Battle of the Conferences: Silverpop v Eloqua
August 20 2013 7:09 AM
A week apart from each other, the two big marketing automation players have been battling it out in customer and partner conferences – Silverpop Amplify and Eloqua Experience Europe 2013. I’ve gone, I’ve seen and I’ve observed and thought it might be interesting to compare how they went. Most of us know their products and how they compare. But how do these two match up when it comes to looking after their prospects and customers on the day?
A word of warning - it doesn’t get more subjective than this, but here’s the review and scoring (would be rude not to) of the two competitors pre, during and post event, from my very own experience.
If you’ve attended yourself and can’t wait to have your say, the comment box below is ready.
Here we go…
| Silverpop Amplify |
Eloqua Experience London |
Pre-event
Comms & detail of information
I had 10 marketing email invites and 1 personal follow up from a Relationship Manager Good effort. Silverpop’s doing what they’re preaching and getting noticed. | 1 early bird email invite came through (which I missed). 5 unsuccessful attempts to enquire about availability through form, phone and email, 1 successful tweet and 3 weeks later I was in. Oracle/Eloqua limping behind. A note to anyone organising events - one email won’t do. | |
| Score: 10/10 | Score: 1/10 |
Venue
BFI Southbank is characterful and interesting choice, well placed for in and out-of towners. Main conference room was/is a large cinema, meaning big comfy chairs. If it hadn’t been for interesting presentations, many would be caught napping. | Millennium Gloucester Hotel – big, glossy, comfortable and predictable. Main conference room had an impressive stage set-up, big, red and well lit. Must mention the air-con at industrial freezer temperature for super-chilled experience. | |
| Score: 7/10 | Score: 6/10 |
The event
Opening session
By CEO and Product Strategy Director Both delivered their presentations with genuine-sounding excitement (Americans are famous for this in Europe), with the right level of geekiness. They were useful and clear to the point that I still remember what they talked about. | By SVP of Global Sales & Group VP of Product Management These two gentlemen adopted more serious presentation style. But what were they talking about? Oh yes, introducing breakout sessions relating to their ‘5 tenets of modern marketing’. Plus product demos for each tenet. |
Mentions of Mad Men
| 0 | 1 | |
| Score: 8/10 | Score: 6/10 |
Breakout sessions
These were mainly done by Silverpop’s partners. Are Silverpop’s customers shy? Content relevant to both B2B and B2C. In addition to the sales funnels and buying cycles we’ve dipped our toes in the advanced personalization based on behavioral, multi-channel & real-time data. Rather exciting. 4 out of 5 were interesting and useful, 1 was interesting, useful and delightfully presented
Top of the class: | Day 1 - mainly customer Case Studies, Day 2 – Eloqua education sessions Content purely focused on B2B. It was all about the buying cycle, segmentation & personas. The format of these sessions offering Case Studies and Educational content is a good way to go. 2 out of 5 were interesting, useful and well presented
Top of the class: |
Celeb speaker
Hilary Devey It does what it says on the book cover. Hilary in her fragile post-op state managed to capture the audience with her life story. Genuinely inspiring, although the gender bias was anything but subtle. | Rory Sutherland Beautiful theory, Wrong species: How marketing gets better when it stops kowtowing to finance. Rory was great. And I knew he would be. His style, which you may have seen on TED, is firing out thoughts at Kalashnikov cadence. Not without the substance though. In his presentation he’s identified interesting connections between several disciplines – from economic models to human psyhcology – creating small but real insight moments throughout. Winning score for this one. | |
| Score: 7/10 | Score: 8/10 |
Post event
Comms
Presentations available 3 days after the event via unprompted email from Silverpop, with direct link to them. Bish Bash Bosh. Easy, zero fuss. | Instigated request for an access to the presentations. Few emails, 1 registration for Topliners and 2 days later I had access to most but not all presentations. Some are still missing. Slightly disconnected comms, coming from 3 different people. The effort wasn’t a complete waste though. Topliners -their community site is a useful place to go for Eloqua knowledge and content. | |
| Score: 9/10 | Score: 6/10 |
Pricing & value for money
1 free entry per customer, otherwise £299 Silverpop was a pretty good value for money, my colleague and I have been educated. It was well organised and there were no frustrations along the way. |
Early bird £299 Value for money for the Oracle/Eloqua privilege was ok based on the 3 very good presentations. As for the pre- and post-event efforts, sadly not so much. | |
| Score: 9/10 | Score: 6/10 |
Brand perception
Nimble, keen, solid, personal Bruce Lee | Robust, stand-offish, corporate Arnold Schwarzenegger | |
| Score: 9/10 | Score: 6/10 |
Total scores
| 59/70 | 39/70 |
So there we have it. We use these brands all the time and know the strengths and weaknesses on a product level (if you don’t know them, get in touch and we can talk about it), but I thought it was interesting to see how they communicated in person.
If you attended, please have your say below. (This invitation is especially extended to representatives of Eloqua and Silverpop, which of course will give us a chance to further compare how well each company monitors the blogosphere!)
10 Comments
October 04 2013 11:02 AM
Excellent stuff. Have never seen these two compared in this way before. Interested to see if either of them reacts to your blog!