What Is The Real Problem With Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies designed for

marketing departments and organizations to more effectively market on multiple

channels online (such as email, social media, websites, etc.) and automate repetitive

tasks. Marketing Automation platforms are used as a hosted or web-based solution, and

no software installation is required by a customer.

Marketing automation has a focus on moving leads from the top of the marketing funnel

through to becoming sales-ready leads at the bottom of the funnel. Prospects are

scored, based on their activities, and then presented drip campaign messaging via email

and social channels, thus nurturing them from first interest through to sale. Marketing

Automation involves multiple areas of marketing and is really the marriage of email

marketing technology coupled with a structured sales process.

Functionality

In order to effectively aid marketers in fully understanding customers and subsequently

developing a strategic marketing plan, marketing automation tools (MAT) are designed

to perform four key tasks:

1. Development and analysis of marketing campaigns and customers

2. Management of marketing campaigns

3. Appropriate customer data organization and storage

4. Moving contacts from leads to customers

*It is typical of marketing automation platforms to offer a content management system, hosted

webforms, landing pages, analytics, and email platform.

The Ideal

At its best, marketing automation is 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 type of marketing automation typically generates significant new

revenue for companies, and provides an excellent return on the investment required.

Though it's not the easiest marketing initiative to execute on, marketing automation is

certainly not impossible. It's not foolproof, but it's not impossible. At the end of the

day, we hope we've nurtured our leads (the seedlings) well enough to produce actual

paying customers (a lush, full-grown plant.)

The Reality

The term “marketing automation” has become a buzz-word, where marketers seek out

marketing automation software under the impression that all of the digital marketing

tools necessary for growth, including those needed to generate new leads, roll up under

the hood of marketing automation. This misconception leaves many marketers with

sophisticated tools to automate the middle of their funnel, but no solution to generating

new leads to nurture in the first place.

The consequence is that marketers begin buying lists of email addresses to nurture

instead of generating inbound leads. While it seems like a quick fix, it's not a long-term

solution, nor does it create the fertile ground for a healthier, longer relationship with

your future customers. Sure, it seems like a good, quick fix--but it doesn't set you up for

future, long-term success. While it's definitely the easier route, it doesn't set you up for

long term success.

Research shows that as a result, many marketing automation investments fail.

Companies that try to automate the delivery of unsolicited emails rarely generate

engagement and becoming known as spammers. And companies that implement

complicated automation programs without a reliable source of organic leads find that

their investment has little impact on revenue. To say “email doesn’t work” would be a lie.

However, to treat email as the only avenue of communication with your contacts is a

disservice to both your business, and the experience of your leads.

Because of the constant influx of marketing emails to their inboxes, buyers have begun

to block out many of these communications, whether through inbox filters or a

subconscious disregard for irrelevant messages. Instead, these buyers are doing Google

searches, and asking their friends for recommendations. They’re tapping the social media

community for advice and browsing your website to see if your business offers a solution

fit for their challenges. If you’re only communicating with these leads through email,

you’re not only missing out on an opportunity to reach your leads via multiple channels

during various parts of the decision process, you’re also ignoring a slew of behavioral

data points they’re giving you about their needs and interests.

If you’re not leveraging interactions across every marketing channel like social media,

your website, or the content your leads are consuming, it’s as if you’re only listening to

your leads 30% of the time. Have you ever been on the phone with a sales rep who

doesn’t answer your questions and reads straight from a pre-generated script without

taking your specific needs into account? Did you end up buying from that company?

Inbound Marketing Automation

Inbound marketing automation is centered on the prospect. Inbound marketing

automation uses all the information we know about a person to understand what their

wants and needs are, and delivers them the information they need to make a purchase,

exactly when they need that information, in the place they’re looking for it.

Inbound Marketing attracts prospects to a company’s website through a combination of

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC), and Social Media

Marketing (SMM), then engages them with relevant content, converts them to identified

sales leads through the completion of forms, and then nurtures them through a program

of drip marketing until prospects are determined to be “sales ready. Marketing

Automation, in the context of Inbound Marketing, includes the automation of marketing

analytics, reputation management or social media monitoring, email marketing, sales

lead generation and sales lead management, and other regular marketing activities.

What does “bad” or “good” marketing automation look like?

Marketing automation campaigns can run the gamut in terms of functionality and

effectiveness. Explore what it looks like when a marketing automation approach is

ineffective, and which approaches produce the highest ROI for your marketing

automation efforts.

Traditional marketing automation is a limited approach. Traditional marketing

automation often refers to triggering emails based on time delays or actions likes clicks

on links and email opens. But is an email click enough data to execute an effective lead

nurturing strategy that appeals to their needs as a consumer?

These types of drip email and branching logic tactics fail to supply the marketer with any

context about who the leads are, where they are in the funnel, or what they’re interested

in. This gives little foundation to automated campaigns based upon, and ultimately

results in a poor user experience for those prospects.

Good marketing automation takes into account the evolving needs of your leads, and

the behaviors and interactions they have with you across all of your marketing channels.

Using behavioral inputs from multiple channels such as social clicks, viewing a pricing

page or consuming a particular piece of content gives marketers the context they need

to fully understand a lead’s challenges and how to guide them down the funnel. The

most effective marketing automation not only collects data from multiple channels, but

uses those various channels to send their marketing messages as well. That means the

success of your campaign relies less on the email, and fully utilizes the various channels

that influence a buyer’s decision.

How do you know if it’s time to invest in marketing automation?

If you’re producing effective inbound marketing content, you’re generating a steady flow

of new, organic leads, and you’re ready to scale your successful efforts, chances are it’s

time to focus your efforts on a marketing automation strategy that will nurture those

quality leads into paying customers. Below are some good questions to ask yourself

when deciding if marketing automation is the right move for your business:

1. Are you generating a steady flow of new and qualified leads?

2. Is your sales team overwhelmed with the number of quality leads you’re passing

along to them?

3. Has marketing and sales agreed on what conversations should happen with

marketing and which with sales?

4. Do you have an efficient content strategy mapped to your buyer’s journey?

5. Are you tracking your leads’ digital body language across every touch point and

marketing channel (not just email)?

6. Do you have a proven lead nurturing strategy that you want to scale?

These are all good signs that marketing automation (when done right) could work for

your business. The key here is understanding that marketing automation does not do

marketing for you, but can help scale your successful efforts.

What are the keys to successful marketing automation?

Though there are many pieces that must be put in place to establish a successful

marketing automation strategy, there are two extremely key principles to keep in mind

when developing a strategy that scales and evolves with your customers:

1. Recognizing that marketing automation does not do marketing and lead

generation for you, but can help scale your successful efforts. The first step is

building a pipeline of good fit leads by generating relevant, optimized content

that speaks to your prospect’s needs and challenges. This is where inbound

marketing becomes the building blocks of your marketing funnel.

2. Centering your marketing messages on the real, live person at the receiving end

of your campaigns. That means we should treat them like a real person, not a

fragmented self across different tools like email, social media, etc. If we can

leverage all the marketing tools, channels and behavioral data possible to paint a

complete picture of a person, we can nurture them based on their unique

challenges and interests, not based solely on the emails they open or click

through.