By Jason Miller, Program Manager for Social Media and Content, Marketo

With Facebook poised to be one of the all-time top initial public offerings in history – potentially valued up to $100 billion when it’s all said and done – the entire web ecosystem and online economy is in for a permanent, monumental shift. Indeed, the juggernaut’s launch into Wall Street marks a new era in everything that takes place online, from ecommerce to content and beyond.

Marketo today announced Marketo for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, an integrated Revenue Performance Management (RPM) solution focused on increasing pipeline performance, improving sales effectiveness and optimizing sales and marketing investments. The solution will be unveiled at the 2012 Microsoft Convergence Conference, being held March 18-21 in Houston.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers will be able to purchase and implement the entire Marketo product line later this year. The integrated offering is aimed at helping B2B marketers break down the silos between marketing and sales, treating revenue as one continuous process and eliminating gaps among teams. According to Marketo Chief Revenue Officer Paul Albright, connecting sales and marketing teams has become a critical part of managing the revenue process.

SalesFUSION recently announced the addition of new social media marketing capabilities to its marketing automation platform, following up on the company's previous release of a new event marketing software module.

Earlier this week, SalesFUSION released Facebook content-development and user tracking capabilities for SocialFUSION, one of the modules in its flagship SalesFUSION360 marketing automaton suite. The new features allow B2B marketers to build and launch Facebook offers, landing pages and other content, using a provided template library. In addition to deploying new social media content, marketers also get the ability to track and profile visitors to a corporate Facebook page, and to tie these analytics into the SalesFUSION platform's lead scoring, lead alert and related capabilities.

SalesFUSION recently announced the addition of new social media marketing capabilities to its marketing automation platform, following up on the company's previous release of a new event marketing software module.

Earlier this week, SalesFUSION released Facebook content-development and user tracking capabilities for SocialFUSION, one of the modules in its flagship SalesFUSION360 marketing automaton suite. The new features allow B2B marketers to build and launch Facebook offers, landing pages and other content, using a provided template library. In addition to deploying new social media content, marketers also get the ability to track and profile visitors to a corporate Facebook page, and to tie these analytics into the SalesFUSION platform's lead scoring, lead alert and related capabilities.

Innovators in the world of B2B marketing are stepping up in support of the industry’s first annual Content2Conversion Conference, as DemandGen (DGR) today announced new sponsors. The new event, which is being held Tuesday, April 24th at the Times Center in Manhattan, will be sponsored by cutting edge companies including:

• Demandbase, a real time targeting and personalization platform for B2B marketers;
• Eloqua, a provider of Revenue Performance Management solutions;
• Gisteo, a provider of custom promotional video services;
• HubSpot, a provider of inbound marketing software;
• KnowledgeVision, an interactive online video platform;
• Manticore Technology, a provider of SaaS marketing automation; and
• PRNewswire, a news and information distribution services provider.

Innovators in the world of B2B marketing are stepping up in support of the industry’s first annual Content2Conversion Conference, as DemandGen (DGR) today announced new sponsors. The new event, which is being held Tuesday, April 24th at the Times Center in Manhattan, will be sponsored by cutting edge companies including:

• Demandbase, a real time targeting and personalization platform for B2B marketers;
• Eloqua, a provider of Revenue Performance Management solutions;
• Gisteo, a provider of custom promotional video services;
• HubSpot, a provider of inbound marketing software;
• KnowledgeVision, an interactive online video platform;
• Manticore Technology, a provider of SaaS marketing automation; and
• PRNewswire, a news and information distribution services provider.

By Adam Blitzer, Co-Founder & COO, Pardot

In 2011, B2B marketers made great strides in understanding how to capitalize on social media channels. By integrating social efforts with marketing automation and CRM systems, companies can take it up another notch. The following strategies will help your marketing and sales team maximize social media efforts for revenue gain and customer loyalty.

etouches recently announced the next generation release of its API event management software platform. The new version of the API was released along with enhanced features for the company’s eReg and eSocial modules, as well as the integration of partner PR Newswire's iReach content distribution tools into the etouches administrative interface.

etouches develops web-based SaaS event management software designed to enable organizations to plan, market, manage and better evaluate events.

LeadMD, a marketing automation and CRM services company, recently reported results of a marketing automation usage study, which found that programs yielded more than $300 million in marketing-created, top-line revenue. The data was collected from more than 8,000 customer marketing programs implemented through the Marketo platform, as part of a 2011 Marketing Automation Benchmarking Study.

After six months of lead management utilizing marketing automation, LeadMD customers saw an additional $10.2 million in net new monthly revenue, according to the company.

Marketo today reported that its marketing automation solution for small businesses, Spark by Marketo, had average sales growth of more than 110% each month since its introduction last September. The company doubled its dedicated Spark sales team to support the growing small business channel — Marketo also reported more than 100 customers since its launch.