As marketing dollars and advertising spend has shifted from Madison Avenue to Amphitheatre Parkway, marketers can measure almost every aspect of the performance of their marketing programs in real-time.  One of the potential effects of this, aside from Google's repeated quarterly revenue home runs, is a potentially overwhelming amount of statistical information associated with your various marketing programs.  If you get lost in a sea of stats, and lose track of what is important, it is very easy to miss your targets, which in the b2b world is likely along the lines of pipeline, revenue, and profitability.

  John's article certainly shares our mindset.  While clickthrough rates, quality scores, and conversion rates are key metrics to track closely, if you live in the b2b world, be careful not to get so bogged down in the myriad of metrics that you lose sight of your original goals:

  Driving new leads, pipeline, revenue, and profitability for your organization.

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