Marketing automation? Shoot yourself in the foot?

Posted on September 30, 2009 by Dave J.

There are two new technologies that professional marketing types are all a-buzz about:

1. Social media
2. Marketing automation

Social media is something you can experience for yourself and decide where you fit in.

Marketing automation is a bit more vague. What am I automating? How does this replace what I already do? Or is it a whole new strategy? And most importantly, why would I try it?

Tom Pick over at the WebMarketCentral blog posts a helpful review of the whys, titled: Marketing Automation: Bringing a Gun to a Knife Fight :

“Those are the types of questions marketing automation / demand generation software vendors seek to address with their offerings. They apply technology to a difficult process. For b2b companies who are able to use such software effectively, the competitive advantage is akin to Indiana Jones taking on his would-be assassin in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

(Go to Tom’s full blog post to see the video, if you can’t remember the scene where Indiana wins a challenge with a sword-wielding assassin.)

The challenge for b2b marketers in adopting marketing automation / demand gen systems isn’t with the technology, which is stable and reasonably easy to use. It’s with internal processes, office politics and other issues. In the scene above, although Indy clearly had the technology advantage, if he’d been a lousy shot, or didn’t have his gun loaded properly, he’d have ended up as shredded professor in a hurry.”

His bullet points:

  1. “Marketing automation” is a misleading term.
  2. The buying process has fundamentally changed. Many marketers are starting to get this. Most sales people still don’t.
  3. Customers are those who’ve advanced from email service providers (ESPs).
  4. Building the logic behind the nurturing process is the hard part.
  5. It won’t work if the processes and incentives between sales and marketing aren’t aligned.
  6. There is a crying need for this.

#4 seems to be the especially difficult step: what can the marketing automation tool be used to do to make it effective?

Like my efforts creating product-videos earlier this year, marketing automation takes a lot of work, especially because you are developing new skills and processes.

But to those who take it on, I think there is going to be a distinct competitive advantage. They just need to be careful in making sure it is communicating with customers & prospects properly, otherwise they’ll just be shooting themselves in the foot.

Have you switched to marketing automation? What do you think?

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  • Michael Ward

    With regard to bullet point number 4, a great way for the beginner to get started with lead nurturing is to think of it as a conversation. It doesn't take place in real-time but the same fundamentals apply: listen carefully and respond based on who you're talking to and what you hear.So who are you talking to? You'd likely speak to an executive differently than, for example, a purchasing agent. Lead nurturing should always take place within the context of defined prospect segments that allow you to customize your message based on the audience. Marketing automation systems make advanced segmenting easy.What are you hearing? In a lead nurturing process the marketing automation system "listens" to each prospect for you. Actions such as website visits & page views, email click-throughs, downloads, even lack of action all conspire to tell you more about your prospect. If it were a real conversation, what would you say next?Every lead nurturing flow is an iterative process. Test, measure, modify, repeat. No need to shoot yourself in the foot.

  • Michael Ward

    With regard to bullet point number 4, a great way for the beginner to get started with lead nurturing is to think of it as a conversation. It doesn't take place in real-time but the same fundamentals apply: listen carefully and respond based on who you're talking to and what you hear.

    So who are you talking to? You'd likely speak to an executive differently than, for example, a purchasing agent. Lead nurturing should always take place within the context of defined prospect segments that allow you to customize your message based on the audience. Marketing automation systems make advanced segmenting easy.

    What are you hearing? In a lead nurturing process the marketing automation system "listens" to each prospect for you. Actions such as website visits & page views, email click-throughs, downloads, even lack of action all conspire to tell you more about your prospect. If it were a real conversation, what would you say next?

    Every lead nurturing flow is an iterative process. Test, measure, modify, repeat. No need to shoot yourself in the foot.

  • Mike Volpe – HubSpot

    I think the two big challenges marketers have today when it comes to lead nurturing and "marketing automation" are:(1) How can you deploy lead nurturing EASILY without tons of effort? The original systems that did this stuff are damn complicated, built for programmers, not marketers.(2) How do you combine lead nurturing / marketing automation WITH social media? As things like Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn start to become more of how we communicate with people, how can marketers incorporate those tools into how they generate leads and manage and nurture leads.I think the next 1-2 years are going to be super interesting as marketing software companies start to figure this stuff out and build some really cool new things.

  • Mike Volpe – HubSpot

    I think the two big challenges marketers have today when it comes to lead nurturing and "marketing automation" are:

    (1) How can you deploy lead nurturing EASILY without tons of effort? The original systems that did this stuff are damn complicated, built for programmers, not marketers.

    (2) How do you combine lead nurturing / marketing automation WITH social media? As things like Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn start to become more of how we communicate with people, how can marketers incorporate those tools into how they generate leads and manage and nurture leads.

    I think the next 1-2 years are going to be super interesting as marketing software companies start to figure this stuff out and build some really cool new things.

  • Rafter

    Hi,We are sheet metal fabricators from India concentrating only on the local market. We have recently started exporting telescopic covers and other covers for machine tool protection for a customer in Finland. As the customer is impressed with the quality of our products, we have decided expand our exporting business to other European and North American countries. What is the best way to go about it. Please advise. Thanks

  • Rafter

    Hi,
    We are sheet metal fabricators from India concentrating only on the local market. We have recently started exporting telescopic covers and other covers for machine tool protection for a customer in Finland. As the customer is impressed with the quality of our products, we have decided expand our exporting business to other European and North American countries. What is the best way to go about it. Please advise.
    Thanks

  • http://swiftpage.wordpress.com/ Annie

    I agree with the bullet point “It won’t work if the processes and incentives between sales and marketing aren’t aligned” It is important to understand that the sales AND marketing teams need to work together on this. It seems that there has always been a love hate relationship between these two teams. Through marketing automation the marketing team can determine strategy and report its effectiveness as the sales team embraces lead nurturing to pursue prospects.

    To the bullet point “Customers are those who’ve advanced from ESPs” I sort of disagree. Though the advanced and rather expensive forms of marketing automation services may have advanced past ESPs, there a some good services out there that have marketing automation integrated within their email products. I think when it is brought to this level the everyday business professional will be able take full advantage of marketing automation.

  • http://swiftpage.wordpress.com Annie

    I agree with the bullet point “It won’t work if the processes and incentives between sales and marketing aren’t aligned” It is important to understand that the sales AND marketing teams need to work together on this. It seems that there has always been a love hate relationship between these two teams. Through marketing automation the marketing team can determine strategy and report its effectiveness as the sales team embraces lead nurturing to pursue prospects.

    To the bullet point “Customers are those who’ve advanced from ESPs” I sort of disagree. Though the advanced and rather expensive forms of marketing automation services may have advanced past ESPs, there a some good services out there that have marketing automation integrated within their email products. I think when it is brought to this level the everyday business professional will be able take full advantage of marketing automation.