The Marketo Revenue Rockstar Tour Review

I just got back to the desk the day after Marketo’s Revenue Rockstar event in London so I thought I’d file a quick report on it.

The event was fantastic. A buzzing, interesting, challenging day full of best-practice insight on demand generation and marketing automation. Not to mention the chance to meet lots of people who are at various points on the learning curve.  It was a room full of a new kind of B2B marketer: the kind who are ready to take responsibility for their company’s revenue pipeline.

I couldn’t help but feel I was witnessing the tipping point for marketing automation and revenue performance management in Europe (it feels like it tipped a while back int he US).

I only made the afternoon sessions, but they were excellent:

By way of disclaimer: it opened with a new video we produced for Marketo – I’ll link to it once it’s posted.  Then:

Fergus Gloster on The Secret Sauce for Revenue Growth – Fergus took us through Marketo’s own processes to show how good it can be. I love the way Marketo not only walk the talk but also share their own experiences so openly.

Case: Billy Boyle, Owlstone Co-Founder – Billy’s a great speaker and a convert to marketing automation. He showed how his company uses Marketo to automate marketing for a product that’s a bit off-piste for the company but has lots of potential. They didn’t want to throw sales resources at it, so they automated the pipeline – including some cool new features like integrating web chat with Marketo.

Liz Smyth on The Secret Sauce for Measurement & Analytics – Liz started by asking what you would do if they came to cut your marketing budget by 10%. She then proceeded to show how, with proper revenue performance management in place, you could defend that budget by showing exactly how much revenue would be lost due to the cut.  Very powerful stuff.

Rockstar Panel – (including Stan Woods, our intrepid MD) a Q&A session on the ins and outs of marketing automation and content marketing.

Then drinks.
Then more drinks.
It all went blurry after that.

Marketo raised another $50 million yesterday. Their European operation is ramping up fast. Marketing automation has hit our shores in a big way. If you’re a B2B marketer and you’re not doing it… you’re not doing it right.