We sat down with Adam Hodgden -- senior consultant at Perkuto and a Marketo Certified Consultant -- to discuss why, when it comes to events, Splash and Marketo are better together.
Read on for the full interview:
Adam Hodgden (AH): Perkuto is an agency that exclusively focuses on all things Marketo and marketing operations. Using Marketo as our central hub, we are able to provide a unique level of expertise on processes and integrations. My focus is mainly on system migration but I also love the day-to-day marketing operations.
2. Companies are sometimes surprised by the learning curve that comes with marketing automation platforms. Are there certain types of roles or teams that tend get up to speed faster with Marketo?
AH: The speed of success is dependent on sales and marketing alignment and processes. Sure, some people pick up the platform faster than others, but with some training and natural curiosity you can become an expert. Marketo is really no different from any other skill and follows a similar crawl/walk/run mentality.
3. Marketo is incredibly powerful, but many within sales and marketing don’t or can’t take advantage of it. What are the barriers?
AH: Marketo is a powerful platform and in order to have full adoption, there needs to be alignment. This is why we always have a discovery session with key stakeholder from marketing, sales and IT. This may seem like a basic conversation or unnecessary step, but without cross-functional alignment your adoption will be minimal.
4. Among the companies you’ve worked with, have you seen any specific challenges when it comes to using Marketo for events?
AH: Yes, I’ve seen a few. Some stem from the size of the marketing team, while others come from the needs of sales. In one case, the automation team could not keep up with the demands for live events. Tokenizing the programs worked to some degree but most of the time, each event had custom requirements. In another case, a client was very happy with their setup but the Marketo event app didn’t give them the flexibility they needed.
AH: It’s the ease at which someone could create a well-designed events portal and the flexibility to add custom fields to the check-in app. On the Marketo side, since Splash handles the registration process, the Marketo operations build is minimal. It’s also nice to see that while you’re building the landing page, Splash is working in the background to automatically build matching emails. From there, you can send emails from Splash or quickly export the Splash email HTML and import into Marketo if you prefer to send from there.
AH: Splash can be used as a standalone system and Marketo events are scalable to some degree. But the beauty is in using the power of Marketo for centralized lead processing and data management, while harnessing the scalability of Splash for managing the lifecycle. Splash is great for creating events, managing check-in and capturing valuable in-person data that can be fed into Marketo. You trust the experts in their domain.
You wouldn’t take a Tesla to the local mechanic for service...sure they can work on cars, but there is a level of expertise that is needed. The most important aspect about Splash and Marketo is that very little effort is needed to take full advantage of both.
