As readers may recall from our recent interview with Dave Liloia, Associate Director of Global Marketing Operations at PerkinElmer or Tom Desantis, Senior Director at CEB, marketing is undergoing a major shift. Thanks in part to new technology as well as a better informed consumer, the industry is moving towards a more technical approach versus its traditional conceptual.

Don’t be fooled into thinking, however, that the conceptual element of marketing is irrelevant. In many organizations, the marketing team is comprised of both conceptual and technical marketing professionals.

This week, we were delighted to have the opportunity to talk with just such a team. Angela Smith, Senior Marketing Lead, and Matt Jacobson, Digital Marketing Lead, of Runzheimer International, share their experiences in bringing individual expertise to form a complete and cohesive marketing team. They also share how they are each utilizing Eloqua’s many functionalities to accomplish their mission, as well as expectations about this year’s quickly approaching Eloqua Experience.

Can you tell  us a little about Runzheimer and your role within the company?

Angela: Runzheimer International has been in business since 1933. We were created with the purpose of providing a better way to help companies with mobile employees, such as those who work remotely, travel, drive or relocate for business, be more productive. Runzheimer specializes in employee mobility management and provide solutions to help organizations reduce expenses, increase agility, and improve employee satisfaction. We’re in a unique niche and we currently work with over 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies.

At Runzheimer, we’re a small marketing team and we do a lot with our small staff. I’m the Senior Marketing Lead and my primary responsibility is campaign management. We are marketing eight product groups to various markets s, including our flagship Business Vehicle products, and I manage all the campaigns for the various lines. I work with team members to execute campaigns, website initiatives, trade shows, events, direct mail, direct marketing, database management and especially email campaigns. I spend a lot of time developing email templates, copy, and various digital elements. I rely heavily on Eloqua to accomplish a lot of this.

Matt: I’m the Digital Marketing Lead and was brought in to help make all of our systems communicate better, including integrating our legacy CRM system with Eloqua to improve our inbound lead process and help keep the data clean.  On a day-to-day basis, I manage our corporate website, put up new content and pages, set up lead capture forms, optimize pages for enhanced SEO, and most importantly, I read and capture the digital body language of our customers and potential clients to help our sales team qualify and close opportunities faster.

How are you specifically using Eloqua within your organization?

Angela: We’ve been an Eloqua customer since 2008. I have to admit that we didn’t do as much with the software as we probably could have in the first couple of years. We basically used it as a glorified email program. Now we’re ramping up usage by fully utilizing tools like lead generation campaigns, direct campaigns, and nurture campaigns, as well as Eloqua’s sales enablement tools.

What was your past experience attending Eloqua’s user conference?

Angela: Last year I was new to marketing automation in general and I didn’t know what to expect. I was incredibly impressed with the sheer number of users in attendance and their passion for marketing, marketing automation, and the Eloqua platform in general. Many people seemed very excited to show that they’ve attended the conference several years in a row. I was also very surprised that people were so open to share their experiences working with Eloqua and discuss what was working for them and what wasn’t.

What are you looking forward to the most about this year’s conference?

Matt: When I joined Runzheimer, I was excited to walk into a company that already had a marketing automation system and I didn’t have to prove value of system. At the conference, I’ll be more interested in the administrative side of things. I want to find out more about the technical side of the platform like query strings, setting up java script, and running more detailed reports. It seems as if each week I’m learning about a new feature of Eloqua and I’d like to get as much insight and training as I can on those capabilities.

How do you utilize Topliners, Eloqua’s social community?

Matt: Topliners is great. I’m able to get information from Topliners that I may not be able to find in the standard training sessions. I find that Topliners usually has information on more offbeat or non-traditional topics. To be completely honest, I usually go to Topliners first when I’m looking for answers about the platform.

Angela: I’m amazed at the wealth of knowledge within the community and how willing they all are to share their expertise and advice. I can find incredibly detailed information, and most users on Topliners will go so far as to give step by step instructions. For Matt, it’s probably been a little more helpful with the technical aspect. I use it more for conceptual purposes and general purposes, like finding ideas for campaigns.