Personalisation & CX

What to do when your Eloqua isn’t delivering

Has the promised land you bought into when selecting Oracle Eloqua as your new marketing automation tool never arrived?

Are you struggling to unlock the true potential of the tool, and instead have simply settled for sending out single emails or basic campaigns? Do you feel that you could be doing a whole lot more?

If it’s any consolation you’re not the only one. Many have gone before you and many are in the same predicament now. Even the Markie winners of today had to cut their teeth in the same way.

Eloqua is an incredibly smart and powerful tool but it requires a lot of knowledge and technical capability to use. From a standing start, post-SmartStart, it’s a hard hill to climb so you may need to accept that you need some help. Below are my 4 steps to helping your organisation master Eloqua.

Step 1. Own up.

The first thing to do when Eloqua isn’t delivering is to own up.

Admit that it’s not working. If your people are struggling to deploy even the simplest of campaigns you need to admit that something’s not right. Most will battle on, some get a little better over time and others just turn it off and look elsewhere. Admitting that you need help is the first step to success.

Step 2. Understand why.

Eloqua might not be working for your organisation for a number of reasons, but the two most prevalent are:

  • Eloqua is a really advanced tool. It’s likely that you don’t have the deep technical ability that’s required to master it. Let’s face it, you need very developed skills to use it properly, heck, it even has its own University!
  • But more likely it’s because your organisation isn’t operating in an Eloqua friendly way. Automating your marketing requires a large part of your organisation to adopt an entirely new approach to campaigns, how they are designed, built and deployed. It also requires your sales and marketing teams to be very closely aligned. Educating and structuring your organisation is essential to success.

Step 3. Get help.

You may think to promote someone internally or look outside your organisation for a new resource. Either way, they will require the specific skill sets and technical capabilities required.

However, because the demand for these skill sets are so high (remember, everyone else is in the same boat as you) they are very scarce and expensive. You also require a blend of resource, some high level consulting, some campaign configuration and both front and back HTML development for Eloqua. Finding one person with all these skills is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Step 4. Outsource.

Outsourcing is widely regarded as an effective solution for solving business-critical challenges. Whether it’s to remove the need to handle repetitive processes within an organisation or introduce new skills and capabilities, outsourcing is an effective, manageable and highly efficient solution.

The key is to find an outsourcing partner who understands your business, can integrate to become an established part of your team, and one that doesn’t cost the earth.

How will outsourcing make Eloqua work for my company?

The original vision you bought is possible, but you must be pragmatic about how you get there. Take baby steps, get value quickly where you can to show the board that it works, but work towards establishing a longer-term solution that takes your organisation on a journey to success.

Select an outsourcing partner who can provide you with a clear plan for the here and now, a roadmap for the journey ahead and the cross-section of support you’ll need to get there.

Trust us. Even with a small budget, over the space of a few months, you’ll see a real benefit. Then, without blowing your budget, you can agree a steady, monthly retainer to provide the daily support required to support your journey and marketing goals.

Furthermore, outsourcing suppliers are often very good at maintaining efficiencies in their own business, having lean processes, off-shore resources and all the required knowledge to know the most efficient or effective way to do things.

In my opinion, the best resourcing solution for Eloqua is a trio of teams working harmoniously together, your product marketing team, an internal project liaison team and an experienced outsourced partner. This trio of teams working together will bring real power to your use of marketing automation. If your Eloqua isn’t delivering currently, then let us help you make the vision of Eloqua into a successful reality.

We believe in simplicity. It’s proven to be beneficial. Especially in a complex world where new ideas need to be explained. That doesn’t mean we won’t work with clients who have complex offerings. We love the challenge of unpacking layers of complexity in order to communicate your offering in a memorable way. Like all these things, it starts with a conversation. So let’s talk.

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