Marketo’s Marketing Nation: Adobe Summit Keynote Recap
The third and final day of Adobe Summit was a day well spent. In the Marketing Nation keynote session, top leaders discussed the acquisition of software company Marketo by Adobe that took place in the latter part of last year. As Shantanu Narayen, President & CEO of Adobe, said while speaking on the acquisition, “It just felt like magic could happen.” The Adobe fans and veterans in the crowd did a wonderful job of making the Marketo Marketing Nation feel welcome. The Marketing Nation defines themselves as the coolest, smartest group of marketers in the world that openly share knowledge and ideas. From there, “The Fearless Marketer” theme took over and we delved into just what Marketo has to offer.
Home Sweet Home
In 2018, Marketo’s Marketing Nation found a new home in Adobe—exciting news for Marketo and Adobe fanatics. With a community over 65,000 strong, the Marketo platform “has made [Adobe] invincible in terms of how [they] can compete in the marketplace, as well as deliver value to customers,” says Narayen. Providing an enterprise-grade experience is the tell-all end goal for Marketo. Having Adobe’s support provided the ultimate marketing game changer.
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For the past six months, Adobe and Marketo have been striving to discover what they can create and bring to the market, and do so in the best way possible. As we all know, experience has been a buzz word in the world of marketing. Steve Lucas, Sr. VP of Digital Experience at Adobe, took the stage and said that “This theme of changing the world through experience has a really unique lens to it.”
Adobe’s philosophy is that strategy should be built on what people actually do, not on what they see or hear. What your customer will experience should be considered when building a strategy. Why? Because experience changes everything.
Epic vs Epic Failure
“The line between epic and epic failure is, unequivocally, experience,” says Lucas as he discusses making every experience epic. As a marketer, you may look at this and ask, “How do I avoid crossing the line into failure?” The answer: Adobe Experience Cloud and Marketo Engage.
Engage is a complete solution for B2B marketers looking to transform customer experiences by engaging with customers across complex buying journeys. Adobe Experience Cloud coupled with Marketo Engage brings the creative power, the customer reach, and the fuel to be the platform you need to exceed epic-ness.
Lucas proudly announced a new partnership with Drift, an industry first partnership around conversational account-based marketing (ABM). “We will deliver end-to-end account based experiences for you, and your customers will come back, again and again, because of it,” adds Lucas.
Drift’s CEO, David Cancel, took the stage and seemed eager to continue a strong partnership not only with Marketo but with Adobe as well. Cancel states, “Now for the first time, we can deliver a personalized VIP experience at scale by using Marketo as a database.” The partnership is already breaking the bounds of traditional marketing platforms and we can’t wait to see what else comes out of it.
The Answer Has Always Been Adobe
To round out the Marketing Nation’s presence this year at Adobe Summit, Sarah Kennedy, Marketo’s CMO, joined the stage. She boasts, “In the era of digital marketing transformation, we need to take ownership over the stories that we tell.” Marketers are highly results-driven, but reaching the results you want can be difficult. Searching for the right partner to walk beside you on the path to digital success is grueling. In Sarah’s eyes, the answer has always been Adobe. Adobe products are the reason she originally fell in love with marketing. Adobe helps their merchants deliver the best experiences to their customers through not only Marketo Engage but all the features of Adobe Experience Cloud.
We will leave you with Sarah Kennedy’s marketing truths to live by:
- The customer is always the answer
- Communities, not companies, own the brand of tomorrow
- The calling – we need customers to lead us
With these, embrace the fear you may experience as a marketer in today’s digital world. Jump first and then find your parachute on the way down. And know that Adobe and Marketo will be there to serve as that parachute for you.
Miss the other keynotes? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!
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