• April 16, 2019
• Demand Generation, Sales and Marketing Alignment

Why I Go to Marketo Nation Every Year

I’m Matt, a Marketo Certified Expert focused on campaign execution and ops here at TechTarget. I recently returned from Marketo Nation (now the Adobe Digital Experience Summit) in Las Vegas and I wanted to share three reasons why this is a must-attend event for me—and why it should be for you too.

1) I bring back solutions and ideas that help me do my job better

Every year I dive in deep with at least one super expert and come away with real gems. This year, I connected with one of Marketo’s top marketing-ops people. After a candid discussion around what they’ll be doing to improve key analytics areas, we focused on two specific items on my agenda:

1. A way to better manage soft bounces
   Instead of just living with the deliverability issue caused by repeated soft bounces, I learned how to implement a “3 strikes and you’re out” policy. Before talking to this guy, I’d been told by numerous “experts” that this was impossible in Marketo. This seemed wrong to me since it’s a standard feature in Pardot. Now I can do it on our system.
2. Marketo Smart Campaigns deactivate after 6 months of inactivity—automatically!This’ll be a timesaver for me. Every little bit counts. I’ll still need to check it, but I think the inactive campaigns will deactivate themselves so I’ll no longer have to perform this routine maintenance task.

2) I learn strategies that help me operate more effectively within the corporate environment

I work on a centralized corporate marketing team that serves many constituencies. We have our priorities, and each one of our internal clients seems to have their own, which—to them—seem like the most important of all. For example, when someone outside my group chooses to add something to their stack that actually adds work or breaks something that’s been running well. At this year’s Marketo Nation, I learned about a framework that helps me understand this phenomenon at a higher level and look for better ways to manage it. The insights came in a session called “Building a MarTech Stack to Make Your Marketing Sing,” presented by Marketo Champions Josh Hill and Kelly Jo Horton. I’ll give only the topline bullets here because I intend to cover this in greater depth in my next post.

1. Upfront: Establish that the problem is a high priority
   Prioritized projects should be about fixing the big issues – big means big!
2. Require a business case: How will success be evaluated? What is the ROI in time and money?
   This doesn’t have to be detailed, but it should exist. The person making a proposal needs to explain the business benefits: more money in or less money out (or both) and faster if possible.
3. Getting optimized: If we add something to the stack, is there something we could remove?
   Usually, adding something to the stack means more work for someone, always in the short term, and often permanently. That has to be called out and included in the plan. Making work for other departments isn’t good.

3) Remembering that we are not alone

I’m intimately involved in about 150 outbound campaigns each year. Obviously, my role can be super heads-down. I tend to get tunnel vision, which then impacts my ability to contribute more creatively. That’s why, even though I have to un-dig like mad when I come back – Marketo Nation actually energizes me to innovate in the coming quarters.

Because the world of marketing ops is so specialized,  few people can relate to my profession and my daily reality—let alone work through the challenges and celebrate the wins with me!

At Marketo Nation, I’m with my people. I get to interact with a few thousand of the best B2B marketers in the world. I don’t have to explain the importance of the work. I don’t have to justify the focus I bring to it. I learn from others’ mistakes, and I don’t feel so bad about the ones I’ve had made myself.

See you next year!

At the end of the day, this last reason alone should be enough to justify the trip. The three reasons together should be enough to convince your boss to send you to the show next year. Hope to see you there!

 

demand generation, marketing strategies, Marketo, Marketo Nation, martech, martech stack