MarketFirstSoftware Inc, the Mountain View, California-based marketing automation software house yesterday added two new marketing applications to its workflow platform, MarketFirst 1.5. The two new modules, Seminar Management and Lead Qualification and Distribution, are designed to automate the management of marketing seminars and the distribution of leads to a sales channel. They are the latest in an integrated suite of applications including Electronic Direct Marketing, Partner/Channel Management, and Electronic Commerce Community Development, that the company first launched back in September (CI No 3,494). The Seminar Management Blueprint provides the process and guidelines required to deliver a marketing seminar series and measure the results in real-time. Users can design and plan seminars, target the audience, promote the event, register and confirm attendees, process the billing and manage logistics, and evaluate the success of the seminars. After the event, marketers can also use the software to conduct surveys and analyze the event through customizable reports that measure results against expectations. The Lead Qualification and Distribution Blueprint automates the process of qualifying and distributing customer leads throughout a sales channel. Leads can be distributed directly to the sales channel or through other applications, such as sales force automation. The software tracks where leads are distributed and allows the sales channel to accept or decline leads. When the lead status is returned to MarketFirst, the application captures the information, enabling follow up and closure of leads. The company’s CEO Peter Tierney said it planned to offer the modules as standalone applications some time next year. For now, however users have to buy the whole suite, costing anywhere between $150,000 and $250,000 depending on the size of the company. The new modules will be available at the end of December 1998, Tierney said. He added that the company had no plans to branch into other markets: We’re going to stay focused on marketing. It’s untapped and there are no other significant enterprise software companies in this space.
