7706 May Supplement.qxd:7706 May Supplement V5.qxd 1/5/08 14:33 Page 11
≤
Go to www.b2bm.biz/technology for more on technology
Q&A
11
the various measurable things that you
are doing, but if you do something which
is less tangible you will almost certainly
see a correlation in the sales funnel.
There will be a spike in interest
which would otherwise be unexplained.
If there isn’t, you have to analyse why.
Essentially, you can use your intuition to
evaluate whether the less directly
measurable things are working.
JH: Is the preoccupation with digital
channels and digital marketing
necessarily good for marketers?
SW: There is definitely a pendulum
swing here and at the moment it’s
swinging towards digital. But in the
early days of email we all thought that
it was going to take over the marketing
world. Now we realise that this is
simply not going to happen – email
has its own problems and challenges,
whilst there are other great mediums
which are not going away.
It’s increasingly being recognised
others. They are demanding deeper and that email works best with established
“The fundamental change is
better insights and greater personalisation. relationships. Customers prefer to
that the web has become the
Others are going slower. But our clients interact with email if they’ve got an
aren’t required to use the new functionality existing relationship, whilst at the same
dominant force and key
unless they wish to or unless it makes real time it’s not a good medium for
information resource in what
sense for their organisation. establishing new relationships. Email
is finding its niche. For other objectives,
we call the ‘considered
JH: Marketing is under increasing integrated techniques tend to work best.
purchase’ environment”
pressure from the board to justify its Marketers need to choose the medium to
investment and prove its worth. Can meet the objectives, and let this define
technology help practitioners to how they communicate.
Steve Woods, chief technology officer, Eloqua
achieve this?
SW: From the perspective of the JH: What’s the future of integrated
boardroom, ROI is the biggest issue. marketing?
Marketers must focus on orientating SW: I believe that technology will play
their activities around the real results that a role in marketing across all industries.
organisations care about and consider To deliver the metrics companies are
release a new version of the application relevant and acceptable. If marketers can demanding, the kind of infrastructure
quarterly. We’re always trying to raise the deliver this, then they can be very visible that Eloqua offers will become
bar – each time we try to make it more and valuable to the organisation. The increasingly essential. And marketers are
and more accessible and user-friendly. biggest challenge in this is to understand starting to understand this.
Our objective is to bring processes to how the individual campaigns are It’s vital for marketers to understand
bear on a department that historically has contributing to the overall objective. Most the trends and what’s going on in their
not been particularly used to technology. companies are running multiple markets.
Therefore our approach has been to campaigns to multiple people. To do this, they need to distance
make the system look and feel as much themselves from the actual messaging,
like a web application as possible – like JH: But does the focus on and detach themselves from the day-to-
Facebook. It’s designed to be very measurement mean marketers are day challenges of marketing
friendly – we’ve taken out the nuts and becoming pre-occupied with communications and understand what
bolts wherever possible. marketing that can be measured, would make someone interested in their
rather than what might objectively be proposition. They need to get out of the
JH: How are marketers responding to most suited to the task, but perhaps weeds. If they can do this, they will
the opportunities offered by less measurable? become more effective and more
technology? SW: This is a risk of that happening, and I respected by the sales function and the
Do they like it or are they resistant? think that organisations should always whole of the organisation, and the whole
SW: Some marketers are definitely pushing think about the things that can’t be company will benefit.
forward with it more aggressively than measured. You can wrap metrics around steve.woods@eloqua.com
B2BM MAY 08 – www.b2bm.biz
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12