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What else needs to happen for marketing automation to reach it's full potential?
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2 Answers
Hi Karen,
Great question for an exciting space. There are a few "events" I believe will eventually happen for the marketing automation segment to reach full potential as it moves from the early adopter to pragmatic stage. Some may disagree but I don't believe Marketing Automation has "crossed the chasm" just yet.
In my opinion the #1 challenge customers have is building and implementing a solid demand generation process. MA platforms are not silver bullets. Marketing Automation platforms are process enablers and that takes a lot of heavy lifting with process design, politics, systems integration.
That said, as existing vendors mature and new players come to market, the "easier" they make process implementation and administration, adoption and more importantly, utilization, will increase.
The other "event" is where marketing leaders move away from functional existence to strategic behavior that focuses on revenue generation. For far too long marketing execs with fancy titles have behaved functionally and measured themselves with meaningless activity-based metrics that have no correlation to revenue. Marketing Automation systems can enable an organization to build customer relationships and grow revenue. As the expectations move toward measuring marketing on revenue generation, more organizations will utilize these tools.
What are your thoughts?
Brian Hansford
President
Zephyr 47
http://www.Zephyr47.com
@RemarkMarketing
Mr. Hansford is spot-on! May I suggest a couple additional elements …
Unless and until Marketing Automation actively involves prospects and customers, it will remain a vendor-centric mechanism and not fulfill its potential. Absent a process (and the will) to overtly ask people when, how often, under what circumstances, and in which media they wish to communicate, MA will function chiefly as an outbound message generator … neither individualized nor interactive. A billboard on the Internet.
It also appears that some MA vendors are positioning their offerings as latter-day CRM. Of course, CRM has over-promised and under-delivered and cost a bundle while doing so. It would be wiser for the MA companies to present themselves as enablers of smarter, faster customer acquisition and as facilitators of better marketing-sales collaboration.
Michael A. Brown, President
The Business Marketing Consultancy
www.michaelabrown.net
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