Craig Holman, Senior Manager of Interactive Marketing for MedAssets, shared how MedAssets uses marketing automation and how it has been successful at getting sales adoption of marketing automation.

Holman has been in B2B and B2C marketing for about eight years now, primarily focusing on CRM and marketing automation.

“Marketing has really evolved over the past five to ten years with the evolution of automated marketing systems, sophisticated CRMs, such as Salesforce… With this evolution and the automation and CRMs, it brings the marketer into more of a technology realm. You’re not just doing PR and communication. You’re really thinking about the flow of information and data and how well you can leverage that to your advantage,” explained Holman.

Holman emphasized that you have to adapt your internal strategy to whom you are working with.

“When you speak of the B to B space, it has a lot more to do with the game theory of how you approach things. When you look at whom you deal with within an organization—sales, services, marketing, operations, IT—they all have to come together and be on the same page. If you were going to do a comprehensive and sophisticated approach to your marketing program, you really have to be on the same page and on the same team with a well-defined goal and also governance over the systems and the personnel,” stated Holman.

Holman went on to explain that when you apply your strategy you have to think of the worst-case scenario as well as the best-case scenario. When you are making plans around IT and sales

, you need to set expectations cautiously and give yourself not only enough time to implement the systems, but also account for the behaviors that are less than ideal.

According to Holman there are three personality types: those who are the evangelists and the flag bearers, those people who really want to be a part of the future but don’t necessarily have the confidence to dive head first and those people who have historically had success without technology as an aide.

“This is really where the game theory aspect of B2B marketing comes into play because on your team you’re most likely going to have each one of those three people, not only in the marketing department, but also in the sales and the IT,” Holman shared.

Holman believes it is the marketer’s responsibility to set the extended team up for success through training and communication, as well as public kudos.

“I think that one of the most undervalued aspects of working within a collaboration environment is giving those public accolades. Knowing that this salesperson closed the deal because t

he marketer got them the right information, the IT guy has the system in place that’s going to deliver that information to the salesperson, and to the operations people and sales engineers, who can step in and play a critical role into what they’re trying to be a part of,” said Holman.

Holman further emphasized the importance of the design and planning of the Salesforce and Marketo integration. MedAsset’s current integration between Salesforce and Marketo relies heavily on campaign influence as well as historical activities. MedAssets has a fairly complex custom integration, so it is not exactly what Salesforce normally does.

MedAssets heavily utilizes the last interesting moment in Marketo Sales Insight.

“With Sales Insight and also Last Interesting Moment in Marketo, we have that ability to not only have that historical engagement in history of our contact or lead, but we also have the ability to update the last interesting thing they did… that Last Interesting Moment inside of Marketo is a huge advantage because if they filled out a form, had a private meeting at a tradeshow, attended a webinar, clicked on an email or visited a Web site, that at least gives the salesperson the opportunity to spark that conversation.

Holman colorfully described his goal: “I want to get the ball inside the red zone and then bring Sales in and let them score the touchdown. By having that Last Interesting Moment, Sales has the ability to start that conversation right off the bat.”

 The Take Away

• The Last Interesting Moment in Marketo is like the handoff.
• The Last Interesting Moment helps sales spark a conversation.
• Proper data and systems planning will set everyone up for success.
• Think through the best-case and worst-case scenario when planning.
• Be cautious and account for less-than-ideal behavior.

About The Author

Torrey Dye is a B2B Marketer and founder of FunnelCake Labs.
FunnelCake Labs helps B2B companies create amazing content more quickly.Google+