Demand Generation 2.0
October 28, 2009
At OpenView Labs, as part of our sales and marketing support for our portfolio, we strive constantly to keep up to date with the latest best practices and bring them to our companies. In recent years, new demand generation practices have become an important area of focus. We are hearing about them from both directions: the portfolio companies are asking for help, and the market is abuzz with new tools, services and strategies that were hardly mentioned just a few years back.
So before we even try to grasp the full extent of the burgeoning space, let’s do a quick round up of this new crop of services, tools and providers that we can loosely call “Demand Generation 2.0”.
The tools:
Today, the most powerful tools for demand generation are often marketed as “Marketing Automation”, but they really aspire to more than just automating the marketing function. They want to be the backbone, the information systems that support all demand generation activities. I just want to list a few here:
- Eloqua, the “grand daddy” of marketing automation platforms
- Marketo, the new comer with lots of buzz
- Silverpop, which came to the Demand generation space a few years ago with an acquisition
- Manticore Technologies, one of the original players (started in 2001) that is still going strong and constantly adding new features to their platform
The people:
At the current stage, Demand generation is still half art and half science. Even with powerful tools such as Eloqua, companies still need a lot of gray matter to help set the system up and constantly optimize it to adjust to the quickly shifting market. This comes with a very particular mindset and lots of experience that is not easily replicated.
Here are some consulting services/experts that help you make full use of your tools and implement your strategies:
Of course, any list will be insufficient without a listing of general resources that are free and helpful to anyone wanting to know more about Demand Generation 2.0.
The resources:
Raab Associates studies demand generation software tools in detail and evaluates them in several aspects. The Raab Guide to Demand Generation Systems is considered the industry leading evaluation of top demand generation software tools.
There is a summit on everything these days, so there must be a Demand Generation Summit too!
Marketing Interactions is a progressive marketing blog that mentions, among other things, how content marketing blends seamlessly into a well thought out demand generation strategy.