A Multi-Channel

Marketing Workbook
INTRODUCTION
Marketing in today’s environment is challenging.
Buyers are exposed to thousands of brand messages,
have endless product options, and complete the majority
of their research online. To effectively market in this
dynamic and noisy environment, marketers need to adapt
and shift their strategy towards engagement marketing—
marketing that talks to a buyer in a personalized way—
considering who they are, how they act, and where they
are over time. Implementing an engagement marketing
strategy is about creating cross-channel relationships
instead of shouting your message broadly.

You have probably heard the buzz building in the

marketing community about multi-channel marketing.
Implementing a multi-channel marketing approach in
your campaigns and programs will help you be where
your buyers are, which is essential in order to stand out
in a crowded market. Each piece of the buyer’s experience
should be consistent and complementary—that means
you have to think about all of the channels where your
potential or current customers engage.

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INTRODUCTION
In fact, implementing a multi-channel approach has
become a necessity—according to a recent Experian
QAS® survey, 36% of U.S. organizations interact with
customers and prospects in five or more channels.
But we know that as you face the challenge of engaging
your buyers effectively, the idea of doing more, or even
doing the same in new places can feel overwhelming.
So, we’re here to help you navigate through the buzz
so you can get straight to the action.

Use this workbook to make your marketing more effective

by ensuring that you are considering and leveraging the
right channels for your business, and for each of your
marketing programs and campaigns.

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PRE-WORK CHECKLIST
Before you jump into evaluating channels and creating a multi-channel
engagement strategy for your programs and campaigns, lay the foundation
for success by completing the following pre-work checklist.

Identify who you sell to Identify the right message and content
Do you have multiple buyer segments? Map this to the buying stages you have
For example, do you market to a specific identified for your buyers.
type of consumer or segment—like small
or medium businesses? Determine how you will measure success
Make sure you have clear objectives
Understand your business goal and that your programs can be measured
and objective for each persona from the beginning to the end.
What path does each persona take
when making a purchase? Define and select your channel mix
For example, if you have a high volume
Pick the right engagement model for of inbound web traffic, but struggle
your business and your buyers with conversions, you could align your
You will most likely use different channel tactics to address that issue.
marketing methods for each persona.
For example, if you sell to large Test and iterate
enterprises you may engage in Account Know how you plan to test
Based Marketing. Depending on your your success and define your
organization you could have multiple iteration intervals.
models to choose from.

Understand your buyers’ stage

Does a buyer purchase your product
or service immediately or does it take
several months?

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YOUR BUYERS’ MULTI-CHANNEL LIFE

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 SEARC
H

CHOOSING YOUR CHANNEL OPTIONS RESUL

TS

Promoting your programs and campaigns across channels can feel a bit like
guesswork without a plan. Get the most out of your efforts by creating a specific
multi-channel plan for each individual campaign with associated goals.
To help you get started, we’ve created
a comprehensive list of channels and a checklist
to help you evaluate whether a channel fits
your audience, your specific program,
and campaign goals.

Even
ts

In-St
ore E
xper
ience
Prin
t

Webs
ite

Blog

Mobi
le

Face
book

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TRADITIONAL CHANNELS
Traditional channels often take a mass marketing approach
to addressing a buyer audience, and can sometimes be hard
to measure. It’s important that the results that traditional
channels drive are in line with your program or campaign
goals. Traditional channels can be a powerful way to augment
your marketing campaigns and are still a worthwhile tool in
your marketing toolbox.

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TRADITIONAL CHANNELS
Events
Events usually have a targeted list of
Your EVENT planning worksheet
attendees with a specific set of interests.
Whether you are hosting a small webinar,
a large-scale international trade show,
or an executive private function, event Event Dates
marketing can be a powerful way to
stand out and bring your brand to life.
Gauge whether your program or campaign
resonates with the targeted audience and
their interests, and determine how you Personas
can engage them before, during, or after
the event.

Is your event part of a larger program

Messages
or campaign or is it the focal point?
Based on your response, determine
how you can use your event presence
to support your program goals and how
you can use other channels to support Offers
your event. For instance, maybe you have
just released a new ebook, consider if it
makes sense to provide event attendees
with either printed or electronic copies.
Goals
Before you get started, it is important
to define your metrics for success for
the event and its expected impact on
the campaign or program.
Metrics

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TRADITIONAL CHANNELS
In-Store Experience
With a physical presence, like a brick and
Your IN-STORE EXPERIENCE planning worksheet
mortar store, evaluate how to bring your
campaign or program to customers who
visit. How you can best engage them
while they are in your store? This can be
done a variety of ways—from signage, Personas
to promotional contests, to discounts,
or giveaways—it’s up to you to determine
what will work best for your audience
and how you will measure its success.

Messages
Think about how to tie the in-store
experience with the experience you offer
on other channels. For example, if you
have a mobile application—how can you tie
it into your buyers’ in-store experience?
With a check-in, mobile offer, or giveaway? Offers

Goals

Metrics

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TRADITIONAL CHANNELS
Print
Print media, like an advertisement in Your PRINT planning worksheet
a magazine or newspaper, or a direct (Complete one for each type of print media)
mail campaign, is another way to reach
a large audience. Depending on the outlet,
this could be more targeted or very broad, Type
and the design can range from highly
visual to only text copy—for example, think
about a full-page editorial advertisement
versus a mailed invitation to an event.
Print offers a large variety of options Personas
that serve a range of objectives. Like any
channel, to find success, make sure that
you have identified your metrics before you
get started—maybe it’s reach, impressions,
Messages
or engagement with an offer—since this is
a more traditional channel.

Offers

Goals

Metrics

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TRADITIONAL CHANNELS
Television
Television has the benefit of mass appeal.
Your TELEVISION planning worksheet
According to a Nielsen report, the average
U.S. buyer watches 4 or more hours of
television each day and 99% of homes
have at least one television set. This makes
television a viable option for marketers Personas
looking to reach the masses. With television,
marketers are able to target their audience
based on demographics and choose their
timing based on television ratings during
a specific time period. Television strategies Messages
can be costly and time consuming to do
correctly so make sure that it fits your
budget, your goals and that it tightly aligns
to your audience.

Offers

Goals

Metrics

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DIGITAL CHANNELS
Digital channels leverage the power of the internet and its
detailed tracking, targeting, and measurement capabilities.
Digital channels often are flexible and adaptive, allowing
a marketer to craft very specific and targeted campaigns.

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DIGITAL CHANNELS
Website Whether or not you use real-time
Your website is one of the best “owned” personalization, you should evaluate
(entirely controlled from end-to-end the areas of your website that are
by your brand) distribution channels most appropriate for the promotion—
that you have. It is a critical part of your for a content asset you may want to
communication to customers and potential add it to a resources center, but also
customers. You are totally in control of have a pop-up appear in another spot—
the message and the experience on this the options are endless.
channel. And there are so many different
ways that you can use your website to Measure your success by evaluating the
promote a program. engagement with your promotion. Did it
effectively drive clicks, downloads, etc?
Consider implementing real-time This varies by campaign. We recommend
personalization, a tool often offered doing some simple A/B tests with your
as part of your marketing automation website promotions as well—you’d be
software, that allows you to deliver surprised at how a small change can make
a personalized and relevant experience a big difference.
to your web visitors, which will maximize
your buyers time on your site. Using real-
time personalization software allows
you to immediately detect your visitor’s
attributes and then present her with the
relevant copy, imagery, calls-to-action,
and content—making your campaign
promotions much more effective.

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DIGITAL CHANNELS

Your WEBSITE planning worksheet

Personas

Messages

Offers

Goals

Metrics

Materials Deadlines

Launch Dates

Tests

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DIGITAL CHANNELS
Blog
A blog is a smart way to produce relevant
Your BLOG planning worksheet
content about multiple topics for all of
your potential and current customers.
Your blog is short form content that can
be an effective way to drive demand and Persona
engage your audience before, during,
or after your campaign.

When planning your blog promotions

keep in mind that your blog content Message
is typically early stage and educational.
If you decide to use your blog as part of
your promotional plans, it is best to focus
your posts on early stage offers to be
Offer
appropriate for the audience and
their expectations.

Blogs are incredibly popular on social sites

because of their short, easy-to-consume Goal
format—so maximize your reach by adding
some paid promotion behind your posts.
High performing posts can be transformed
into other types of content assets, like
cheatsheets or ebooks. Metric

Measure the success of your efforts

by evaluating the best performing blog
posts in terms of traffic and social shares.
Publishing Date
If you have a subscription option you can
measure the number of subscribers.
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DIGITAL CHANNELS
Email
Email is often the most popular way
Your EMAIL planning worksheet
for marketers to communicate with their
audience. Email is extremely flexible—
in terms of design, copy, and audience
segmentation. This flexibility allows Personas
a marketer to shape the message to
fit the target audience’s preferences.
Email can support your program objectives
across other channels—getting the word Messages
out about events, encouraging mobile
app downloads, and following up after
a purchase.
Offers
Using email to serve your program before,
during, and after a campaign increases your
likelihood that a buyer sees your program
and message. Because email can be used Goals
in such a variety of ways, it’s important to
define the purpose of each email and set
metrics accordingly.
Launch Dates
Testing the elements of your emails—
from design, text, calls-to-action, and
timing—can help you discover your
best practices and improve your success. Metrics

A good marketing automation solution

will offer you the tools to automate the
testing process.
Tests

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DIGITAL CHANNELS
Mobile - Text/SMS
Making your campaign or program
Your MOBILE planning worksheet
mobile-ready can be a critical component
of success. Today’s buyer leans heavily
on their mobile device to consume
information, and to interact and engage Personas
with brands. Not only do you want your
emails and landing pages to be mobile
optimized, you may also want to consider
incorporating text messaging (SMS) to help
get your campaign in front of your buyer Messages
audience instantly.

A text message (SMS) is a short message

that is sent to an opted-in contact.
Offers
It has the advantage of opening a line of
communication rather than an ‘alert’ style
notification, which prompts action but not
interaction. A text message can deliver the
same type of content as a push notification, Goals
but can also start a conversation with the
recipient, so be ready to follow up with
replies so you can continue the conversation.

Metrics

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DIGITAL CHANNELS
Mobile App
Marketers should also evaluate if a mobile
Your MOBILE APP planning worksheet
app would be an appropriate way to
support their campaign or program goals.
Utilizing a mobile app offers marketers
the ability to deploy in-app messages and Personas
push notifications.

Push notifications and in-app messages are

installed as part of a mobile app on a user’s
phone. Once the app is installed, marketers Messages
can use the push notification functionality
to ‘push’ messages and alerts to the mobile
device user, whether or not the app is in
use. In-app messages allow marketers to
Offers
deliver a message to the user while they
are in the app, engaging with the content.
This can be an effective way to encourage
users to engage with specific parts of the
application and continue to lead them Goals
down a designated path.

Always consider how you can integrate

your buyers’ mobile experience with
their experience of your program across Metrics

channels. Mobile app notifications can be

a useful way to engage with your buyers
directly and can be especially impactful
for sales, promotions, events, or news. Notification
Triggers

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DIGITAL CHANNELS
Paid Search Matching your ad text, offer, and landing
Paid search, also known as PPC page content to the keyword that you are
(pay-per-click), is a channel that you bidding on is also essential. If there is
should consider utilizing across your a disconnect between what is searched
campaigns and programs. Paid search ads for and what is offered then you won’t get
appear at the top of a search engine, and that sale and you’ll be paying for clicks that
in some cases along the right-hand side. don’t bring any value. This will also indicate
Paying to appear in these areas ensures to the search engine that your ad is low
that your website, or specific web pages, quality, and as a result, you’ll be forced to
can be easily found by people that are pay more to have your ad seen.
actively searching for your brand or
product. Paid search ads help you quickly
target your most valuable audience since
they are seeking you out—opposed to
channels where you reach out to them.

When selecting keywords to bid on, make

sure to include your brand name, as well
as those of your competitors. You can’t,
and shouldn’t, mention your competitors
in your ad text, but appearing beside
them will ensure that buyers who are only
familiar with your competitors will discover
you. It may seem strange to bid on your
own name, but when a buyer searches for
your name or term, you don’t want your
competitors’ listing appearing above
your own.

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DIGITAL CHANNELS

Your PAID SEARCH planning worksheet

Personas

Messages

Offers

Goals

Metrics

Launch Dates

Tests

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DIGITAL CHANNELS
Retargeting And Remarketing • Remarketing: Remarketing is
Retargeting and remarketing are important typically used as a way to re-engage
to think about if your business uses any your customers over email. It often
of the digital channels covered previously. supports ecommerce marketing efforts
Both retargeting and remarketing give your in the form of an abandoned shopping
business, and campaign, a way to offer cart email or is effect in supporting
messages tailored to user activity across upsell or cross-sales. For example,
the web. Often confused as the same thing, an Amazon email that encourages
let’s examine the differences and similarities you to buy dryer sheets because you
between retargeting vs. remarketing. bought laundry detergent.

• Retargeting: Typically retargeting Including retargeting and remarketing

targets unknown and known users will help you drive your campaign
across the web with targeted online efforts forward, get the most out of
ads, like display ads. Targeting for your paid digital advertising efforts, and
unknown users begins once they accelerate your customer toward action,
are cookied after leaving your website. whether that is a download, purchase, or
After the cookie is in place you are advocate activity.
able to market to them wherever they
are across the web—this is the key
benefit of retargeting. Retargeting for
known users allows you to customize
your message to be extremely personal
and relevant to your customer’s
persona and activity online.

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DIGITAL CHANNELS

Your RETARGETING AND REMARKETING planning worksheet

Personas

Messages

Offers

Goals

Metrics

Launch Dates

Tests

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DIGITAL CHANNELS
Review Sites
Today’s buyers look for the advice of their Your REVIEW SITE planning worksheet
peers prior to making a purchase or even (Complete one per site)
engaging with a business or brand.
Leveraging the power of peer reviews
delivers no- or low-cost brand lift and
increased brand authenticity. Because Personas

your audience’s peers have nothing to

gain by recommending a product, their
word-of-mouth endorsement is one of
the most powerful forms of ‘advertising’.

Messages
Ask your customers to review you
periodically—you can ask them as part
of a customer communication, as a part
of an advocacy program, and when you
or your team has a positive interaction
with a customer. Offers

Goals

Metrics

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SOCIAL NETWORKS
Using social media to amplify the reach of your brand and
programs isn’t groundbreaking anymore. Social channels
should be a part of your mix for promoting your brand,
nurturing and expanding your current fan base,
lead generation, and engaging your market.

It is also very important to understand which

social channels your target audience prefers
and interacts with. There are specific audiences
for each social channel, so you’ll want to make
sure that you offer valuable content.

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SOCIAL NETWORKS
Using social media to amplify the reach of your brand and programs isn’t
groundbreaking anymore. Social channels should be a part of your mix
for promoting your brand, nurturing and expanding your current fan base,
lead generation, and engaging your market.
LinkedIn Think creatively about how to reach
LinkedIn goes beyond personal profiles your audience—you could promote your
and status updates—it’s a great resource executive thought leadership with posts on
for networking, influencer relationship LinkedIn Pulse, or leverage the networking
building, publishing, and community and career aspect of LinkedIn to personally
building. Because the users visit the site for invite potential customers to an industry-
work-related purposes, LinkedIn lends itself networking group.
to business topics and allows brands to
develop a face and a personality. LinkedIn
offers a variety of ways for brands to
connect with a business audience:

• Company pages: a branded page

displaying company information,
images and posts
• LinkedIn Pulse: a publishing platform
• Groups: provide like-minded people
a place to have discussions on
a particular subject. This is a great
place to have candid conversations
with peers.
• Advertising: with promoted posts
and traditional display ads

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SOCIAL NETWORKS

Your LINKEDIN planning worksheet

Personas

Messages

Targeting

Offers

Goals

Metrics

Launch Dates

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SOCIAL NETWORKS
Facebook Another important aspect to include in your
Facebook boasts the largest user base posts, whether you’re supplementing them
of any social network, so it’s easy to with paid promotion or not, is a strong
understand why you should consider visual. Facebook users respond to and
a presence there for your campaign. engage with visual content at a higher rate,
It offers the opportunity to connect with so be sure to include a compelling visual
your buyers in a more fun and casual with all of your posts. Facebook native
environment, and it can be good to take video is another option that capitalizes on
advantage of that by adding more fun the hyper-visual nature of the platform.
elements to your campaign, like photo For instance, if you are running a campaign
caption contests, memes, and other for an event, consider creating a custom
creative promotions. Keep in mind that visual to use on Facebook.
your campaign promotion will pop up
between photos from your fan’s recent Facebook offers a variety of targeting
vacation, so it needs to be highly visual options, like promoted posts and targeted
and engaging. Facebook ads, as ways to promote your
brand and campaigns on their platform.
Make sure that you post the right balance Facebook campaigns are organized to
of helpful, promotional, and fun posts. help you drive to your goals, whether that
To help negotiate this balance, employ is conversions and leads, or engagement
the ‘411 rule’ which states that for every (such as a ‘like’). And, like all of your
four early stage, snackable and informative campaigns, be sure to run simple tests
pieces of content you provide, you should to evaluate their performance—it can be
have one soft-sell offer, like a 3rd party surprising how a small change makes
review, and one hard-sell offer, like a demo. a significant impact on your results.

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SOCIAL NETWORKS

Your FACEBOOK planning worksheet

Personas

Messages

Targeting

Offers

Goals

Metrics

Launch Dates

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SOCIAL NETWORKS
Twitter
Twitter has exploded into a virtual news
Your TWITTER planning worksheet
hub—with a vibrant community where
businesses can generate leads, thought
leaders can discuss relevant industry topics,
and everyday citizens break news stories Personas
as they develop. If Twitter is a moving
river, plan your presence accordingly—you
don’t want your posts to be the stick you
Messages
throw into the river that gets swept away
quickly, never to be seen again. Try to have
a consistent presence, which will ensure
that more people see your posts. With any Targeting
social platform, being consistent, relevant,
relatable, and reliable is key. Stick with what
you know.
Offers

Like other social networks, Twitter offers

a variety of ways for a marketer and
a brand to advertise to a target audience. Goals
They offer promoted tweets, promoted
accounts and Twitter cards—which is
a multi-functional ad unit that can be
used for lead generation. Like the advice Metrics
for Facebook, these ads do best when
they are paired with a compelling visual,
and tested to optimize their performance. Launch Dates
Unlike Facebook, Twitter cards allow
marketers to collect engaged and
interested leads right on the platform,
which you can then import into your Tests
marketing automation platform.
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SOCIAL NETWORKS
Google+
Google’s flagship social network has
Your GOOGLE+ planning worksheet
a huge amount of users because, let’s
face it, it’s Google. Google + credentials
are the same as a user’s Gmail and YouTube
login. Google + plays a major role in SEO
Persona
and can support your SEO strategy.

It offers a great way to host and record live

Google Hangouts (which can be uploaded
to YouTube), and to claim your authorship Message
of online articles. Build your presence
on Google + and expand your network
by adding users to your circles, posting
frequently to help users find you and learn
Offer
about your brand, and by soliciting users
to submit Google reviews.

Goal

Metric

Launch Date

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SOCIAL NETWORKS
Instagram
Instagram has steadily gained a stronger
Your INSTAGRAM planning worksheet
foothold as a solid social media platform
for brands. Using images (video and still),
copy and hashtags—Instagram helps
brands engage with customers solely Persona
through creative visuals. Instagram allows
a limited number of paid advertisements,
but Instagram sponsored posts are among
the most expensive social ad options. Message

A good way for brands to leverage the

platform is through crowd-sourcing photo
submissions and running comment or Targeting
‘regram’ contests (posting a photo you
want your users to share or ‘regram’ in
order to enter the contest). Because it’s
more visual, you need to consider if it is Offer
a good fit for your brand and how your
buyer audience will react to seeing your
brand there.
Goal

Metric

Launch Date

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SOCIAL NETWORKS
Pinterest
Another highly visual social media platform,
Your PINTEREST planning worksheet
Pinterest’s digital ‘pin boards’ allow users
to capture and save images and their
associated URLs by ‘pinning’ them to
a designated board. Pinterest can help Persona
you drive engagement, sharing, and
ultimately lead to purchase. Like Instagram,
the key to success lies with interesting
visuals and good supporting content. Message
Pinterest offers marketers flexibility—you
have the option of producing original
content or creating a curated ‘pin board’
experience for your audience. Targeting

Pinterest is a great place to run contests

that engage users with your brand images
and content. Because of the way Pinterest Offer
works, it is a social network ripe for
marketers to build a solid presence and
find success. Make sure that your audience
would expect to see your product, content, Goal
or brand on Pinterest, which is not typically
a repository for business articles.

Metric

Launch Date

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SOCIAL NETWORKS
SlideShare
Users are inundated with text, which means
Your SLIDESHARE planning worksheet
that marketing professionals can’t rely
solely on whitepapers and blog posts to
reach their audience. SlideShare is another
visual social platform where marketers can Persona
upload and share slide deck presentations,
infographics, documents, and some video
on any topic.

To get the most out of SlideShare make Message

sure you optimize your content for search
by choosing keywords and descriptions that
support the asset, but also address your
target audience.
Offer

Before you upload your slide deck make

sure that you consider your privacy options—
to have a public or private presentation,
whether you want your content to be Goal
downloadable, and whether you want to
include a form to collect viewer’s contact
information. Lead generation, analytics,
branding control, and removal of other
advertising is available with a SlideShare Metric

Pro level account package. You can create

a more curated experience and upload
your leads into your marketing
automation platform.
Launch Date

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CONCLUSION
After reviewing this workbook, we hope that building a multi-channel
strategy for your programs and campaigns seems much more feasible.
Use this workbook to guide your planning and practice a multi-channel
approach with your marketing. With time, this thinking will become
second nature and you will have an eye for which channels work
best for your audience.

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Marketo (NASDAQ: MKTO) provides the leading marketing software and solutions designed to help
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