Michael Ward

Company: Net-Results

Prior to founding Net-Results, Michael founded Strategic Development Partners, a web design and search marketing firm that helps companies optimize their eMarketing efforts. Before that, Michael worked in various sales, marketing and software development roles with a number of different organizations. Educated in geology and chemistry in college, Michael approaches and applies solutions in a scientific manner.

Tell us about your background and your role in the company

Judging by the resumes of CEOs at other marketing automation firms my background is atypical.  Having held a variety of positions in sales, marketing, customer service, even environmental geology, my technical skills eventually led to an opportunity to  head up I.T. for a small public company.  Having become what I like to call "well rounded" through a variety of diverse experiences, I founded my first company in 2003.  My current firm, Net-Results, evolved from that original entity in a feedback loop of product innovation and customer feedback.  At Net-Results my day-to-day focus is the strategic long-term development of the company, especially as it relates to product development.

What are your main services?

Net-Results provides a Software-as-a-Service marketing automation platform that allows organizations to automate their interaction with the 90+% of their prospects that are not ready to buy....yet. Companies always focus on the ~10% of their leads and prospects that are sales-ready, as they should, but are not able to properly nurture and manage the rest because it just isn't feasible. In a perfect world, you would have employees that would work individually with every one of your thousands or hundreds of thousands of prospects whose timing isn't right.. Resource issue, time constraints, and capital investment make that virtually impossible. With Net-Results, our system allows these organizations to automate follow-up with prospects based on the actions or inactions of each individual. They are nurtured until they are ready to buy where they then can be handled by salespeople.

What makes your firm different from other companies competing in your industry? This is a fairly new industry, and each of of our competitors are doing things a little differently. Our focus is on ease-of-use and fast implementation without sacrificing power. We want any company, regardless of size, to be up and running quickly and easily. Based on the reviews we receive from our customers as well as independent analysts, we are achieving this.

Tell us more about your firm’s success story

Net-Results is a strong, new player in this space. Our product was released in April 2009 and since that time we have added a bevy of new customers. We have already won several substantial accounts in direct competition with some of the larger marketing automation firms and continue to gain mindshare as a company to watch in marketing automation.

According to you, what are the most important questions a potential customer should ask a company before choosing a vendor like you?

Companies really need to understand what marketing automation can do for them, and how it will change their prospecting and nurturing processes. The ones that understand what marketing automation is all about should ask prospective vendors about time to implement, necessary training for users, and overall complexity. Many of the vendors in our space require months of training and implementation before going live and we just don't believe that is necessary with the right platform. Don't get me wrong, we perform rigorous and expert onboarding to our new customers, but it is done in matters of days, not weeks or months.

What are some of the myths in your field?

The most common myth I come across is the idea that marketing automation requires rocket science sized brains and planning to achieve benefit.  While it's certainly true that better planning and process integration yield better results, most firms can begin to achieve value quickly by leveraging existing prospects with simple campaigns. As companies gain experience with lead nurturing their efforts can evolve and grow along with their expertise.

How do you develop your skills in this continuously changing environment?

With technology, you always need to stay on the forefront of what's now and what's next. We have built a team of people that continue to push the envelope on innovation, and our enthusiasm remains undiminished.

What do you see as the future of the industry? What will be the challenges? Do you anticipate any drastic changes?

The industry is still forming as we speak. As this space becomes increasingly hotter we see a number of new players arriving, especially heavily venture-backed firms. A recent Forrester report stated that only 2-5% of B2B organizations are taking advantage of the power of what they are calling lead management automation, and expect that to increase steadily over the next several years. We are already seeing a good number of firms reaching out to us that had not previously heard of this solution but want to tap into the power of it.

As adoption increases by companies as well as the addition of new vendors in the space, I believe there will be a good amount of consolidation and integration with related technologies such as CRM and ESP over the next five years or so. Marketing automation is really bridging the gap between marketing and sales, and I believe the technologies used by each will become more transparent.

Where do you see your firm in the next 5 years? What about you personally?

I expect Net-Results to be one of, if not the major player in powerful and easy-to-use marketing automation. The space will as I said see some consolidation and shakeout in the next 5 years, but with how Net-Results is structured I expect us to be standing strong. I would expect to see myself continuing to speak and write about where marketing automation is going and how organizations should take advantage of the technologies available.