I have long wondered about the contradictions I see in the marketing automation space. Look at lead management in particular. On the one hand, demand management technology produces measurable benefit for the thousands of marketers who use it. Lead management enthusiasts run more programs, with greater efficiency, and better track results. On the other, market penetration – while growing – is early stage and many, many more marketers could benefit from adopting automation. Despite this, I have watched technology providers in this space battle heatedly over price and customer replacement.
Part of the problem is the limited collective experience B2B marketers have with these tools. The idea of marketing automation is very attractive, but the work needed to make execution happen successfully can be daunting. It takes time to input contact information, build email templates, design landing pages, incorporate those pages into the company Web site (while attending to the brand, search marketing, and usability issues that can arise), and build the reports that help to demonstrate the value of this investment. It seems as if marketers need some sort of open source, or freeware technology – like many developers enjoy – to let them learn and experiment before making a software investment.
Last month, Sean Dwyer, CEO of Loopfuse, contacted me about his plans to offer marketing automation for free. (Full disclosure: Loopfuse is an an up-and-coming lead management automation provider and I have worked with Sean in the past as a Forrester analyst. You can see evidence of this in my prior posts.) Sean wanted my opinion as an ex-analyst and someone who knows the market.
At first I thought Sean was crazy, but then the idea began to appeal to me. Rather than cover all the details here, I’ll point you to Ardath Albee’s blog post about FreeView. If you are interested in learning more, read her post, because I think she does a fabulous job of covering the news. What appears to appeal to both Ardath and me is that Loopfuse has made a limited-use (in volume, not features) software tool available to marketers who want to experiment with marketing automation without incurring an upfront financial or contractual commitments. Freeview will not only attract marketers in small businesses and startups, but – much like open source software – it may also create a following of professionals at many levels who use Freeview to become familiar with the technology and demonstrate its value without raising the eyebrows of the CFO or controller.
Will this announcement make lead management automation more pervasive? Or will it simply intensify price competition and customer poaching? As an ex-analyst, I no longer feel compelled to make a call here. So I’ll just watch from the sidelines and see what success this announcement holds for Loopfuse specifically and the rest of the market in general. Care to make a prediction? Feel free to post a comment and we can chat about it further.
August 31, 2010 at 4:42 PM
Hi Laura:
Great post and thanks for your comments. Without question, we are thrilled with the market’s reception to Loopfuse’s Freeview offering. And while we leverage open source technology for our product, my experience is that most marketers don’t really care about the technology used to build a product. Rather, they want a solution that works well for their needs. So while we have a solid, scalable architecture, the more important thing is that Loopfuse Freeview provides immediate value to business marketers for free. Finally, I agree with you that our freemium leadership in the marketing automation space will help not only expand the market for Loopfuse but also for the entire market segment.
August 25, 2010 at 7:54 PM
Parker, good to hear from you. Another very thoughtful comment — just like the many you made during the MarketingProf’s Forum panel back in May.
Clearly Genius.com and Loopfuse have bet big on giving away more than just a sample to encourage marketers to adopt this technology category.
I think the trick is figuring out how to balance giving away enough functionality to attract marketers — those with enough budget to invest in more capability down the line — without incurring the support costs of enabling a bunch of freeloaders — one-person shops, for example, trying to make a go at marketing consulting or agency work.
August 25, 2010 at 7:44 PM
Mark, thanks for the comment. I’ll let Sean Dwyer address your question about revenue growth at Loopfuse, but I believe their product is still based fundamentally on open source code. However, I don’t think this is a question of about the value of “open” vs. “closed” but more about the nature of the marketing automation market which continues to attract new entrants and enjoy/suffer stiff competition.
August 17, 2010 at 4:13 PM
Loopfuse nearly returns to its roots: it used to be free and open source. Did the closed source approach not grow revenues?
August 17, 2010 at 4:08 PM
Laura,
Thanks for the post.
Since Genius announced a free version of it’s Demand Generation solution we second LoopFuse’s approach.
Given the still low adoption of Marketing Automation solutions, counted somewhere between 5 – 15% depending on whom your sourcing, it’s clear that vendors need to do more to encourage adoption. It’s our belief, which has been echoed by others, that this model will encourage trial and use – something that will ultimately be good for Genius.com and the entire space.