This week, I had the pleasure of attending the first ever RevTalks 2014– The Revenue Marketing Summit in San Francisco. Created by Eloqua Certified Partner The Pedowitz Group, and sponsored by a host of marketing technology companies, including Oracle | Eloqua, gathered marketers from around the country. What is RevTalks 2014? To quote their website…
“The Revenue Marketing Summit where senior-level marketers will discuss, listen to and share the most innovative, inventive and transformational ideas affecting revenue marketing today, all in TED Talks style.“
Marketers, speaking as one myself, have often been accused of thinking too much about the color of the pens or the paper thickness of a printed whitepaper instead of caring about the ROI (Return on Investment) of a campaign. That change in the way marketers think has not only changed by force, but also through technology, thanks to multiple solutions that make it easier for marketers to track, measure and analyze their efforts.
RevTalks 2014 featured well over 30 speakers in what could only be called a well organized and choreographed conference. Each speaker had 15 minutes to share their thoughts, experiences and data on why it is important for marketers to shift into the roles of revenue generators (aka Chief Revenue Officers/CROs). The recurring theme throughout the day was DATA, DATA and more DATA! Marketers need to focus on using data to help drive the decisions they make – from the type of campaigns they initiate to where we invest, or shift, our budgets.
There were many shining moments during the day. Here are some of the talks that resonated with me the most.
Brian Kardon (@bkardon ), CMO - Lattice Engines
Topic: What Can The Revenue Marketer Learn from Consumer Marketing?
What do you know about your prospects and customers? Using marketing automation allows you to look at form submissions, emails, etc. This represents about 1% of the content that you could actually capture. There are thousands of other attributes you could use. There is so much data available to the marketer to the point where you can’t act quickly enough. It takes algorithms to really do it. Predictive targeting is the key – data science is what marketing has to be and more than just anecdotes.
Jim Kanir, Chief Revenue Officer - Vox Mobile
Topic: The “Reese’s Effect” – Sales is in My Marketing and Marketing is in My Sales
The catalyst of success can be had when merging/aligning sales and marketing together. Sales and marketing alignment = the “Reese’s Effect” – Peanut Butter and Chocolate make the perfect combination! It takes having a real conversation with sales. Asking them what they want. Get them invested in marketing.
Mark Organ (@markorgan), CEO, Influitive
Topic: Align and Succeed with Customer Advocates
In this year of disruptive change how can we align with all of our stake holders? How do we build the gorilla in our market and then sleep well at night because we are living with integrity? The way we do this is to align our companies and organize around advocates and advocacy. Systematically generate leads at scale and convert by definition is “Revenue Marketing”. Mobilizing your customers provides you with the best leads - leads through referrals. By organizing around advocates, you achieve alignment between marketing and customer success.
Recommended reading from Mark Organ:
Book:
The Goal by by Eliyahu M. Goldratt (Author),(Author)
Blog:
1 Day Sales Cycle by David Skok
Rob Israch, VP Global Marketing Programs, NetSuite
Topic: Enabling a Hyper-Growth Company with a Marketing Machine
Become a “Marketing Scientist”! It’s great to use data for marketing metrics but your data should be informing and influencing your other marketing efforts as well – content, website, etc. If you are looking for an easy way to win an argument with sales, show them the ROI if it exists. Show them the data. Don’t define ROI as cost per lead. It’s Revenue over Cost.
About Ian Ingar Brown
I’m a Modern Marketer, Marketing Advisor at Oracle, Former Eloqua User (since 2005), Markie Award Winner, Eloqua Experience Speaker, Marketing Technology Geek, Professional Musician, Photographer, Videographer, Husband, Father, Son.
Follow:@ingarbrown
@Connect:www.linkedin.com/in/ianibrown/