Hans / Pixabay
With more than two hundred marketing automation solutions on the market, you would think that choosing a solution would be the hard part, and that, once in place, your new marketing automation system would automate omnichannel marketing like a conductor leads an orchestra; offers, targets, and the timing of different marketing tactics, all controlled by marketing automation technology working in concert, you might say.
What can you do if the marketing automation system you’ve been using is not a good fit? Here are a few points to keep in mind as you shop:
Don’t get lost in the features.
The best solution is the one works for your company, with the feature set you need. For example, according to the 2016 Marketing Automation Trends Survey by Ascend2, the four features considered most useful, out of the dozens available, are analytics/reporting, campaign management, lead nurturing, and email marketing.
The best solution is the one works for your company, with the feature set you need. For example, according to the 2016 Marketing Automation Trends Survey by Ascend2, the four features considered most useful, out of the dozens available, are analytics/reporting, campaign management, lead nurturing, and email marketing.
Your preferences may differ, but do consider your actual needs carefully or you might end up buying a bunch of features you’ll never use. In fact, 59% of companies aren’t fully using the marketing technology they already have.
Of course, if you do any reading online about marketing automation, you’ll find dozens of opinions about the best way to use it. But always remember; you control this software, not the other way around. Avoid the temptation to change the way you do things based on your marketing automation tools. They are there to make your workflows easier, not force your company to act differently.
So, use only the features that are important to you – the ones that will enhance the way you build campaigns and communicate with customers, prospects, and target accounts (especially if you’re implementing Account Based Marketing, or ABM).
Support for the buyer journey is vital.
Business decision makers now take up to 22% longer to get from awareness to purchase, according to SiriusDecisions. Some marketing automation platforms were created with a linear journey in mind. But, especially in B2B marketing, the buyer “journey” is complete with side trips, pit stops, and roadside turnouts where travelers can take in a broader vista.
Your use of marketing automation tools can and should be adapted to accommodate all the touchpoints your prospects have with your company on the way to becoming customers.
Make sure it can “dance” with ABM, personalized content and other changes.
For marketers focusing on the ABM approach, automation lends scalability to campaigns. Identifying and targeting accounts is also much easier and more accurate with predictive “looks like” tools. Software tools can also help to score leads and nurture account contacts by delivering personalized content at strategic points in the buyer journey.
And this is true not only for ABM, but virtually any type of marketing you do. Any measuring and analyzing you conduct mid-campaign is useless if you cannot adjust your approach accordingly.
The ability to adapt campaigns in real time simply makes for more effective marketing. If your marketing automation allows campaign changes on the fly—as any self-respecting marketing technology should—then you should be alert to opportunities to take advantage of this capability.
Lead scoring should have a long shelf life.
When not properly implemented, lead scoring can do more harm than good; an ineffectual lead scoring model can potentially impede the efforts of your marketing and sales teams. That’s why it’s so important for lead scoring to be measured across all touch points. Sales conversations with reps, and the transcripts of those discussions, for instance, ought to be scored for intent and incorporated into the overall lead score.
A lead’s score should be based on all activity initiated by or related to that lead, and not solely on the results of a single campaign. This is because each lead represents an individual, and people don’t always act in predictable ways.
For example, “hot” lead might not respond to your follow-up email because they’re on vacation for a week and not because they’re no longer interested. With a shelf life that spans multiple campaigns, such a lead will not automatically be “demoted.” This type of lead scoring will better represent the true value and potential for each lead.
Marketing technology should not be siloed.
One of the top challenges to effective use of marketing technology continues to be a lack of integration. The ability to easily connect software to a marketing automation solution is essential to capture data and manage initiatives like ABM.
Key systems such as predictive analytics, DPM, and CRM, should all be connected to your marketing automation system. Not all marketing automation systems facilitate such integration, making it especially difficult to manage without IT support. Which brings us to the next secret to success with marketing technology…
Not needing IT support is a key requirement.
While 86% of marketers place “ease of use” as the most important factor when selecting a marketing automation platform, per Regalix, 61% find the implementation process difficult, according to B2Bmarketing.net.
Platforms need to support the marketing strategy, not the other way around. A system that requires IT support for every operation will quickly get bogged down. And that’s another reason often cited by marketers who feel they are not getting the most from their marketing automation system. When you are working with a marketing automation platform that matches your goals, you won’t need to use any workaround tactics to have your actions conform to your software.
This post was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse.
Source: B2C
No comments:
Post a Comment