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February 8, 2011 — Raab Associates Inc. has identified the leading B2B marketing automation solutions for different types of marketers in a comprehensive study.
The B2B Marketing Automation Vendor Selection Tool (VEST) is based on nearly 200 data points gathered about 18 marketing automation systems. Each product is scored on its fit with product and vendor requirements for small, mid-size and large marketing organizations. Different weights are applied to the scores for each group to reflect each group’s unique needs. “Leaders” are firms with the highest vendor and product fit scores. In each category, a different set of top candidates emerged:
– Small business leaders include OfficeAutoPilot, Infusionsoft and HubSpot. These are easy-to-use systems with functions not found in other marketing automation products, such as built-in sales automation and order processing tools. These features are most important to small businesses, which lack the resources to integrate separate systems for each function.
– Mid-size business leaders are Eloqua and Marketo. These products offer extensive capabilities that can be operated by non-technical users with a minimum of training and on-going support. The middle tier is the largest segment of the B2B marketing automation industry and contains the most competitors.
– Large business leaders are Aprimo and Neolane. These systems offer special features needed to coordinate large marketing departments where different users manage programs for different products and media, often out of different offices. These products are the most technically powerful, designed to operate on dedicated marketing databases that may or may not be synchronized with a sales automation system.
“The new B2B Marketing Automation VEST goes beyond static reports to provide marketers with an interactive tool to identify the products that best meet their company’s individual needs,” said Raab Associates Principal David M. Raab. “Marketers can adjust the weights applied to categories such as lead generation, campaign management and usability, and to individual items within those categories. This makes it easy to rank products and to the differences that each buyer feels are most important.”
The VEST is available in two editions. The non-interactive Basic Edition that provides general rankings of vendors in each of the three buyer categories and detailed profiles of each vendor. The Interactive Edition lets marketers dynamically adjust scoring weights and drill into the item-level details behind the product scores.
For more information, visit www.raabguide.com.
