Some lessons are more costly than others. Our partner Thomas Nordén learned this the hard way the first time he purchased a marketing automation system.
I first came into contact with marketing automation about 15 years ago when I was working as a marketing manager at Tobii Dynavox. I fell in love with the features that the tool, in my case Marketo, had to offer and the way it was marketed.
Thomas Nordén
I had downloaded a white paper on marketing automation, and the next day someone called and we talked. After the conversation, I realized that I had been "BANTed," or qualified. The salesperson had asked questions about budget, authority, needs, and time frame (BANT) in a way that was not at all pushy or intrusive. I even received a link to a document on "selling marketing automation to your boss." It was perfectly suited to my situation.
This led us to purchase a subscription to Marketo Spark. I was absolutely thrilled.
What I didn't really think about at the time was that technology is only part of the solution. Other important elements that also need to be in place are:
The processes – who should work with the tool and how? It doesn't necessarily have to be someone who works 100% with MA, but there should still be someone responsible for the tool, any integrations, and setting up processes for how it should be used. This involves pure marketing processes, but also how sales works and how the handover between sales and marketing should take place. How should it be integrated with other systems such as CRM? And the small detail of reporting and follow-up, how should that work?
Content – for marketing automation to work, you need content to use on your website, in email flows, and as lead magnets. The content also needs to be tailored to the customer's buying journey, but with more entertaining and educational content at the beginning of the journey, becoming more product- and sales-oriented towards the end.
If technology, processes, personnel, and content are not in place, it can be very difficult to get a return on investments in marketing automation.
Since neither processes nor content were in place, the investment in Marketo became little more than a very expensive Mailchimp that was used sporadically. A costly lesson learned.
Thomas won't make that mistake again. Instead, he helps small and medium-sized companies with limited marketing resources to generate more sales through value-based, pragmatic, no-nonsense marketing. If you want to know more, you can find him at https://www.earlytorise.se.
