You can follow along with the steps they took and at the end of the article you can see the results of their efforts – 341% reduction in unqualified leads over 2011, deliverability increased from 81% to 99.6%, and more.

Marketing Automation is about driving leads from an initial interest through to a fully qualified sales lead. It requires the planning and professional support of automating any business process. The Marketing Automation platform is there to support the business process not to define it. Technology should only be implemented after the planning is complete.

Put the business decision first and the technology second.  Three factors common in successfully implemented Marketing Automation are;

1) Clear objectives
2) Strong planning
3) Support from experienced Marketing Automation professionals

We will explore these areas in our next three emails but if you want to read them now click below;
Clear Objectives
Strong Planning
How to choose professional help

We can debate how much content is needed till the cows come home but a number which is suggested by many is 35. Getting together 35 different pieces of content may be ‘daunting’ but not having enough will hold the success of your business back in many ways.

Some tips to help you build your content library;
1) Repurpose
2) Function specific
3) Understand the buyer’s journey.
4) Provide variety for your buyer.

The better the quality of the content the better the results of the Marketing Automation. If you’d like to read the detail of these 4 gems please click here.

• Understand the company’s revenue generation process from gathering the first lead to closing the sale
• Understand operations and how data flows through the organisation
• Understand the system and its full potential
• Be able to communicate new concepts in a way that is relevant to individuals to maximise uptake and design input
• Be flexible enough to help individuals or departments map out their content requirements
• Understand metrics and how they benefit aspects of the process

The other critical team members of your Marketing Automation team will be the lead qualification team. Telephoning all of your contacts in order to qualify them can ensure that effort is put in where it counts. The system may also help build the profiling data with emails, web activity, and scoring. This process must be done properly as it will be an integral part of the system moving forward.

1) Definitions – Consistent definitions used by the whole company eliminates confusion; (click here for some generally used)

2) Metrics – It is essential to have measurement criteria to benchmark your plan. If current metrics aren’t known or feel inadequate then research those used in your market or by those of companies you look up to.

3) Know what your buyers are doing – Understanding what your buyers are doing can give you a real advantage and enable the creation of relevant and appropriate content. You will be able to provide content they need in order to take the next step towards the sale.

Together with your defined process and plan you can then begin to evaluate systems on the basis of how well they will support YOUR business processes rather than making your business fit some pre-loaded processes of a software developer.

What we learn from CRM and ERP implementations is that just choosing a good software provider and installing the system is NOT going to provide the best solution.

To succeed in Marketing Automation you need more than just software, you need to have three key factors supporting it;

1) Methodology – the entire process being correctly mapped out right from beginning to end; from lead generation to the sale (and beyond if you really want to max-out your ROI).

2) Key personnel – the key individuals critical to the success of the project are the board and company management team. Without them onside you are sunk before you start. From there you need to pool resources to win the hearts and minds of everyone else.

3) Content – Content is King; original, structured, targeted, timely, engaging good quality content is priceless.

2) Be knowledgeable
Knowing your stuff and making your communications with prospects valuable is the key differentiator from your competitors. If you can provide information which is valuable to your prospects they will be happy to receive it, keep it and even look forward to receiving more. And guess who they’ll speak to when they’re ready?

3) Make it relevant to each recipient
Knowing your prospects are short of time means you’ll understand that none of them will be interested in your products or services until they reach the final steps of their sales cycle and are ready to reach a decision between suppliers. Until then they are interested in the key drivers for their businesses. Your communications need to focus on these – the business benefits of using you.

4) Focus your time and effort where it’ll make the most difference
By gathering market information and monitoring key changes in prospect companies you can develop unique communications that depict your proposition in your prospects’ environment thereby demonstrating your good fit and business edge over its competitors.

Today reaching these decision makers is harder than ever and if you want to reach them then your marketing and sales departments need to work in harmony to grab their attention and win their business.

Issues are further complicated as new-business Prospects are overloaded with information and interruptions which makes it even harder to be noticed; cold calls rarely get through, messages are rarely returned and emails are often deleted instantaneously. On average nine calls need to be made before a sales person gets to speak to their target and when they do the sales cycles are now longer and have more people involved in the decision making process.

Marketing Automation can deliver great value to most companies if they recognise that there is more to it than just technology. To get it right you will need to focus on your communications in order to put yourself ahead of your competitors.

The top tips are;
1. Be clear and simple
2. Be knowledgeable
3. Be relevant to each recipient
4. Focus your time and energy on what’ll make most difference

Building a database of prospects and pre-planning your communications with them with means that sales teams can concentrate their attention on those prospects who are ready to buy now. Imagine how much easier it is to reach a contact who you know has opened your emails, clicked on links in it, read your articles and forwarded them on to their colleagues?

We’ll elaborate on these four cornerstones next week.

In the rush to adopt trendy new media as quickly as they pop into existence the word “media” is often forgotten and the process of Media Planning overlooked.   A medium must always justify itself onto the media schedule.

What’s this got to do with my original point about revolutions and clarity?  It is this:

If we strive to plan our campaigns properly we will realise our need to have the full picture at our disposal.  It has started already and has fueled the development of Super-Control-Panels that bring all of our analytics  into one place, including our CRM systems.   If you’d like to know how to get your hands on a Super Control Panel then drop us a line.

Our next post will be about linking Social Media to CRM to Marketing Automation.