THE CMO’S GUIDE TO MARKETING AUTOMATION

By harnessing the capabilities of technology for intelligent analysis and decision-making, marketing automation will be

the foundation for lasting success

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THE AUTOMATED CMO’S GUIDE TO MARKETING AUTOMATION

As Head of Digital at Tomorrow People, technology is central to everything I do and I’d bet it’s central to everything you do. But for us marketers, where is the real value? For me, it’s customer experience, engagement, and retention. But to do all those things, we have to be relevant. One of the core pieces of technology that allows us to drive both relevant and personalised campaigns is marketing automation.

Marketing automation promises to make things much simpler, yet for many marketers it’s one of the biggest sources of frustration. I’ve written this guide to cut through the fluff and get to bottom of what

marketing automation is, the different platforms that are available, and the skills that you should be looking for within your own company to manage and operate a platform so you can quickly see ROI on the investment. Those who are looking to invest in a marketing automation platform for the first time will come away from this guide with a better understanding of the options and requirements that are on the table, and for those who currently have a marketing automation platform in place I ask you this question: are you confident that you are getting the most out of it?

FOREWORD:INSUFFICIENT

TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE

OR ANALYTICAL CAPACITY AMONG

EMPLOYEES

PROBLEMS INTEGRATING

DIFFERENT PLATFORMS

A LACK OF CLEAR COMMUNICATION

BETWEEN MARKETING, SALES

AND IT.

And some marketers expect too much from automation. While it is certainly a powerful tool, it does not remove the need for strong lead generation and content strategies.

So marketing automation arguably hasn’t yet fulfilled its potential. Many marketers use only a small amount of the functionality of its software. And sometimes automation can seem more hassle than it is worth. A survey in 2014 by marketing guru David Raab found that a third of

marketers who used automation were either disappointed or only marginally satisfied.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. With the right approach and by harnessing the capabilities of the technology for intelligent analysis and decision-making, marketing automation can provide a foundation for lasting success. In this guide, we assess the current marketing automation landscape, and take a look at how future developments may help realise the technology’s potential.

THE CMO’S GUIDE TO MARKETING AUTOMATIONAutomation has the potential to make marketing more flexible, personalised and efficient - but marketers need to use the technology in the right way to harness its potential

THIRDOF MARKETERS WHO USED AUTOMATION

WERE EITHER DISAPPOINTED OR ONLY MARGINALLY SATISFIED

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THE AUTOMATED CMO’S GUIDE TO MARKETING AUTOMATION

The growth of mobile internet browsing, the attitudes of the millennial generation, and the power of big data analytics have all contributed to create new expectations among consumers. Digital companies like Amazon and Google lead the way in providing services that are personalised, user-friendly and flexible.

In order to be effective, modern marketing needs to meet these expectations, demonstrating speed and agility to engage with informed, self-directed buyers.

It may seem a daunting standard to strive for, but there are real rewards for businesses that can adapt.

Automation can help marketers develop the capacity to nurture

large numbers of leads through the buying cycle in an efficient, flexible and personalised way. This provides customers with the user experience that they now expect.

It also frees up more time for strategic thinking, and makes it easier to measure ROI – both useful for the next big meeting with the CEO.

INTRODUCTION

“MANY MARKETERS ARE NOT YET MAKING THE MOST OF

AUTOMATION. BUT A GROWING UNDERSTANDING OF BEST

PRACTICES, TOGETHER WITH NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN KEY TECHNOLOGY AREAS, MEAN

THAT ITS POTENTIAL LOOKS SET TO BE INCREASINGLY REALISED

OVER THE COMING YEARS.”DAVID SMITH, TOMORROW PEOPLE

AT ITS MOST BASIC LEVEL,automation can mean sending out a follow-up

email to people who have filled in a form on your website to download content, or who have added items to an online shopping basket without checking out.

But it also involves much more sophisticated capabilities, including lead scoring and personalised content based on data such as demographic information, browsing history and previous

purchases. It’s possible to automate engagement with leads on social media as well as through email, and apps enable marketers to send push notifications and messages to customers through their devices.

The capabilities of marketing automation software will develop further in future. But marketing leaders don’t need to be told that automation can do a lot

of things. It’s in realising the business value of these where many run into difficulties.

A common problem is staff who are not comfortable using the technology. And even when they are, managing a complex automation system may take up as much time as it saves. Different departmental processes and priorities, together with poor communication,

can be another factor that holds back automation.

Another and perhaps more fundamental issue is that even advanced marketing automation software, if it is based on manually-set rules, is simply not able to adapt fast enough to the rapid pace at which business is done today.

So while the current situation is one of unfulfilled promise,

there is real hope for the future. David Smith, client services director at Tomorrow People says: “Many marketers are not yet making the most of automation. But a growing understanding of best practices, together with new developments in key technology areas, mean that its potential looks set to be increasingly realised over the coming years.”

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THE AUTOMATED CMO’S GUIDE TO MARKETING AUTOMATION

There are lots of marketing automation platforms out there and they all have different capacities. Let’s take a closer look at what some of the market leaders offer, and what best practices the companies recommend to get the most out of the software:

MARKETING AUTOMATION PLATFORMS AND BEST PRACTICES

HubSpot is the market leader in automation, with a market share of 36% in 2015, according to research by Marketing Automation Insider. The company describes Workflows, its marketing automation software, as “automation beyond email”. Its features include allowing users to grow and replenish databases, score leads, and track them through the funnel.

HubSpot defines a workflow as “a series of automated actions that you can trigger to occur based on a person’s behaviours or contact information”.

The software allows users to create workflows through the buying cycle that can be tied to clear goals, so marketers can assess what is working best. It enables leads to be tracked at every stage of

the cycle, and provides analytics so you can see which approaches are most successful.

Other features of the software include segmentation logic for determining how and when customers will be enrolled into workflows (for example, if they have downloaded a particular piece of content or viewed a certain web page).

HUBSPOT

ONE CUSTOMER REDUCED ITS AVERAGE SALES CYCLE BY

66%

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THE AUTOMATED CMO’S GUIDE TO MARKETING AUTOMATION

And branching logic allows you to refine workflows further depending on the particular actions leads take (like which option they choose in an email).

Workflows also offers the ability to automate content personalisation on your website as well as in emails. It can send alerts and notifications to your internal team when a contact reaches an important threshold, and can be combined with Salesforce to alert your team to contacts they should follow up.

Hubspot says that Workflows helped one customer, Skura, reduce its average sales cycle by 66% through nurturing contacts to sales readiness. Previously, Skura had needed a developer to create custom landing pages

and forms for campaigns, which sometimes involved outsourcing work. The team manually maintained social media accounts, which was time-consuming. And they used Google Analytics to monitor web usage, which they found lacked sufficient detail.

Using HubSpot’s software, the Skura team was able to implement better practices, including creating buyer personas and custom lead scoring. When leads reached a score where they were considered very close to buying, sales reps received an automatically triggered email prompting them to follow up by phone. “This automated process helped drop the average lead reaction time from 20 minutes to 8 minutes.” says HubSpot.

But Hubspot warns that while marketing automation can be powerful, many companies fall into the trap of believing that it alone contains all the tools necessary for growth, and don’t invest enough in other crucial areas like lead generation.

The company says: “At its best, marketing automation means software and tactics that allow companies to buy and sell like Amazon -- that is, to nurture prospects with highly personalized, useful content that helps convert prospects to customers and turn customers into delighted customers”.

“THIS AUTOMATED PROCESS HELPED DROP THE AVERAGE LEAD REACTION TIME FROM

20 MINUTES TO 8 MINUTES”HUBSPOT

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Marketo, which had an 11% market share in 2015, defines marketing automation as a category of software that “streamlines, automates, and measures marketing tasks and workflows”, enabling companies to increase their operational efficiency and grow their revenues.

Marketo’s software offers a range of features including lead scoring, A/B testing, and CRM integration, as well as more basic functionality such as email, landing pages and forms. They believe that automation can be used by a company of any size, and that the key to implementing it is to “think big, start small, and move quickly”.

Among the organisations to have used Marketo to boost its performance is Algonquin College in Ottawa, which improved its lead generation by 28% year-on-year and increased sales by 18%.

Previously, Algonquin used batch emails to generate leads, meaning it had little insight into how effective its content was. With Marketo software, the college was able to measure the effectiveness of its campaigns precisely, and understand what content had the best impact on lead generation, open rates, conversion rates and closed sales.

Marketo’s advice is to appreciate that automation needs to be implemented alongside

a clear strategy and using defined processes. It highlights the issues of aligning sales and marketing, metrics and data quality, as being important.

Content and lead flow are also crucial, in Marketo’s view. They recommend that businesses have a defined content calendar, and create content for each stage of the buying process – for each buyer persona. And even the best marketing automation software is no good without a steady supply of leads coming in. Marketo advises businesses without enough leads to create a plan to generate more – whether that is through content marketing, social media, attending trade shows or promotions.

MARKETO28%INCREASE IN LEAD

GENERATION 18%INCREASE IN

SALES

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THE AUTOMATED CMO’S GUIDE TO MARKETING AUTOMATION

As Marketo points out: “Marketing automation can help leads flow through the funnel more efficiently, and done right, it can nurture leads to make them sales-ready. But if you have nothing coming into the top of your funnel, you will have nothing to nurture.”Having the people on your team who

are comfortable with technology, analytics and process design is also important, in the company’s opinion.

Marketo sums up its approach to automation by saying: “Marketing automation is not a panacea by itself. To deliver, it requires the support

of a comprehensive strategy that integrates the right processes, people, content, data, and more.” They also warn that marketers may need to make the case internally for investing in automation, because executives may not immediately see its value. The company says that you should explain the benefits of automation

in relation to the problems that the business is currently facing. They go on to explain: “Your ability to deliver a compelling business case for marketing automation hinges on how well you structure your argument to resolve the chief challenges and priorities of your audience.”

ORACLE, WHO ACQUIRED THE ELOQUA MARKETING AUTOMATION PLATFORM IN 2012, SAYS THAT AUTOMATION

“EMPOWERS MARKETERS TO IMPROVE THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF BUYER

BEHAVIOR AND UNDERSTAND HOW IT PLAYS OUT IN CAMPAIGNS”.

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THE AUTOMATED CMO’S GUIDE TO MARKETING AUTOMATION

Oracle, who acquired the Eloqua marketing automation platform in 2012, says that automation “empowers marketers to improve their knowledge of buyer behavior and understand how it plays out in campaigns”. In 2015 the software had a 30% market share among large businesses.

Eloqua’s features include sales notifications and alerts, segmentation, and data cleansing, as well as lead scoring and real-time reporting. This helped The Economist halve the cost of acquisition for 8 million contacts, increase brand awareness in the US by 64% and increase consideration in the US and UK by 22%.

Oracle advises marketers that maximising the value of their data is crucial, saying “the foundational element of successful marketing automation is your database”. They recommend that marketers integrate their automation platform with their databases, allowing them to provide leads with relevant information at appropriate phases in the buying cycle.

In the company’s view, some of the key benefits of effective data management, supported by marketing automation, are improved targeting, better alignment, reduced inaccuracies and increased engagement with campaigns.

Oracle also recommends that marketers establish a lead qualification process to make the most of automation’s ability to streamline lead management. This involves defining the different stages of the buying cycle, determining the criteria used for those definitions, and creating a lead scoring model, using lead quality measures like BANT (Budget, Authority, Need and Timeline), as well as leads’ activity and behaviour.

Oracle advises sales reps to make sure that they are providing today’s informed buyers with the content and tools they need to make a purchase decision.

ORACLE ELOQUA

THE ECONOMIST

INCREASED BRAND AWARENESS BY

64%

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THE AUTOMATED CMO’S GUIDE TO MARKETING AUTOMATION

Automation can help with this, by providing a “library of tested content” for use in the different situations they encounter, and helping sales teams optimise their communications.

Jeff Cohen, the director of content and social media strategy at Oracle Marketing Cloud, writes that a more nuanced approach to marketing automation can pay dividends. He says

that collecting data that goes beyond job titles can enable marketers to better segment and target prospects, and likewise, that engagement should be measured not just in downloads of gated assets, but also other sources like web and social media activity.

And elsewhere on the Oracle blog, the certified Eloqua Luminary Alp Miramoglu advises that building up

expertise within an organisation is crucial for success, saying that “training your team on modern marketing best practices is the real key to success with marketing automation”.

Alongside recruiting staff with automation skills, Miramoglu recommends using the marketing training programmes provided by vendors, as well as phone, chat and

email support services, to make sure your team is on top of the technology.

And he believes that the “biggest mistake of all” is not tapping into the experience of the wider marketing community through vendor forums and in-house groups.

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The current landscape for our client is one of mixed outcomes. Typically our new larger (Enterprise) clients come onboard with mature marketing automation systems in place, however for early adopters time has not delivered maturity and success but more complexity and confusion. Integration into CRM remains inconsistent and the value provided to marketers and specifically sales teams remains blurred.

As for our SME audience, a lot are still fairly new to MA and have set up the basics but do not have a clear defined strategy to leverage the technology for its true capability,

whether that’s retention and advocacy or net new lead acquisition they have the tools but little direction.

With the ever evolving technological landscape of MA, the volume of tools and plugins promoting mobile, real-time, personal, behavioural capabilities - this can be very complex for clients and agencies alike. In one of our latest blogs ‘The MA Crystal Ball’ we explore the next three hot topics of MA including Personalisation, Open source platformance and predictive analytics but in conclusion the future of marketing automation is all about simplicity, understanding

the objective, strategy and implementing clear defined solution to achieve the end goal. Marketing automation is not the silver bullet it is simply the tool to bring the strategy and engagements to life more effectively and efficiently than ever before. This streamlined approach provides you and your business the opportunity to channel your talent and resources on activities of value not the mundane repetitive tasks of a legacy marketing and sales teams.

For the marketer marketing automation will connect user journeys and personalise brand engagement delivering consistent

2. AGENCY TAKE ON CURRENT AND FUTURE LANDSCAPE

omnichannel experiences of value to your audience.

For the sales leader - the ROI of specific tactics and TCA (total cost of acquisition) becomes obtainable, technology becomes an enabler not a barrier.

To deliver true value through marketing automation for our clients it’s about a continual development model. Business and competitive landscapes change and with the consumerisation and pace of technology only accelerating your tactics need to evolve inline with your business and marketing strategy.

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Automation software is being increasingly widely adopted by marketers. But Aviva Walsh, a channel consultant at HubSpot, says that in many cases, businesses are not making the most of it. She believes that one key reason for this is a failure to align the goals of sales and marketing teams.

“It’s being utilised by marketing, but it’s not necessarily being utilised in the right way. I think it needs to be more aligned with sales, and some of it needs to be more sales-led,” says Walsh.

Currently, she says, marketing and sales teams often do not communicate closely enough about leads, which creates inefficiency. “There are leads are slipping through cracks, and the quality of leads is not good enough,” says Walsh.

For example, she says, there is not enough emphasis on creating bottom of the funnel content, focused on people who are getting ready to purchase – and this is an area where the input of sales teams would be really

3. THE AUTOMATION SPECIALIST

valuable. The answer, in her view, is for sales and marketing teams to work together to get clear on personas, lead scoring, and aligning goals before campaigns begin – as well as learning from experiences to make changes to the system. “It starts with alignment from the very start,” says Walsh.

Looking ahead to the future, Walsh believes that automation software will become increasingly pinpointed towards individuals. “I think it’s going to get more and more targeted.

The segmentation of automation is going to be based on more and more unique interactions,” she says. She also predicts that automation will see wider use among sales teams as they see the benefits of knowing a lead’s interactions throughout the buying cycle. She believes the software will become easier to use, more automated, and encompass many more channels. “Overall it’s going to become a lot more agile, a lot more analytical, and tied into the different channels that people are using,” she says.

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Sometimes problems with marketing automation arise from a misunderstanding of what it is and what it can do. Automation does not get rid of the need to invest time and resources into other crucial areas like lead generation, content, and aligning goals across teams.

And a lot of the problems with implementing automation are to do with people. They can be addressed by recruiting staff with the right skills, and providing existing team members with the right training.

Beyond this, though, there is also a more fundamental problem with marketing automation as it stands.

When workflows are based on manually-defined rules, they can become unmanageably complex, negating the time-saving benefits of automation and requiring significant expertise to manage. Marketing automation can end up being undone by its own sophistication.

But there is a possible solution to this, in the form of predictive analytics. This uses data (from forms, browsing history, social media and so on) to update workflows without manual intervention, and in real time. Most companies have far more data than any one individual is able to process. Predictive analytics can handle

this – and constantly refine its processes, incorporating real sales data into its algorithms to model promising leads.

There is now a huge array of marketing technologies on the market – almost 4,000 in fact. And as increasingly powerful specialist solutions are developed, many experts believe that we will also see marketers moving away from using all-encompassing software for automation, towards combining a range of different tools to suit specific purposes.

CONCLUSION

ALMOST

4000MARKETING TECHNOLOGIES

ON THE MARKET

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Nick Edwards, the co-founder and CEO of Boomtrain, believes that in the future, “smart executives will focus on their brands’ primary needs—and then find specific technologies that address each of them”.

And Vic Singh, the CEO of Infer, predicts that “the prevailing marketing platform of 2018 will be predictive-first, will deliver full-circle recommendations and will embrace open platforms”.

Together, these developments promise to enable marketers to reap

the benefits of automation software more effectively, leading to more sales, happier customers and better ROI. Crucially, they are also likely to make marketing automation easier to implement, addressing some of the current difficulties related to people and organisations.

A more rewarding experience for both customers and marketers? It sounds like a win-win situation. We may not have got there yet, but watch this space. Automation could be delivering on its promise sooner than you think.

TAKEAWAYS

• Automation can help marketers develop the capacity to nurture large numbers of leads through the buying cycle, in an efficient, flexible and personalised way.

• Many marketers are not making the most of their automation software: a survey in 2014 found that a third of marketers who used automation were either disappointed or only marginally satisfied.

• HubSpot warns that many companies fall into the trap of believing that automation alone contains all the tools necessary for growth, and don’t invest enough in other crucial areas like lead generation.

• Marketo advises that to make the case internally for investing in automation, marketers should explain the benefits in relation to the problems that the business is currently facing.

• Many experts believe that predictive analytics will help to make marketing automation simpler and more responsive in future.

THE CMO’S DEFINITIVE GUIDE

This guide is part of a series of resources on modern marketing for CMO’s. To find out more, join our community:

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TOMORROW PEOPLE, FAZELEY STUDIOS, 191 FAZELEY ST BIRMINGHAM, B5 5SE, UK