Marketo without crm

[ishi12345]

My client wants to remove crm completely . They are using CAS crm . Can anyone help me to understand the drawback. Can we use marketo standalone. Do they need a CRM system to host B2B/B2C data or if they can’t just have this in Marketo. Any suggestions. 

[Michael_Florin · Accepted solution]

You can certainly use Marketo standalone, and many companies do that. But in one way or another you will want to get Sales interaction data back to Marketo in order to calculate success. Without knowing whether a lead was converted to an opportunity or rejected, your B2B lifecycle is somewhat incomplete. So even if you remove your CRM from Marketo you will want to create some kind of feedback channel.

And are you sure your client wants to get rid of their CRM completely? Or is it rather a switch to a different platform?

[ishi12345]

yes they will . Also they are thinking to have b2b in crm and for b2c they use only marketo. Do you think it could be challenges or any best practice that you can recommend . 

[SanfordWhiteman]

This isn’t really the place for such large theoretical discussions, especially without any requirements or deep insights into the client’s mindset.

Of course Michael’s points are 100% correct, but you’re not supplying enough info for somebody to say “it” won’t be a challenge because we don’t know what “it” is!

In general, Marketo can be used without a CRM, but it will never be a CRM.

There are certain features accessible via the REST API, like Opportunities and Salespersons, which might make you think you could build a CRM using only Marketo and a lightweight custom UI/web service. But in practice, this will never work because of API rate limits. (Well, perhaps if you have an extremely tiny, like 5-person sales & marketing team — at which point you’d be better off using an inexpensive small business CRM and writing code to sync the data to Marketo anyway.) Those CRM-type objects are designed for bulk sync from an external CRM rather than being updated in real time.

[ishi12345]

yes, i understand and thank you for explaining it in detail. It really helped me to clear some of my doubts. 

[Darshil_Shah1]

I agree with Sandy's suggestion here. This project is quite extensive, involving intricate components spanning processes, technology, and strategy. It demands a thoughtful approach rather than a hasty leap of faith. Many users employ Marketo as a standalone system, but often they have other MAPs (primary MAP/Marketo instance) integrated with their CRM. Regrettably, some simply use it as an ESP without a structured lead management framework or proper tracking. This results in missed opportunities to collect valuable data in Marketo, which could greatly benefit the sales team in their interactions with QLs.