Should You Handle Your Eloqua Implementation With A Subject Matter Expert?

Marketing automation has been a no-stranger in revolutionizing the way digital marketing works.

Sending thousands of emails manually with limited target accuracy or having your personnel gather, track, and analyze a new marketing campaign’s statistics is no longer the case. You can now easily let your marketing automation platform do the magic, lay back, and reap the benefits.

Oracle Eloqua is a capable platform that will help you gain meaningful insights about your leads given its precise segmentation capabilities, allowing you to nurture them into happy, loyal customers, delighting through comprehensive, relevant, breathtakingly personalized digital marketing campaigns.

“Good things take time”. We fully agree with this when it comes to adopting and integrating a new system into a company‘s operations, especially with a compelling yet comprehensive marketing automation platform, such as Eloqua.

With its abundance of potential known, the most critical question to ask then is, “What is the best route to do it?“ When stellar technical expertise is ever-so-needed, but time gets increasingly more valuable, will you seek an Eloqua expert to handle your implementation or do it yourself?

There are advantages of doing it yourself, but the disadvantages may outweigh them. Hiring somebody with the right toolbelt of expertise can save you some frustration. Let‘s dive into this article to check out a few reasons why it is probably best you let Eloqua experts handle your platform implementation.

Implementation Time

When learning to use a new tool, there is always a learning curve present. Given its complexity, Oracle Eloqua has quite a steep learning curve to get it up and running from scratch. Therefore, considerable time is required to learn all the ins and outs if you choose to do so yourself. This time might be spent wisely somewhere else – you might agree.

Having well-trained Eloqua experts on your team handling the implementation, based on decades of validated experience across multiple industries, will drastically shorten the duration of your migration and save you precious time, which is better invested in growing your company.

Bad Implementation

It goes without saying that this might be a make-or-break aspect to consider when deciding to implement a new marketing automation platform, such as Eloqua, into your digital marketing operations.

Bad implementation will create chaos for your customers and your nerves alike. By being careful and dedicating substantial time to learning everything about the expertise required to implement Eloqua, this will less likely happen. Provided that you have the time to undergo this entire process in-house, you need to make sure that your Eloqua platform’s design and configuration are infallible.

However, if you realized that your focus should probably lie elsewhere, then hire a professional whose experience you already trust to handle this step for you. Expert assistance can take you to the finish line without a flaw and much quicker. Having a stable Eloqua platform will help you reap the benefits of marketing automation faster and without hassle.

Data Migration

Let‘s imagine moving to a new marketing automation platform as moving out of your apartment into a new one. It would be best to sort out what items are essential to take with you, and archive or discard redundant ones.

The same goes for your marketing automation migration. In this case, though, the items are your data and assets. Having an expert help you out can be beneficial for your business because, again, it saves you time.

How? Through careful analysis. An experienced consultant can help you ensure you are migrating everything you deem worthy while identifying what could be discarded in the process, by running reports on your assets' / datasets' historical usage.

Cost

Not thinking of the costs would be unrealistic, which is why we help you analyze them. Except, we not only do so in terms of finance but also in time and other resources.

As previously mentioned, you can choose to implement a new marketing automation platform by yourself or with experienced specialists. With financial cost in mind, you might be tempted to do it yourself. However, during the implementation process, you will see expenses building up along the way.

Truth be told, it can be extremely challenging and time-consuming to build a solid foundation for a new Eloqua install. There are numerous processes to be considered, such as architecture, configuration, training, etc. Every decision is critical and may negatively impact your operations and business growth. Meanwhile, these processes can be thoroughly planned and executed to perfection by certified professionals with substantial experience behind them, who have repeated this process many times before.

Check out our expertise in setting up a new Oracle Eloqua install for one of our clients. Download the Customer Case Study to better understand all platform features being implemented, and see for yourself how our involvement helped save valuable time for our client.

Proper testing

Before using your brand new Eloqua install to engage with prospects, you must be sure that everything will work as intended. After the implementation, all relevant features should be tested before being put into use.

The testing phase should ensure that there will be no hick-ups, and things will always run smoothly. In turn, you get to make sure that no precious time is wasted in the future with readjusting, or much worse, rebuilding the platform.

An expert will be testing primarily for functional correctness, meaning that they will certify that the implementation correctly supports required business processes and transactions. They will also verify that assets, programs, actions, and data are only available to authorized users.

Moreover, a service level verification is done to ensure the system will support the business’s required service level, including availability, load, and responsiveness. Having a specialized expert assist you in this crucial testing phase will reduce any lingering risks.

Good management of integrations

There are many reasons for marketers to choose Eloqua over competitors‘. One prominent advantage is that Eloqua has many integrations at its disposal that can help manage your CRM, digital marketing efforts, talent scouting, and even documentation processing more effectively.

However, while handling many third parties, it is vital to know the proper way to manage these integrations and execute them flawlessly. An expert will be able to make sure that no applications will be conflicting with each other, removing the risk of duplicate or erased data, while still managing to find the right approach that fulfills your business needs.

Final thoughts

Looking at facets mentioned earlier, you could very well attempt to implement Eloqua on your own if you already know exactly what you are doing or you have the necessary time to specialize in this area.

Yet, receiving expert advice on your Eloqua implementation surely lifts a massive weight off your chest, saving you time and empowering you to enjoy all the benefits without being overwhelmed.

If you are moving in this direction and would like to implement a new install of Oracle Eloqua, why wait? Discover our MarTech expertise and access your own custom Eloqua Implementation Gantt Chart, containing all the necessary steps required for designing a fully functional Eloqua platform.