Managing stakeholder expectations

[Anonymous]

Hi, does anyone have a rough timescale for 'rolling out' Marketo within your organisation? I appreciate every case is different but it would be useful to have an indication of timescales for the overall project management so that we can set stakeholder expectations effectively. 

[Anonymous]

Like you stated it really depends on your resources and how you define "rolling out". 

We replicated existing programs and launched Marketo in 5 days including our SFDC implementation (rolled out by just me with no prior Marketo experience... but lots of MAP experience). We are still building all of our reports and deciding what levels or data we want to include in Marketo. 

In that 5 days we built 3 different tracks with tests setup on each email and integration with SFDC and all of the suppression rules. We also built the program to allow for a seamless transition from Hubspot allowing users to drop into a workflow exactly where they left off. 

Another local company that I am really close to told me not to promise anything to my team for atleast 90 days. Clearly we had different definitions of what a roll out was. 

If you can provide some background on the scale of your rollout and the resources available we may be able to give you a better timeframe. 

[Anonymous]

As you stated, every case is different. So with that in mind:

• What type of integration is required? Just CRM systems? Do you have other legacy systems/databases/reporting that would need integration?
• Are you migrating from a previous marketing automation platform?
• What is your IT department like? Do they have experience with backend integrations?
• If you don't have an IT department, are you using a consultant? If so, he should give you a scope of hours.
• If you/your IT department have no experience with this endeavor, you can get Marketo up and "functioning" pretty quickly, but the deeper integration pieces (Munchkin tracking code, salesforce insight, etc) will take time. 

On one integration, we had a product marketing team that was busy with other work and couldn't dedicate fulltime to the launch of Marketo. We sat down and had a meeting with them and figured out what the most important pieces were for them to take care of. We also set up a schedule and used PM tools to make sure the integration was kept on track.

Depending on the number of pieces you need integrated and the experience level of the team, it can range anywhere from 4-5 days up to 3-4 months to be fully up and operating.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the above. We were expecting a similar experience to Jeff, but because we have a new SFDC staff and lots of customized objects and associations, we are still hammering out logistics and we're about 90 days in. I should note we also attempted to launch over the holidays which caused delays. 

It really depends on what you want to accomplish as well as how much of the "set-up" thinking/strategizing you've already done. Marketo is ready to implement your goals right away... it's the thinking through of how you want to get there that takes the most time.