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Sue: Welcome to Certain's 5 Minute Skinny. I'm Sue MacKimmie, your Event Specialist and
host for this edition of the 5 Minute Skinny. Joining us today is Patrick Cava, our Product
Marketing Manager. Welcome Patrick.
Patrick: Thanks Sue.
Sue: So, Patrick, today we are going to talk a little bit about CRM and marketing automation
and what Certain is doing with that. What's happening?
Patrick: Well, Certain has built integrations with two of the leading marketing automation
platforms, Eloqua and Marketo. We have created this connection that will make it very easy
for marketers to connect their events and connect them to their digital programs within
their marketing automation platforms.
Sue: How does that integration work? So if I'm, let's say an Event Planner or Event Marketer,
and I have marketing automation in Certain and CRM, how is that going to work for me?
I know I'm going to plan my event and I am going to get all my registrations, but how
is that all going to work?
Patrick: If you're using marketing automation platforms, like Marketo and Eloqua, you might
already be accustomed to using the webinar connector that are already included in those
packages. So, companies like GoToMeeting and ReadyTalk, that are already integrated in
the platform. It is a very similar integration in which they can take lists out of Marketo
or Eloqua, pull them into Certain as attendees, conduct their entire event, and then pull
back in the registration status, updated profile information, back into the marketing automation
platform.
Sue: So if they're in Certain and they're registering and they're updating their information,
that automatically updates in their marketing automation system as well? Is that correct?
Patrick: Definitely.
Sue: And then what happens to all of that rich data and all of those profiles? Does
that get pushed into the CRM or how does that work?
Patrick: Well you can benefit both ways. By pulling in the information from your marketing
automation platform, you can use that data to then design your event. If you have a number
of different attendee types that you know what their interests are, their profile information,
you can really design your event sessions, different tracks in content, to make it more
relevant to your attendees. And then on the other side, as you're taking in new registrations,
you might be pulling in completely new leads through your event. Then you can feed that
information into your marketing automation platform to really build out the profile of
those attendees.
Sue: So that's going to roll right to the sales department, is that correct? To follow
up on all those leads?
Patrick: Definitely. Most marketing automation platform users are also using a CRM, like
Salesforce. Ideally, what they'll be doing as people are registering for the event and
interacting with the event, that information will go into their marketing automation platform,
get synced over into Salesforce or other CRM platform. And then make it very actionable
and measurable for the marketing and sales teams.
Sue: So that's a holistic system for event marketing and sales and finance?
Patrick: Definitely. Once you combine those three systems -- marketing automation, event
management, and your CRM -- you've really created an enterprise level, event marketing
platform.
Sue: What's next? What other thing would you need after that?
Patrick: Well, here at Certain we are really committed to this idea of integrating these
different platforms. We are working to deepen our integration with these marketing automation
platforms. And then also build out new integrations with platforms that are relevant to the market.
Sue: Is there anything else you want to add in about integration?
Patrick: It's the future. We are going to see it as a continuing trend. The events industry
is integrating different platforms to get the best solutions while maintaining that
efficiency between the different platforms.
Sue: Sounds very efficient. I like it. Thank you Patrick.
Patrick: You're welcome Sue.
Sue: Thank's for joining us today on the 5 Minute Skinny. I'm Sue MacKimmie. Join us
again for another edition, and in the meantime make sure you go to certain.com and download
our e-book on integrated marketing. Thanks so much.