So, when a group of 300 of IBM’s customers and prospects in the marketing field were recently surveyed about their social media plans, about half said they are using social media. The responses showed “enthusiasm is tempered,” IBM said.

The surveyed indicated many marketing groups are in experimental phases with social media tools to extend marketing operations and report more success with targeted trials rather than a broad strategy.

This and other survey results were reported at IBM’s Marketing Innovation Summit held in Boston earlier this month.

Jay Henderson, a director of product strategy at IBM who conducted the survey, said the companies finding success with social media in marketing are conducting disciplined and focused pilots rather than simply putting the company out on social channels without a clear goal. In some cases, companies have performed research as simple as determining which channel – Facebook or Twitter – is more suited to reach new customers by running a test for several weeks on both and then identifying which channel did better and why.

Among other findings, the IBM’s survey showed:

• An increasing use of mobile device support. About 40% of the 300 surveyed are using mobile marketing tactics with another 20% plan to do so within a year.
• A more focused set of demands for IT. When asked what their top organization concern is, more than 60% said they need bridge the “data analysis to action” gap. Last year, respondents had a more general need of “IT support of marketing,” Henderson said. The survey showed many marketing groups are now “almost overwhelmed by all the data they have” and are seeking IT assistance to help them better analyze data coming in from a variety of channels.
• Marketing groups want integrated software to do their jobs, with 90% of respondents reporting interest in integrated suites.

Big Blue has invested heavily in integrating customer data when it bought DWL, and in BI and data warehouse integration with its acquisition of Ascential. More recently. it’s turned its attention to business intelligence and analytics, buying Cognos and predictive analytics from SPSS. And, with its deals to purchase Coremetrics for Web analytics and Sterling Commerce for BPM and supply chains, IBM continued to encircle areas of interest for CRM professionals, particularly marketers.

Yet IBM’s announcement last week that it’s buying Unica and getting into the marketing automation business was a little different. Unica is really a marketing application.

As my colleague Jack Vaughan over on SearchSOA.com pointed out, that’s pretty much the opposite of what Lou Gerstner preached when he came aboard to save IBM: Stay away from enterprise software applications. (Jack also passed along an interesting read on Gerstner’s IBM tenure in this Forbes article)

So, does this mean IBM has changed course and is planning to make and sell CRM software?

Certainly, it’s already found some affinity between its analytics offerings and the CRM market. At the beginning of the year, it launched Voice of the Customer, a subscription-based service that combines traditional analytics, data mining and text analytics to give organizations an integrated view of customer sentiment.

I asked Forrester’s Surresh Vittal and Gartner’s Kim Collins, both of whom I interviewed for the acquisition story, what they think are the chances of IBM getting into full CRM.

“It sets them up to enter, after some rationalization of platforms, enterprise marketing software,” Vittal said. “Broader CRM? It’s much harder to tell. That includes sales and service and none of these acquisitions covers those other two capabilities.”

Indeed, marketing software would be a unique way to enter the CRM market, particularly given the maturity of CRM software.

“Most people start with SFA or customer service,” Collins said. “The fact that a company the size of IBM is making this type of acquisition speaks to the fact that technology and business apps are important to the business domain and marketing is a prime area for such interest today. It could be a first step for other domains.”

Of course, IBM has tried its hand at CRM before, as Collins noted. It shut down Corepoint, its independent CRM company, in 1999 after just 13 months.

The IBM-Unica deal does point to the close relationship between marketing and analytics. In fact, Pitney Bowes beat IBM to the punch a bit when it acquired Portrait Software in January.

So, is IBM going full bore into CRM and if it is, what does that mean for its services business and the leaders in the market? Are they ready for the challenge?

Some competitors to Unica react to the deal here.

From Phil Fernandez, CEO of Marketo:

“IBM’s intention to buy Unica is exciting although not surprising to me,” said Phil Fernandez, President and CEO of Marketo. “While we don’t directly compete with Unica, we believe that the merger and acquisition activity in this space is evidence that marketing automation and enterprise marketing software are very much alive and thriving in the marketplace.  Unica’s focus on marketing analytics is surely one of the reasons IBM is interested in the acquisition, and we believe that marketing analytics is an untapped area of the marketing software market.  Marketo released Revenue Cycle Analytics to address this.  We are looking forward to seeing a continued thriving market for marketing automation software.”

Fernandez blogs on the IBM-Unica deal at the Marketo site as well.

Lisa Arthur, CMO of Aprimo:

The announcement that IBM is buying Unica Corporation validates what Aprimo has been saying for years now — that the function of marketing is undergoing a major change. It’s more important than ever to integrate, execute and measure marketing initiatives across an entire organization. The acquisition means that executives are paying more attention to marketing in their organization and are demanding solutions to help them meet their business goals.  

Many components of marketing software — like campaign management, Marketing Resource Management (MRM) and performance management – areas which Aprimo has been leading  - is  now integrating into digital marketing.  Marketers are incorporating channels like email, direct mail, event management, blogging, just to name a few. As marketers, we need to tear down the silos and not have to rely on just services to integrate the function of marketing.

Marketing accounts for the largest discretionary spend of most companies and it is broken. With the rise of online marketing channels and increased pressures to demonstrate ROI, executives are in need of marketing software that enhances productivity, performance and measurement across their entire organization.

We feel this announcement will have a tremendous impact on our industry, and provide Aprimo a platform to raise awareness, discussion and opportunities. It strengthens the need for marketing to continue to embrace software and technology to improve its effectiveness and efficiencies in the market.

 Lucy Bickford, vice president, CRM, Infor:

• Infor’s larger customers are prioritizing marketing investments to realize relevant, multi-channel, customer driven interactions. IBM must also realize this trend as evidenced by this acquisition.
• Infor views its relationships with complimentary technology providers, system integrators and marketing service providers (including Teradata, Comverse Technologies, CGI, Cap Gemini, IBM, Knowledge Based Marketing etc) as key to success. Such relationships are critical to achieving customer goals quickly, economically and with minimal disruption to their enterprise. Unica’s ability to maintain momentum with partners remains to be seen. 
• Infor CRM Epiphany thrives globally by capitalizing on: 1 – our market-leading Interaction Advisor product line; and 2 – our broad, modern CRM solution suite which includes Interaction Advisor, Outbound Marketing, Sales and Service. The strength of the Epiphany brand, the expertise of Infor’s global CRM team and the value we continually deliver to customers to help them maximizes customer interactions will allow us to continue to outpace our competitors.