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Jep Castelein

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Lead Management Expert, Marketo

136 points

Jep Castelein is principal consultant at Marketo, blogger at LeadSloth.com and founder of the Marketing Automation Monday meetups.

Jep Castelein recommends this answer by David Raab

June 17, 2011

Does HubSpots acquisition of Performable make them a legitimate marketing automation vendor?

As Dharmesh says, this strengthens HubSpot in an area where it was weak (complex campaign flows). This makes it more directly competitive with other marketing automation vendors, especially in the small-to-mid business segment. Good way to spend that venture capital.
That said, there are still some ... more

Jep Castelein recommends this answer by Joseph Zuccaro

April 25, 2011

Backed by Google & Salesforce, is HubSpot poised to be a marketing automation game changer for SMBs?

I think HubSpot already IS a game changer; they have been evangelical with the concept of "Inbound Marketing" and small businesses are starting to heed their call. While the HubSpot platform does not have the broader functionality of a true MA platform like those of ... more

Jep Castelein recommends this answer by Jon Miller

Feb. 15, 2011

Is RPM an extension of marketing automation or a whole other category?

We agree that Revenue Performance Management (RPM) is a new business category, definitely not just an extension of marketing automation. We at Marketo started talking about revenue when we first declared the “revenue revolution” way back in July, 2008: http://www.marketo.com/about/news/press-releases/marketo-declares-a-revenue-r.... The thinking evolved further when ... more

Jep Castelein recommends this answer by Henry Bruce

Nov. 27, 2010

Two Marketing Automation vendors announced VC funding this week. Thoughts on trends in 2011?

Interesting comments from 2 of the other competitors. I see things a little differently. As a long time B2B software junkie and marketing consultant for past 9 years, I think this sort of investment is great for Marketo and not so great for the 2nd ... more

Marketing Automation

Venture Capital

Jep Castelein and 5 other people answered this question

Oct. 25, 2010

How do you provide the right content at the right time to the right buyers?

That's indeed a great question. Many marketers I talk to are overwhelmed with the idea of having to guess which prospects need which content at what time AND with having to create all that content.
Often, their first challenge is to gather enough content for ... more

Content Marketing Strategies

Marketing Automation Best Practices

Jep Castelein and 3 other people answered this question

Oct. 15, 2010

What is the market share of the leading marketing automation vendors?

My area of expertise are the mid-market and upper end, as defined by David Raab above.
If you look at the number of customers, I believe Eloqua has over 1000 customers, Marketo over 700, and Pardot over 400. Silverpop also has many hundreds of customers, ... more

Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation Industry

Marketing Automation Vendors

Jep Castelein and 9 other people answered this question

Oct. 7, 2010

Marketing Automation Resellers & Consultants: Help create a list of marketing automation resellers.

I'm an independent Marketing Automation consultant. I specialize in helping tech companies get more out of their marketing automation system and turn more inquiries into qualified leads. I work with most of the vendors, including (but not limited to) Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua and Silverpop.
LeadSloth
http://www.leadsloth.com
info@leadsloth.com
510-545-4171 more

Jep Castelein recommends this answer by Adam Blitzer

Oct. 7, 2010

Is there a good email frequency benchmark for lead nurturing?

Good question. Lead nurturing cadence is a bit tricky in that it is totally dependent on the type of nurturing track. For example:
Trial or Activation -- recipient might expect a new tip every day during a two week trial
Keeping in touch / deal pushed out ... more

Lead Nurturing Tools

Marketing Automation

Jep Castelein recommends this answer by Howie Levy

Oct. 7, 2010

What are the primary variables you modify with email A/B tests - graphical, content, offer, others?

I agree with Jep, subject line testing is a great place to start for a/b testing. Depending on your distribution lists, its also the easiest place to get meaningful, statistically significant results.
However when Jep mentions testing the "offer" I think that needs further clarification ... more

Jep Castelein and 9 other people answered this question

Sept. 24, 2010

How will social media change lead nurturing?

Before potential clients register on your website, they will most likely follow your organization via social media. They subscribe to your blog, "like" your facebook page, or follow you on Twitter. This is just as much lead nurturing as sending emails to leads in your ... more

Lead Nurturing Tools

Marketing Automation

Jep Castelein and 7 other people answered this question

Sept. 24, 2010

How does Marketo price their software?

http://www.marketo.com/b2b-marketing-software/marketing-automation-pricing.php
and http://www.marketo.com/b2b-marketing-software/lead-management-pricing.php
Hope that helps.
Jep (www.leadsloth.com)

Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation Market

Marketing Automation Software

Jep Castelein and 2 other people answered this question

Sept. 21, 2010

Do newsletters work as lead nurturing tools?

In addition to Carlos's recommendations, the risk with newsletters is that you're trying to be everything to everyone, rather than having a message that is optimized for a particular audience.
For example, a couple of weeks ago I received a newsletter from a popular online ... more

Lead Nurturing Tools

Marketing Automation

Jep Castelein and 6 other people answered this question

Aug. 11, 2010

Tips before starting a lead nurturing program?

Lead Nurturing works best if you provide prospects with relevant content, and if you get them to commit more and more to your organization. For example, you could follow these steps:
1. Develop the lead nurturing campaign together with sales
2. Define target groups: different leads ... more

Lead Generation

Jep Castelein recommends this answer by Jennifer Melwani

July 24, 2010

Does marketing automation work if I only have a cold list of records?

Marketing automation systems are tools - a way to automate the great marketing you should be doing without the tool. Long before we had today's marketing automation, B2B marketers were still running integrated campaigns -- it just took 2-4 systems and several manual hand-offs to ... more

Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation Best Practices

Marketing Automation Campaign

Jep Castelein and 1 other person answered this question

July 21, 2010

What are the benefits of purchasing email lists?

I agree with George, I personally have never had success with list rental. It always delivered the most expensive and least qualified leads.
However, I have seen some successes with in-house list building, in other words, doing your own research. You define your ideal prospect ... more

Jep Castelein recommends this answer by Carlos Hidalgo

July 5, 2010

Suggestions for overcoming sales resistance to automated lead nurturing.

Courtney:
We have found that getting sales involved in the process of nurturing and in the development of all areas of a lead management process is key to getting their buy-in. How does marketing get them involved? First by asking sales what they need and then ... more

Focus Interactive Summit

Jep Castelein and 7 other people answered this question

May 27, 2010

What are the main causes for marketing automation implementation failures?

After so many great contributions, I find it hard to add something completely new. Christopher is spot-on with his focus on process; Mac brings up valid points around lack of expertise and understanding of the buying process; Howard's recommendation of strategy-before-technology is well taken; and ... more

Lead Management

Marketing Automation

Tom Scearce selected a best answer for

April 7, 2010

What are the main barriers to a successful deployment of a marketing automation solution?

By most accounts, 2009 has been a breakout year for the marketing automation space. And while the category itself is not new, we now have a robust and growing ecosystem of vendor solutions, resellers, agencies, consultants, integrators, and marketers with deployment experience. However, as we ... more

Database Cleanup

Jep Castelein and 13 other people answered this question

Sept. 29, 2009

Marketo versus Eloqua versus Silverpop

Hi Shelton,
I have two resources that you may find interesting. First of all, I have a list with pretty much all marketing automation systems: http://www.leadsloth.com/demand-generation-software/
And last week I blogged about 8 Tips to Get Started With Marketing Automation:
http://www.leadsloth.com/blog/8-tips-to-get-started-with-marketing-automation/
Hope you find this useful.
Best,
Jep more

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