You’ve installed marketing automation software and now not only isn’t it performing like you imagined, you’re not even sure if it’s working at all.
In conversations with hundreds of business owners each year, here are the top reasons why their purchase was a big disappointment for their business and how they can fix it.
Strategy
Did You Make a Plan?
While marketers understand the importance of marketing automation, many neglect to identify a strategy for the team to follow.
Implementing a software tool without mapping out a game plan that takes into consideration people and processes is sure to fail. Your content marketing strategy which includes: value proposition, buyer personas, buyer map, and keyword strategy, should determine where your leads are and what they are looking for within each channel. Also key is knowing where your leads are sourcing information and the kinds of information they’re looking for at different stages of the buying process.
Developing an implementation strategy before you dump a database into the system will help you understand your goals and how to effectively use the software.
Evolving Your Strategy
Just as important as creating a strategy before you buy software, is making sure that it’s capable of evolving consistently with your goals and with the evolution of the software itself.
Marketing automation has already moved far beyond lead generation, lead nurturing, conversion, and measuring. Measuring, for example, has widened its scope to full-feature analytics, predictive analytics, and even AI. The structure of marketing automation can be integrated into more and more data management systems such as CRM.
ClickDimensions is a powerful marketing automation platform built within Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Features like web tracking allow you to see the actual web activity of anonymous and identified visitors on your website so you know who’s looking at your products and services. It captures this information within real time and is brought into Dynamics CRM so you can immediately activate a workflow from it and/or include it in CRM reports and advanced find views.
If you implemented the software without a strategy, it may be worth checking out 3 Important considerations before you buy marketing automation software.
People
Are Your Sales and Marketing Teams Trained and On the Same Page?
Although marketing automation makes marketing and sales more efficient, introducing new software requires an investment in training.
It’s crucial that your team understands how the software fits into what they’re doing and that everyone is on the same page when it comes to the expected results. Marketing automation can vastly reduce repetitive tasks for the marketing team and provide valuable information about your web presence that informs your sales team about a prospect’s interest. This is provided they understand how it can help them and why they need to use it.
Both ClickDimensions and the newer Microsoft Dynamics for Marketing can effectively market via multiple channels and automate repetitive tasks. Email automation can send an email to one lead, bulk emails to mailing lists, or send them automatically from a CRM workflow. Sales people benefit from intelligent tools like lead scoring that prioritize leads so sales can easily determine which leads to pursue.
For more information on how your sales team can use marketing automation, click here.
Process
Is Marketing Aligned with Your Customers’ Needs?
There’s no question that the greatest power of marketing automation is its ability to create efficiency so you can focus on what truly matters—your client or customer. Effective communication and staying customer obsessed is crucial when it comes to nurturing leads or a potential client relationship.
Marketing automation’s ability to create interactive experiences based on prospects’ behaviors means you can send targeted emails at all the right moments to keep them engaged, set up chat bots for immediate support, and easily create campaigns with targeted messaging for a personalized experience.
Marketers can let sales know when a customer or lead shows interest through their interfaces with marketing campaigns. All ways to ensure your customers will always receive the support they need throughout their journey.
