The term marketing automation is deceptive – it suggests a clean, intuitive and straightforward way of generating, monitoring and cultivating your customer base. In reality it is often complex, combining many tools, channels and technologies along with a good dose of investment in management, money and time.
Marketing automation takes your prospects on a journey – and this journey will differ depending on the needs and actions of the individual.
The overall aim is to build awareness, generate interest and finally, prompt action. It just happens in a more intelligent, fast, and targeted manner.
All of this sounds fairly straightforward on paper. But there is a massive toolkit to hand which includes email service providers (think MailChimp and Campaign Monitor), CRM systems, text services, online activity like banner advertising and PPC, social channels, auto-responders (e.g. VerticalResponse) and remarketing tools such as Google Ads.
Tracking inbound activity can happen at a macro level using data aggregators, like Google and Twitter analytics, or at an individual level through IP look-up companies and other channel tracking techniques that include call tracking, purchase behaviours and loyalty programme information.
With so many services, channels, suppliers and audiences to consider, how can you go about making the best choice for your business?
How do you decide what you need?
Do a four step audit:
1. What do you want to achieve, and what is your strategy?
Do you want to build your customer base? Target new markets? Increase the value of existing customers? Do you want to upsell?
2. Look at how you approach lead generation and customer management
Map out your processes and look at what works and what doesn’t. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What can be improved on?
3. Technology audit
What do you already have and at what stage of investment is this at? Is it used properly? If not, why not? Does it work? Should you write it off and invest in something else, or do you need to do more training or get employee buy-in to use it?
4. What type of business are you?
Are you an agile company that can change your processes easily? What is the culture like – is there an appetite to improve and do things differently? Be honest, otherwise you will waste time, effort, and money on investing in a programme that may look good in a business plan but that just won’t get off the ground.
Weighing up the choices
Assess the investment required for each alternative – this may involve hiring in new skills - and estimate the total cost of ownership and whether adopting a specific solution will require you to write-off any previous investment in technology.
Augment what you have
Improve your current processes by adding single point solutions to what you already have. Perhaps you have a good CRM system and you need to add in IP look-up to identify which companies are landing on your site. Or maybe you need to get better at tracking and evaluating engagement with your social channels, so need to invest time in monitoring and feeding this interaction back through to your CRM. Understanding your target markets, and how they make buying decisions, will help you to decide what you need. If you are a B2C business, a good social strategy is a must but if you are a B2B technology organisation, then content marketing will be more important than a heavy Facebook presence.
Go full service end-to-end
You may decide to go all out and adopt one of the end-to-end solutions such as HubSpot or Marketo. These companies offer a full marketing automation service, but your business must buy-in to a new end-to-end way of working. The cost can be significant, but so can the returns if the technology and science behind these solutions are implemented and used correctly. You need to be ready to invest in change and adopt a new process of dealing with marketing activity and lead generation. Buying into a full service solution necessitates a complete overhaul of your processes and a serious financial investment.
Integrate a marketing automation solution
The third option is to look for a marketing automation system that works with what you already have and with your current processes. This still requires business buy-in, financial commitment, and a level of behavioural change. However it’s a realistic and achievable way to get the benefits of marketing automation, without a weighty investment in technology and a complete overhaul of your business processes. You can keep the bits of your sales, marketing and CRM that are working and that you have already paid for (so you are sweating your existing assets), but you can significantly improve your ability to track, engage with and close business. Options for tools that integrate and augment include CANDDi and some sector specific options like Medilink.
The pay off
Undertaking the research, defining your strategy, and implementing a marketing automation programme is a significant investment, but the benefits are worth it. Going through the process of determining your business requirements and your overall objectives, also presents a good opportunity to reassess and resell your company vision.
You will have a structured approach to your sales and marketing efforts with the ability to assess ROI and understand what brings success. The tracking elements of a well-planned marketing automation programme will let you see what kind of messaging and approaches work best for your customers and your business.
By Tim Langley, CEO of CANDDi.
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