The way that companies interact with their customers is in a constant state of change. Now more than ever, the need for streamlined, efficient marketing tools that can adapt to the boom in social media, as well as viral and mobile marketing, is of the utmost importance. If your business is looking to get into the trenches (and what business isn’t?), then you’ll need the tools to survive.
Marketing automation is a fairly new concept, developed right around the the turn of the century. Marketing automation is, simply put, software that organizations use to automatically handle the repetitive tasks of their marketing efforts.
Many marketing automation companies are still small and ripe for the picking by larger firms, with Oracle, IBM and Terradata purchasing such companies in 2010, when only about 7-10% of the market had adopted marketing automation platforms in their business. That rate is expected to grow to 50% by 2015, according to Sirius Decisions.
Marketing automation impacts both large and small businesses alike, proving to impact revenue, and creating limitless growth potential. I saw a recent survey noting that businesses using marketing automation experience a 451% increase in qualified leads, who in turn make 47% larger purchases than non-qualified leads.
Media tools and audience response are constantly changing, and marketing automation companies are considered one of the great visionaries in the marketing world. You can rely on them to help your business stay on top of the shifting market conditions, and offer fully customizable software that can be tailored to your business needs. If their base product does not have a function that your company requires, many of them will have a team of technical professionals that will build it for you…giving you what you need!
Creating user-friendly technology and ongoing support are key with marketing automation. Marketers want to focus on just that, marketing. Streamline your efforts, and allow them to concentrate on meeting your marketing needs. What this does is allow them to more efficiently interact with your customers, and eliminate the time spent on the technology aspects.
A good marketing automation company will provide initial training and education for users and administrators, as well as ongoing technical support to make sure your business is getting the most return on your investment.
The last few years have been very exciting for the world of marketing automation, With the rapid change and relevance of B2B marketing, along with the acquisitions of some software vendors by some of the biggest names in technology, the future of marketing automation is looking very bright.
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What is key to marketing automation is the people with the right skills and a well defined lead management process and demand generation strategy that can be enabled by technology. The idea of “user friendly” quickly get’s pushed to the side when you begin using the solution to run a number of campaigns, look at generating revenue metrics and support a global enterprise. It is less about the technology and more about how you are using it and what people you have operating it.
Also, please note a point of clarification on the statistics you quote:”a 451% increase in qualified leads, who in turn make 47% larger purchases than non-qualified leads.” As we have used these many times in our presentations and blogs the first stat of 451% increase is from a Sirius Decisions study and this shows the increase of a company that adopted process along with the technology versus a company that simply installed automation with no process. The 47% is a statistic from Aberdeen and showed the higher order value of deals that had been nurtured versus those who had not been.
Both cases show that the technology alone will not get the job done, it takes more!
What an interesting post, John. I never really gave ‘marketing automation’ much thought before, but I could definitely see the benefits of using it. There are some aspects of marketing that are time wasters, but still necessary to do so having an option to streamline the task is a great idea! Thanks so much for the insight
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I think 2012 started on a very high note as far as automation is concerned, but after 26th April the marketing automatons (especially online) has taken a back seat!
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Great post. The 451% increase in qualified leads is great. Marketing automation is simply superb. With 47% increase in those making larger purchases, it is really something that businesses may just rely on. Very enlightening.
‘Marketing automation’ simply aims for making works faster with the help of some software. It certainly saves time and can be a productive tool in producing more products. All in all it make things efficient!
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