Basic/ Digest...

The goal, for each, is to be able to support one-to-one marketing at global scale. That means embracing big data, big tech, and big cloud — not to mention big price. But these companies’ customers, which are global enterprises who have traditionally relied on mass media to communicate to anonymous blobs of customer segments, are moving from a one-to-many communication model to a one-to-one communication model. They want to know their customers’ names, their preferences, their needs, and their desires — and be known by their customers as a trusted, likable partner.

Big Blue is all finished picking up every single piece of its planned full-scope marketing experience suite. And conversely, it also doesn’t mean that IBM will buy everything it believes its customers need or want in marketing tech. Frankly, in a space that is exploding this fast, even a giant like IBM can’t afford the cost or the time.

Bishop has another plan: partnerships and integrations, via APIs. The solution is IBM’s Smarter Commerce Alliance, with more than 140 partners, and its Digital Data Exchange, with over 100 partners. Through these, and via APIs, IBM plans to allow its customers the freedom they want — and need — to experiment.

For Bishop, the end goal is not the technology alone, but the combination of software, service, and support that big enterprises like IBM are known for, and consider competitive advantages vis-a-vis smaller, more resource-constrained upstarts.

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Basic/ Excerpt...

So, what does Silverpop bring to IBM’s Enterprise Marketing Management solution?

• A 100% SaaS solution that IBM can sell immediately, which is in keeping with IBM’s stated commitment to move to the cloud

• Email service capability that is stronger than that currently available in Unica - though questions remain about how Silverpop’s ownership and storage of data will work with much larger clients with existing data warehouses.

• The vision (with some technical execution) for customer profiles based on behavioral attributes, a topic that Silverpop pioneered, but has left open for others to claim a lead.

• A credible offering for B2B marketing automation. 

• Access to mid-market firms that IBM has not previously targeted - though we’re dubious about whether that is actually a competitive advantage for IBM at this juncture.

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Basic/ Excerpt...

The InterWebs were buzzing this morning with an Atlanta Business Chronicle article reporting that IBM is negotiating to buy Silverpop. My only reaction was, What the heck took so long? The other enterprise-level B2C email vendors (ExactTarget, Responsys) have already been bought at wondrously high prices, and every B2B marketing automation vendor I talk to tells me that potential investors are approaching them constantly. So it was a totally safe bet that Silverpop was fielding many offers as well. With $50 million in funding, most of it provided years ago, it was an equally safe bet that Silverpop had some investors eager to cash out.

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