If you are looking for a marketing automation tool then you should try out Marketo. If you are wondering what is Marketo then be informed that it is a SaaS or Software-as-a-Service based marketing automation software. This tool is specifically designed to help different businesses to create, automate and measure their marketing efforts in terms of engagement, the different tasks as well as the workflows.
In addition to that this tool is also proven to help in other different and important areas of marketing such as:
- Targeting qualified leads
- Producing far better lead-to-revenue opportunities
- Executing automated and more personalized marketing campaigns and much more.
All these you can do across several digital marketing channels.
Marketing automation using Marketo can really prove to be a game changer for the entire organization. This platform will allow you to get engaged with both your prospective as well as your existing customers. You can use different digital channels for that.
Therefore, with all these features and benefits provided by Marketo, several experts and Marketo consultants and analysts say that this is an absolutely necessary platform for all modern B2B marketers. This is because all B2B buyers today are more self-directed and have better control over their buying behavior and cycle than the vendors who typically control the selling cycle.
People using Marketo
The search for effective tools for automating marketing processes in not new and has not cooled down ever since it started. In fact, over the years this practice of using marketing automation tools and software deployments has increased significantly.
According to the 2017 research report of Salesforce State of Marketing, it is revealed that:
- 67% of all leading marketers at present use some kind of a marketing automation platform
- Over the next two years, it was also found in the report of the same company that an additional 21% of marketing leaders are thinking of using a marketing automation platform.
Now the question is who are those specific marketers that prefer to use Marketo over others. A survey report of Wizdo breaks down the Marketo users into three specific categories such as:
- The marketing practitioners especially those who need to operationalize the marketing campaigns built and to nurture their strategies
- The sales representative who want more contextual engagement and now have a better insight into the digital behavior of their prospective customers and
- The marketing executive who now want to correlate their sales pipeline and funnel with their marketing investments to generate more revenue and get higher ROI.
In a separate survey it was also found that the prevalence of Marketo users is also found in other areas as well such as those that are:
- In demand generation
- Marketing operations
- Sales and marketing agencies
- Product management and marketing services
- Brand managers and
- Marketing administrators.
Research and surveys also found that the preference for using Marketo for marketing automation also depends on several other factors such as:
- The size of the company
- The type of business and
- Maturity.
If you want to put things to be in plain and simple terms, Marketo a be used by almost every marketer. There is a number of different and diverse ways in which a company can use this platform to automate its marketing efforts. It all depends and reflects on the diversity of the marketers who use Marketo.
Lastly, when it comes to using Marketo, another study corroborates the fact about the marketing automation momentum. This 2017 report of Econsultancy found that there is another 24% of B2B companies who are more prospective than their peers about marketing automation and currently use it. Moreover, the report also found that more than two-thirds of all these companies deploy marketing automation technology.
Marketo marketing features
Now, take a look at some of the core Marketo software features as well as the solutions that it can provide making it a popular marketing automation tool among modern marketers. These features include:
- Lead nurturing
- Lead scoring
- Lead management
- Bi-directional CRM synching
- Email marketing
- Customer base marketing
- Mobile marketing
- Consumer marketing
- Website personalization
- Search engine optimization
- Web activity tracking
- Social marketing
- CRM integration
- Digital ads
- Program and campaign analysis
- Campaign dashboards and reports
- Opportunity influence modeler
- Marketing calendar
- Anonymous retargeting and
- Advanced report builder.
However, all these features are subsets of the “engagement applications” of Marketo. This aspect includes:
- Marketing Automation
- Mobile
- Account-Based Marketing
- Marketing Analytics
- Social
- Web
- Digital Ads and
- Content AI.
With all these features and functionality, there is no prize for guessing why Marketo emerged as the most popular marketing automation tool for all types of marketers.
Marketo pricing facts
The fact is that Marketo does not comprise any particular pricing information, publicly. If you look at the pricing literature on the Marketo website, you will see that the pricing of the product is mainly based on the number of contacts generated in a marketing database and certainly not based on its usage.
However, you can gain a fair idea about its price through different survey reports. According to one such report of the Marketing Automation Insider, the cost of Marketo may be $895 for a month for a business having about 10,000 contacts. The full feature may cost you $3,195 per month. There may be a set-up fee in addition to that along with an additional cost for an extra user as well.
However, Marketo does not require you to buy bundles of the marketing applications that it offers. According to your affordability, you can start with only the email marketing automation feature and then slowly incorporate other products like Marketo Content as you move up.
Wrapping it up
However, irrespective of the price you have to pay to use Marketo, proper use of this AI-powered product will help you to forecast content that is most likely to convert each of your audience. For this, you will need to use the cataloging website and auto-discovering assets of the platform.
This platform will surely help you to automate digital engagement management to ensure that you provide the best digital experience to your customers.