Superheroes! Who doesn’t love them? Although they are fictional, they are also very relatable. Here at Marketing Automation Canada, we are big fans of the Avengers, so to help illustrate what we love about each platform, we have composed a list of our favorite MAPs, and who we think their Avengers personality would be. Enjoy!
Marketo AKA Iron Man
Tony Stark (the billionaire underneath the Iron Man suit) is the sort of man who can build anything out of almost nothing. The ultimate visionary, inventor, and entrepreneur, Tony Stark approaches the world with the single-minded determination to make it better, and he pretty much always delivers.
Like Tony Stark, Marketo is the kind of tool which enables you to “build anything out of almost nothing”. Uniquely flexible compared to other Marketing Automation tools, Marketo’s building blocks have very few limitations – meaning that we can design and build just about anything that you can dream of. While you certainly do not have to be a billionaire to use Marketo, this MAP is known to be a bit more pricey compared to some of their alternatives. But, with the heightened flexibility and long term scalability it offers, we think the higher price tag is worth the investment!
MailChimp AKA The Incredible Hulk
Well, The Hulk is not a complete personality. From The Hulk’s classic origin story, he represented a side of Bruce Banner (the introverted, slightly scattered, brilliant, theoretical, and experimental science guy) that he had always attempted to control and bury. The Hulk began as a personification of rage unleashed on the world.
While Bruce Banner is a much more complex and deep character, The Hulk himself is pretty one dimensional. He’s pretty much good at one thing, and one thing only – smashing things.
Like The Hulk, MailChimp, an email blast platform, is a bit of a “one trick pony”. While it’s a great tool for entering into the email marketing space and starting to warm your prospects, it quickly hits limitations. Should you be looking for a more advanced automation tool, which can build scoring models, advanced nurture journeys, lead lifecycles, provide advanced reporting, support integrations, etc., MailChimp just can’t compete.
Captain America AKA Hubspot
What can we say about >Captain America? He’s pretty much an all-around good guy. He is honest, up-front, loyal, extremely noble, and unfailingly dependable. His strengths don’t lie in creativity or brilliance, especially when compared to some other Avengers” – but he is someone you can count on to step in and get the job done.
Like Captain America, Hubspot is a dependable tool, which you can count on to get the job done. While definitely a very useful Marketing Automation tool for setting up email blasts and some standard automation campaigns, Hubspot’s primary value propositions are that it’s relatively affordable, and easy to use for people who are new to Marketing Automation, or want to be up and running quickly. The downside to the notably easy-to-use interface is that there are more limitations when building automations compared to competitors like Marketo – which can be a problem if you want to venture outside of the box, to develop more advanced and creative flows.
Captain Marvel AKA Salesforce CRM
Carol Danvers (aka Captain Marvel) is an outgoing team player. Her interaction with the Kree team and flashbacks to desert bars and flyboy – that is, flygirl – camaraderie on Earth demonstrate her Extraverted personality from the beginning. While Captain Marvel struggles with identity issues, she doesn’t spend a lot of time navel-gazing over them. Throughout the film, we get only a gregarious vibe from her. While capable of working on her own when necessary – and it’s often necessary – she appears to need people and to gather energy from them.
Okay, you caught us. Salesforce isn’t a Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) – but, since CRMs are essentially “what milk is to cookies” for MAPs, we thought we would give it an honorary mention!
Like Captain Marvel, Salesforce CRM works extremely well with others – and is actually better off when it does. Salesforce has hundreds of complementary integrations and module add ons which make it extremely customizable and robust. While Salesforce doesn’t struggle with identity issues like Carol Danvers does – due to its extreme customizability, every Salesforce instance looks and functions so uniquely – leading to a lot of potential identities to be claimed.
Interested in learning more about how MAPs compare?
As Marketing Automation consultants, we have a breadth of experience amongst multiple different platforms, allowing us to provide unbiased perspectives to help you through the MAP selection process. Contact us to discuss with one of our consultants today.
