I had the opportunity to attend the Salesforce.com, Cloudforce event last week.  Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff was in tune as usual with all the energy of a first-grader after a second bowl of Count Chocula.  And while Mark’s keynote carried the standard theme’s;  Software as a Service,  10th anniversary,  and metrics of customer success with Salesforce:

• 52% increase in leads
• 34% boost in revenues
• 23% decrease in service and support costs
• 30% improvement in customer retention
• 80% reduction in application development effort

What was most interesting was the change in the tone of the attendees.  Fast forward six months from Dreamforce when cloud computing was defiantly a known entity but not a fait accompli for most visitors to today where it was a matter of fact: Customers, attendees and the press talked as if every application was running in the cloud and organizations no longer bothered with buying servers, software installs and service contracts. 

Granted the Cloudforce events are a microcosm, but unlike many technologies that take years to gestate and then even longer to move to emotional acceptance, the vision of centralized computing is back in vogue…. And for good reason.  As Kraig Swensrud, Salesforce’s senior director of product marketing put it “The vision of the company from Day 1 has been that it should be as easy to use a business application as it is easy to buy a book on Amazon.com”

Probably one of the most exciting things to me is seeing someone achieve success with your company’s product. It doesn’t really matter what type of product or even how it’s used. It makes you proud of your team, your partners and of course your customer. Delivering on your promise and seeing measurable results makes anyone feel like a proud papa.

And while we see customer success on a daily basis it is especially rewarding when it is also recognized by others. This week, Cisco Systems was awarded the DemandGen Report’s Sales & Marketing Alignment Award for the Enterprise category. See Story

Linda Fassig-Knauer, Cisco marketing programs manager in the US Theater, credited 3Marketeers and the eTrigue solution for helping Cisco increase appointments with SMB prospects by 25%

“eTrigue Intelligent lead scoring helps us determine which technology or offer the prospect is most interested in discussing with our sales teams and enables us to funnel those leads in a timely manner to our call center, who ultimately sends to our channel partners,” says Fassig-Knauer, “The information in eTrigue lead scoring gives us three times the information so our call center agents are much more prepared before a call. It also greatly increases the number of prospects we can identify as being interested in a solution because the system does not require the customer/prospect to register.”

While the tool is important, kudos obviously go to Linda and her team at Cisco and The 3Marketeers for successfully developing and executing a successful closed demand generation program. And of course, thanks to the folks at the DemandGen Report for recognizing success and the tools that help make things happen!

“The first tool I step on turned into a weapon” –Robert Frost

I just returned from Cisco’s second annual Velocity event in Miami. It had to be one of the most down to earth practical events I have attended. Rather than a “hype the channel event”, Cisco brought together more than 250 Channel partners and a select group of marketing vendors to help them “Navigate to Accelerate.”

Cisco’s goal is to support its resellers as a trusted business advisor to accelerate their marketing. As Luanne Tierney, vice president, Cisco worldwide channels marketing put it Cisco has gathered “the best and the brightest marketing gurus on the planet” to talk best practices and show existing and new tools, to improve its channel marketing. “This event is not about Cisco . . . it’s about you.”

It was clear that Cisco scored major brownie points with its VAR’s by bringing them together to share secretes of their success. Kicking off the three day event with a mini-trade show around the pool of the Fontainebleau hotel, Cisco showcased vendors, including eTrigue, who have successfully helped Cisco drive its marketing and sales programs.

This by-invitation event was designed to show resellers how they can benefit from proven tools and services. And while many other IT vendors are retrenching, the Cisco resellers I spoke with were impressed with Cisco’s efforts to help them go after more than $40 billion of installed Cisco equipment that is more than five years old and ripe for the replacing.

The event included some marketing thought leaders including Seth Godin, author of Permission Marketing and All Marketers Are Liars, Gerry McGovern, “Web Development Visionary”, and Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind – Entertaining and educational. The event also included a variety of breakout sessions:

• Turning Your Website into a Lead Generating Machine
• No One Will Know It Wasn’t Your Idea (Replicable Partner Best Practices)
• How to Build a Powerful Value Proposition
• Telling Your Story to Drive Demand – PR Now and Tomorrow
• Don’t Be a Social Media Moron
• Don’t Be the Black Sheep – How To Champion Marketing in Your Organization (ROI)
• Who Knew? Marketing Managed Services to Grow Your Business
• Putting the Power of Cisco Marketing Behind You
• SMB – Marketing Your Small Business in Today’s Big World

My big three takeaways?

1. Cisco is doing it right by putting together the marketing and sales programs along with educational events to work hand in hand with their resellers in an effort to garner their unfair share of sales.
2. B2B buyers are becoming savvier. The marketing programs that are working are more targeted and more creative than ever. One of the best examples was the 3marketeers BullsEye! program which was highlighted in multiple breakout sessions. Even Cisco is having fun on YouTube: A Special Valentine’s Day Gift…from Cisco!
3. “Cost effective marketing” is the key message in economically turbulent times. You can do big things on a budget, but measuring marketing ROI is more critical than ever!

Walking away from a week at Moscone Center with the theme of “Cloud Computing” firmly planted in my subconscience, what struck me as truly inspirational was the enthusiasm salesforce.com customers had for the future of their businesses. Not to diminish Benioff’s keynote, but the real story was the attendees and how many were planning to use new tools to cope with tougher economic times and fewer resources vs. just retrenching and weathering the storm.

Given the audience, I guess this shouldn’t be a surprise with over 60% of SMBs attributing “lower expense rates” and “increases in productivity” as the driving factors for embracing Software-as-a-Service.  Automating and working smarter is a company’s best defense.

Ultimately, the many conversations I had with attendees highlighted three key points that were top-of-mind:

• Companies are trying to do more with less
  Across the board, we are all under pressure to increase sales despite fewer resources.
• Sales and Marketing Automation is a priority
  Generating more qualified leads is a top priority, and providing information to sales in real-time is a must have.
• Turning economic challenges into an opportunity is high on the list
  The changing economic climate is altering company strategies to focus on sales effectiveness.

It was clear that companies attending the event were thinking ahead. And given the predisposition Saleforce.com users have to embracing solutions based on SaaS and Cloud Computing to automate their businesses, it’s my bet they will fare far better than most.