"Gotchas" of delaying CRM integration with Marketo

[Dan_Stevens_]

Our IT/CRM team (MS Dynamics CRM) cannot support the integration requirements until the November timeframe.  Given the significant investment we made in Marketo (along with Sales Insight, RCA and Social suite), we are moving forward to setup our environment (most of August) and will begin developing/executing campaigns and programs out of Marketo across our global organization.  I understand this is not as uncommon as I might think - in fact, some companies don't even have a CRM system when they deploy Marketo.

Given our situation, I'd be interested to learn from others in this community of any "gotchas" or lessons-learned we should be aware - specifically in terms of what will happen to our Marketo leads (and activity) when we finally sync with our CRM environment.  I have heard some horror stories on how this will create a bunch of duplicate records and will require a time-intensive manual process to resolve.  I'd love to hear your thoughts/experiences.

[Kimi_Heskett1]

Dan, I'm living this situation right now. I'd be happy to chat with you if you want to connect with me in 2 weeks or so, when I'm hopefully on the other side of this thing. There are definitely some gotchas I'll share with you. And when I have time, share them here too for others!

kimi.fowler@hyland.com

[Dan_Stevens_]

Thanks so much Kimi!  This is top priority for us (and also has become a major concern).  BTW, you're not too far away from me (I'm in Macedonia).

[Kimi_Heskett1]

Dan, I should have invited you in for our integration weekend and subsequent madness!!! It's been quite a learning experience that I think deserves some documentation. We are integrating a very mature MKTO instance with a new instance of SFDC full of legacy CRM data. I could find very little on my situation beforehand and would love to help others. As soon as my 14-18 hour work days cease. 🙂

[Ashley_Bland]

Following!