Modern Marketing Automation Overview
- 1. MARKETING AUTOMATION MODERN MARKETING APPLICATIONS
- 2. WHAT IS MARKETING AUTOMATION? “Marketing automation focuses on the lead acquisition and demand generation activities within a marketing group, as opposed to the sales activities, where CRM systems as a whole tend to focus. Simply put, these tools automate marketing processes — everything from strategic planning and campaign design to customer segmentation, lead generation, nurture campaigns, prospect scoring, and closed loop analytics”
- 3. WHY USE MARKETING AUTOMATION? Many B2B and recently some B2C companies, have large databases of prospective customers they need to manage • Marketers often wear many hats, it’s impossible to look at each individual lead • Automation allows marketers to set rules for what happens to each lead that enters the database Marketers want insight into the overall big picture, the demand funnel • What campaigns are performing well, where am I seeing a positive ROI? • Am I meeting my demand generation goals? • Lead volumes • Sales conversions • Budget
- 4. EXAMPLES OF AUTOMATION TOOLS A few popular platforms.. •Marketo •Silverpop •Eloqua •HubSpot •Pardot
- 5. A FEW THINGS TO CONSIDER Cost of initial investment • Often increases as the size of your database expands Switching costs • Integrating a marketing automation system with your existing CRM and marketing is no easy task • Can takes months of work with many stakeholders including sales, operations, engineering, IT and the marketing teams Data integrity • Do you trust the data your company has already collected? What about now? • When you automate tasks, there is always a chance for disaster. You need to be sure of what you are doing, the outcomes and how it is going to affect your prospect and customer databases Reporting • Everyone will want to know what you are doing, the net effect of your results and how much it costs!
- 6. LEAD MANAGEMENT Lead Scoring – behavioral and demographic fit for your organization • Can assign point values based on desired attributes • Can be different for different product or sales groups • Assign a threshold value that makes logical sense, and then adjust based on feedback Lead Lifecycle – understanding the typical progression of a lead, conversion times, recycled leads, bad fit, nurture You need to be able to quickly investigate a history of any given lead at a moments notice, being able to understand the progression of a lead, and how your company has interacted with them in the past, can help create trust and a strong
- 7. SALES LEAD IDENTIFICATION What defines a good “sales lead”? What types of things are important for the sales and marketing teams to collaborate on? What does a sales driven organizational model look like? Marketing driven? What are the common goals of your sales and marketing organization?
- 8. SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS (SLA) One of the most important, if not most important aspects of being a successful demand gen marketer • Explicit level of service you and your team agree to supply qualified lead to sales team • Demographic factors • Company Size • Industry Verticals • Job Level • Job Role • Behavioral factors • Content Downloads • Contact Request • Lead Routing based on sales organization hierarchy
- 10. HOW ARE WE MEASURED? Modern marketers are ultimately responsible for their contribution to the their organization’s top line revenue (bookings) • We look at what happens at the top of the demand funnel through pass over to sales, qualification, opportunities and ultimately bookings • Inquiries, AQL, TAL, TQL(MQL), SAL, SQL • Number of opportunities, new logos
- 11. LEAD NURTURE Leads are expensive! Cost per lead (CPL) can range anywhere from a few dollars to over $100 just for one lead! • Hopefully, when you pay for a lead, they will be the right fit and ready to purchase • This isn’t always the case, automation allows for strategic email nurturing to move leads through your marketing funnel • Can be based on different behaviors, or desire actions and outcomes • Often content-centric, awareness and consideration assets
- 12. FUTURE OF MARKETING, TODAY? Modern marketers are for the first time being measure on what effect they have on top-line revenue at organizations. The days of marketing being an art and less of a science are fading away Being able to know what your demand pipeline looks like, and how you can improve conversions, opportunities and closed/won business at any point in time is paramount Most companies have no clue! Yes, they have the software, they’ve signed the contracts, but their data is a mess, and they have no idea how to fix it All of these skills are learned on the job, no one comes out with a degree in marketing or an MBA and is expected to be an expert in these tools
- 13. SNEAK PEAK… SHHH