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Marketing automation software set to continue as battleground for business competition [EMBIN (Emerging Markets Business Information News](EMBIN (Emerging Markets Business Information News) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) 2014 has been a busy year for marketing automation software developers and the businesses that use their products. In mid-October, Intelliverse, the US-based sales accelerated solutions company announced the launch of their own fully managed marketing automation program. This launch followed a spate of developments earlier in the year, including Demandbase's business-to-business (B2B) marketing cloud. Whilst Demandbase is referring to their software as the first of its kind, it joins a market of competitors such as Salesforce, Oracle and Adobe who offer similar B2B services. Demandbase, however, becomes the first to focus on this area exclusively. B2B automated marketing can be distinguished from business-to-consumer marketing, or B2C, in that the former enables one-to-one transactions between manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers while the latter operates between businesses and customers. These relationships, whether B2B or B2C, can be informational as well, involving the exchange of data or social communications. The fierce competition between marketing companies is driven by an increasing demand among consumers for predictive analysis and community marketing. Among research conducted into how companies use B2B marketing automation, email consistently ranks much higher than other functions. Despite recent innovations, automated marketing still largely relies on one of its oldest components - email. Whether demand-driven developments will disrupt this remains to be seen. As in other areas of technology, marketing start-ups are emerging at a rapid pace, although many are quickly consumed by the major companies. With potential to buck the trend is Ensighten, a business that began in 2009 and has been steadily growing since. In January of this year, the company raised $40 million from investors to further develop their business and the agile marketing platform for which they are known. Following these efforts, in mid-October the company announced its acquisition of marketing analytics firm Anametrix, a move that they hope will provide customers with access to more sophisticated data and analytic tools. It further cements their position as a threat to larger businesses like Adobe. The landscape for marketing automation software is constantly changing. It is estimated that there are currently over 1000 marketing technologies in over 45 different categories. Over the next five years, it is predicted the market for global marketing automation software will grow from $3.65 billion to $5.5 billion. To some extent, further growth in the market is inhibited by open-source marketing software, although as the technology behind marketing automation becomes increasingly advanced and innovations are business-led, this has the potential to abate. Interested in other aspects of the marketing automation software market? Read our latest research: Marketing Automation Software Market (c) 2014 EMBIN (Emerging Markets Business Information News) Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |