Salesfusion Buys Loopfuse

by Dan Freeman 
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Atlanta-based marketing automation vendor Salesfusion announced this morning the acquisition of LoopFuse, another marketing automation company, also based in Atlanta. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.  Reflecting the rapid change in the marketing automation sector, this news comes two weeks after Salesfusion raised $8.25 million in a Series B financing round. According to the Salesfusion website,

“Salesfusion expects to more than triple sales, revenue, and customers by the end of the year.”

As adoption of marketing technologies accelerate, venture capital continues to flow into marketing automation.

More from the Salesfusion website;

Acquiring LoopFuse has significant implications for Salesfusion and the entire marketing automation space. Salesfusion is embedding LoopFuse’s dynamic social media publishing and monitoring tools directly into the Salesfusion suite of products adding social listening, publishing and nurturing to the leading marketing automation suite for midsized businesses. Expanding on current Loopfuse technology, Salesfusion will be the first provider to bring the power of predictive analytics to marketing automation, arming marketers with the first “smart” marketing automation solution and enabling them to interact with and nurture prospects and customers in a more efficient, intelligent way.
The addition of LoopFuse customers to the Salesfusion portfolio makes Salesfusion one of the largest marketing automation software vendors focused specifically on the midmarket segment, overtaking several competitors. Pease and Young, both of whom will stay on at Salesfusion, enhance the company’s business and technical capabilities and attractiveness to customers and investors. Said Christian Nahas, CEO of Salesfusion, “Marketers are asking for a solution that is smart and intuitive. A solution that helps them reduce the friction between marketing and sales and deliver bottom line results like never before. We are now one step closer to achieving that goal.” See more here. 

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Marketing Growth Strategies LLC has been engaged in research, analysis, lead generation, and client implementation in the Marketing Automation sector since 2009 and has recently revised its highly successful 2014 Marketing Automation eBook.

Are you a marketing automation vendor? Learn about the capturing up to 500 fresh Marketing Automation leads.

Considering implementing marketing automation? Download the 2014 Marketing Automation eBook.

Is Marketing Automation Crossing the Chasm?

by Dan Freeman 
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Marketing automation enables marketers to generate, capture and synthesize a vast array of prospect and customer digital interactions with their web sites, landing pages, email campaigns, and social platforms, and to assess and take action on the most promising leads. Seems like a no brainer, but it's still a challenge to get companies to commit. In fact, our research has revealed that less than 1% of businesses use marketing automation software today.

In his book, Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore describes a technology lifecycle in which the adoption or acceptance of a new product or innovation proceeds according to the demographic and psychological characteristics of defined adopter groups. According to Moore’s model, the first group of people to use a new product is called "innovators," followed by "early adopters”.

The “chasm” is the crucial period during which a product is either adopted broadly, or remains part of a niche market. The “early majority” and “late majority” then adopt the product, followed by the last group, known as "laggards".

If this model is applied to marketing automation platforms, it becomes evident that, among large firms, Marketing automation has indeed crossed the chasm (we estimate a 20% adoption rate among companies with 500 or more employees).

By contrast, mid-sized firms are just now at the crossing while small firms (nearly 6 million of them!) are still in the innovators stage. This explains the growing number of marketing automation vendors seeking to gain a foothold into this market, as well as the substantial venture capital the sector has attracted.

Note also that the chasm is the steepest part of the growth curve, so gaining customers at this stage is critical for competitors in this space.

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Marketing Growth Strategies LLC has been engaged in research, analysis, lead generation, and client implementation in the Marketing Automation sector since 2009 and has recently revised its highly successful 2014 Marketing Automation eBook.

Are you a marketing automation vendor? Learn about the capturing up to 500 fresh Marketing Automation leads.

Considering implementing marketing automation? Download the 2014 Marketing Automation eBook.

Can the Market Absorb More Marketing Automation Vendors?

by Dan Freeman 
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With last month's $1.5 billion purchase of Responsys by Oracle, marketing automation continues to be in the limelight. On the surface industry consolidation appears to be the narrative, but dig deeper and you will find compelling subplots. Creative destruction—which has transformed marketing since the rise of the Internet—is accelerating. As traditional marketing (think Madmen) gives way to digital, marketing technology ascends.

As this Infographic from Scott Brinker (Chief Marketing Technologist blog) shows, it’s truly the wild west for marketing technology, and marketing automation, as a “backbone platform” is front and center. Platforms are software that every marketer needs—such as CRM, or web content management—and Brinker includes marketing automation as another must-have technology.

“What makes them platforms, rather than just products, is that they’re increasingly open — interoperable with other, more specialized marketing software.”

Can the market absorb the entry of tech giants like Oracle, IBM, Adobe, and Salesforce, as well as dozens of new marketing automation start-ups? Our answer is yes. Consolidation and growth will occur in tandem as tens of thousands of marketplace experiments among platform users determine the eventual winners and losers.

One thing is for certain; adoption rates are hitting the steepest part of the product lifecycle, and to be a winner, vendors need to be in the game now.

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Marketing Growth Strategies LLC has been engaged in research, analysis, lead generation, and client implementation in the Marketing Automation sector since 2009 and has recently revised its highly successful 2014 Marketing Automation eBook.

Are you a marketing automation vendor? Learn about the capturing up to 500 fresh Marketing Automation leads.

Considering implementing marketing automation? Download the 2014 Marketing Automation eBook.

Venture Capital Flows and Marketing Automation Adoption

by Dan Freeman 
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Even as venture capital continues to flow into marketing automation, less than one percent of US businesses have invested in the technology.  In fact, it's still at the innovators stage but quickly moving to the early adopters stage—the steepest growth phase of the product lifecycle.

The simple truth is, if you are a marketing automation company and not growing at a rapid pace in the year 2014, don’t expect to compete for long in this space.

If you are a marketer thinking about implementing marketing automation, be an early adopter and gain a systematic advantage over your competitors.

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Marketing Growth Strategies LLC has been engaged in research, analysis, lead generation, and client implementation in the Marketing Automation sector since 2009 and has recently revised its highly successful 2014 Marketing Automation eBook.

Are you a marketing automation vendor looking to compete successfully in this high growth market? Learn about the capturing up to 500 fresh Marketing Automation leads.

Considering implementing marketing automation? Download the 2014 Marketing Automation eBook.