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What is the next big thing in Marketing Automation?
Recently several vendors added new features or much improved usability to Marketing Automation (Eloqua 10 & Cloud Connector, Marketo Next, etc.). What would you as a user, specialist, marketer or consultant see as the next step in the evolution of marketing automation?
Best Answer
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Thank you, Jeff!
Once again I have to admit that I am surprised by the answers given so far. Not that I wasn't aware of the problems concerning the adoption, implementation and proper usage of marketing automation. I just find it really astonishing that it seems to be such a big show stopper, that all of you who replied want this to get fixed first before marketing automation gets to the next level.
So, I've been thinking about this, and here is a different take:
What if we actually needed some revolutionary feature that would make marketing automation easier to implement and use? Something, that would enable marketers to get immediate success from automating their marketing?
Here is an analogy to it: back in the days, a standard user of mobile phones had thankfully given back a smartphone with the words "great device that can certainly do a million wonderful things, but it's too complicated for me. all I need is a phone that can do phone calls and text messages."
Then Apple came along with the iPhone, and took away the complexity of using applications on a smartphone. Now, everybody wants one.
Back to marketing automation: a key problem really seems to be that every vendor keeps their platform as a closed ecosystem. If they followed the example of Salesforce.com with their force.com platform, we might get smart applications that would facilitate working with and on marketing automation, and hence, like in the example with smartphones, make it accessible to a broader public.
Matthias (@mrothkoegel)
www.engage-marketing.de
Matthias,
Teaching marketers to market aside, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said "What if we actually needed some revolutionary feature that would make marketing automation easier to implement and use? Something, that would enable marketers to get immediate success from automating their marketing?"
The future of marketing automation is a tool that puts the rule set and the customer profile in the hands of the marketer. It makes it easy for the marketer to build the automation he wants as he needs it. Add mobile when it becomes part of your company’s marketing ecosystem; use the email system you already have in place and enhance it with the power of an intelligent workflow engine, if you will. The email system no longer needs a rules engine if the marketing automation tool provides this functionality (For an example see: Email frequency optimizer at http://bit.ly/naoZkG )! The email system then becomes a commodity that pushes out personalized emails very efficiently. Extend that thinking to CRM, CMS, MRM, datamart, listening engine etc. Those systems can focus on their distinctive competence and feed the data required by the marketing automation tool to execute the marketer defined scenarios.
Any digital application can exchange simple XML tickets on a just-in-time basis with the marketing automation tool of the future. This tool gives the marketer access to data, and features and functionalities that the target applications expose through its API (e.g. push an email, detect a specific click, update a file, retrieve reputation data, listen for keyword...) In short, the marketing automation tool of the future puts the marketer back in control of her marketing ecosystem and allows her to do one-to-one cross-channel marketing without having to consolidate data from disparate systems.
You may say that I am a dreamer; however I am living this dream today.
All that is left is to educate the marketer.
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Matthias,
All the above observations are interesting and make a valid point, especially Carlos and Jeff.
However, I personally feel the next big trends in Marketing Automation would be:
1. Replacing Traditional Email Marketing with the More Sophisticated Marketing Automation: Marketers big and small are maturing from the traditional "dumb" email marketing to the more sophisticated marketing automation platforms. For many marketers, Marketing Automation is just Email Marketing 2.0 because email is what they mostly use Marketing Automation for. The traditional email marketing market is pretty big compared to marketing automation and either the marketing automation players will replace the email marketing vendors or the email marketing players will evolve into marketing automation players either through M&A or through developing their own.
2. Action at the Top of the Funnel: Marketing Automation has been focused on moving the slow moving leads through the funnel faster - ie., lead nurturing has been the key focus of marketing automation. However, the market is less than 10% penetrated because majority of the marketers are focused on increasing the volume of leads rather than increasing the velocity of slow moving leads. So the next big winner in marketing automation will be the one who helps marketers at the top of the funnel in addition to shepherding those leads through the funnel faster.
Srihari Kumar
LeadFormix
Thank you, Srihari!
I'm glad you joined in the discussion and that you liked the answers given so far.
With regard to yours, the first point you make seems to be pretty much in line what some others mentioned before: The next big thing would be to have Marketing Automation less sophisticated yet equally powerful.
The second point is, to an extent, a result of the first: Moving away from outbound marketing to inbound marketing, i.e. putting the focus on lead quality. This however does only work if you fully understand all functionalities and interdependencies of your marketing automation.
This second aspect also links back to the preparation stage: making the move to a more focused, targeted approach to lead generation is a bold decision. Lead quantity will decrease, lead quality will only increase after time with a few learnings taken. So this needs to be backed up by all who will be effected: above all sales, but also the CEO or the board, and marketing.
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Our research finds similar startling statistics - over 25% of Marketing Automation adopters have not integrated with CRM; over 50% have not added in lead scoring or nurturing - many are still in batch and blast mode, so it is hard to talk about the next big thing until adoption and proper usage of what is already there increases.
That being said, I do believe we will see investments in key areas of event marketing, social media integration and mobile integration. Events are still a staple for B2B marketers and vendors will start to embrace this function as a nice parallel to the email and website tracking capabilities. Social Media is all the rage, but like many shiny toys it is fun to play with but then it gets discarded if it can't be leveraged properly. Integration with Marketing Automation will provide better tracking capability and more insight into online behavior, helping marketers better understand the buy cycle. Mobile marketing is still stumbling along in the US, but increased adoption of Smart Phones and Tablets and the rise of ubiquitous computing devices will lead to more integration with Marketing Automation, as companies figure out how to reach prospects through more channels besides email.
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The state of marketing automation reminds me of the early days of CRM in the late 1990's. After a long stretch of trial and error with homegrown solutions, the first wave of adventurous CRM early adopters began implementing systems and got real results, but it was very difficult and unpredictable. As CRM became more mainstream ("crossed the chasm"), the next wave of buyers had similarly high expectations, but didn't have the true understanding of all the geeky technology, business process change and the culture change required. Eventually both CRM products and the buyers expectations matured and CRM moved out of the "trough of disillusionment" (as Gartner calls it) back to a sustainable and ubiquitous reality.
Marketing automation solutions are delivering real results for early adopters, but it's still early in the market. MA products have a long way to go to be both easy and complete. And customers' expectations haven't been tempered by the experience yet. Without this body of shared user experience, expectations are being set by MA vendors, which might be a little aggressive. :)
So I predict that in a few more years we'll see the typical things that happen as early tech markets get big - easier to use products, more complete features, more realistic expectations by users, faster implementations, industry-specific solutions and lower cost of ownership. And, as happened with CRM users, MA users will learn which customer touches should be automated and which should not.
In the long run, I do believe marketing automation will become part of the CRM suite and help manage customer interactions throughout the customer lifecycle rather than the "lead gen funnel," which is where B2B MA players hang out now.
It's an exciting time to be in the marketing technology business for sure.
Greg Head
CMO, Infusionsoft
Greg, thanks a lot for the analogy to CRM!
Though I can't judge the development of CRM in the late 1990's, I guess the process you described would apply to most things that one can call "innovations".
I just want to add to your post the Gartner hype cycle for those who are not familiar with it: http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hype-cycle.jsp
At what stage of the cycle are we right now with marketing automation? I'd say somewhere between the "trough of disillusionment" and the "slope of enlightenment". The reason why I think we are somewhere at this point that on one hand we can read here in this thread that there IS frustration, and disillusionment. We all would love to see marketing automation be used smarter, more effective, and above on a larger scale than it currently happens.
On the other hand however, even here in Germany where the adoption of marketing automation lags far behind the development in North America, there seems to be a positive momentum. Marketing and sales managers are interested in automated marketing and lead generation, they understand the idea behind it, the philosophy.
And that's what motivates me to continue my mission in Germany and Europe to push the idea of marketing automation, to promote it everyday, to explain the benefits.
Best,
Matthias
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Carlos stole my answer! Waahh... although mine was a bit more smart-ass as usual.
'Success" should be the next feature of MA.
'85% of Marketers describe themselves as self-taught'
WOW! That got me to thinking. I've taught myself a lot of things. I started teaching myself web and graphic design in high school and to this day I continue to run into very smart people who blow me away. Not just at their ability to deign aesthetically pleasing, user friendly, conversationally rooted interfaces, but also at the amount of time it took me to fumble around when they are moving at light speed.
When I had the opportunity to take some higher level design courses I did so, and I also enrolled in some software classes. I knew how to do both decently, but after the much needed tutorials, I was deadly. For a few years I got paid very well to do design - not just professionally but also for friends, charities and some "recreational" pursuits as well.
Marketing Automation is no different. I've been fortunate enough to literally live in MA for the last 5 years and marketing for the last 17. Everyday I see bad marketing. One way conversations rooted in traditional messaging that does nothing to engage the buyer... and then I see people trying to automate that.
I'm not foolish enough to think that everyone is going to wake up tomorrow and want to begin training teams in behavior and P2P based messaging (although they should, dammit!), but I do believe that MA can become a platform for learning. Similar to the "coaching" feel many organizations have designed for their CRM assisted sales or CS process - MA has the same potential. The large providers have all formed communities around users sharing information. I think the next logical step is to take that 'in app' and integrate it to compliment the science of MA. That "art" component is what truly makes MA successful. The ability to access best practices in real time while designing campaigns like a decision tree would be an incredible way for vendors to promote successful use cases.
As Carlos details, that goes only so far. When Marketing Automation truly becomes a skill set and an industry, instead of a product name, THAT will be the next BIG thing.
Thank you, too, Justin! I like your style :-) It's 3am now here in Germany, so my brain is a bit dead, but I'll get back to your response in the morning.
Best,
Matthias
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Matthias, Jeff et. al., thanks for this lively dialogue. I think Matthias is onto something. One persistent aspect of any "next big thing" is that people often don't know they want something until they see it. This is often perceived by the forehead-slapping wannabes complaining "wish I'd thought of that" as a lucky accident.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Innovation is a discipline. While exceptions abound (Twitter, for example, was originally built just as an internal chat device, never intended for general use, but it certainly took off in the wild), we can help determine what the "next big thing" should be.
How? Consider the broken feedback loop presented in Matthias' scenario above. The consumer returned the cellphone to the dealer because it was too complicated. Similarly, we see much of marketing automation adoption become stalled at the "email blast" phase, and its true potential not exploited.
I think there is a nexus, an inflection point, at the place where automation "fails" and cannot replicate human contact (you can only automate customer service so far before human intervention is needed to escalate and resolve issues).
This has implications both for how marketing automation itself evolves as a solution set, and for revving up the flywheels of implementation, adoption and exploitation of the solutions.
What feedback loops are broken here, and require fixing? What gets in the way of adoption? Caution: it may have little to do with how MA works, and sometimes more to do with unrealistic expectations. Inadequate preparation causes automation to fail. Unrealistic expectations cause automation to fail. Mismatched solutions cause automation to fail. What lessons can we learn to help move Marketing Automation from the "curiosity" realm and into the "toolbelt" realm?
Matthias hints at tighter integration. I agree. MA providers deploy solutions that exist as siloed solutions. Salesforce.com and a few others "get" that tighter integration is in order. I envision a day when MA solutions become a standard toolbar on the dashboard of a CRM solution. I think some of the rudimentary "starter" apps should be subsumed as freemium versions of upgradable MA solutions. Configurability also needs to be more flexible.
Who has experience with this? Holla back. ~Ed
Thank you, Ed!
I like what you said about the "human touch" and just recently a few vendors seem to have recognised this is an issue. Marketo had a webinar a while ago (http://www.engage-marketing.de/webinar/marketo-adding-the-human-touch-into-yo...) and Manticore Technology followed last week (http://www.engage-marketing.de/webinar/manticore-5-ways-to-improve-marketing-...).
And again, the things you mention one should pay attention to - unrealistic expectations, inadequate preparation, mismatched solutions - they all link back to the key pain point several others have already mentioned: A lack of knowledge caused by missing infrastructure to create and share this knowledge on marketing automation.
So, I share your hope that marketing automation vendors listen to their users and other experts, and will design their platforms open to developers and a broader community, such that knowledge and experience can be shared more easily and the tools can be exploited at their utmost.
Best,
Matthias
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Next big innovation: personality scoring.
Here is why I say this. I'm considering purchasing a marketing automation system. So I've been placed onto many drip lists powered by various automation systems.
My personality is organized, thinking, and cheap. This means that sending me an email every week or contacting me every time I log into your website will just annoy me (I'm organized ... you are on my list). When I feel that my company has grown to the point that we can benefit from the expense, I'll contact you and let you know (I'm thinking ... I will not buy before I'm ready). The only exception is if you make me a simple & clear offer I cannot refuse (I'm cheap ... so when ready, I would like a pricing promotion).
But I'm only one type. I market Cloud ERP software to some people that have attention deficit disorder and need constant reminders. There are prospects that have large budgets and want to see features, not pricing promotions. So, it would be nice if based on my behavior (or manual selection by a salesperson), I could be treated differently than somebody with a different personality.
Doug Johnson
Self-Taught, not-an-expert
Doug, thanks so much! It's great to see more endusers joining this discussion, because the initial idea was to find new features or functionalities that'd make your life easier.
But here we go, even those who should really know, i.e. the vendors themselves, seem to have room for improvement with regard to the usage of their systems.
I really like your idea of "personality scoring". It can be done with some of the already existing marketing automation systems as a combination of progressive profiling, lead nurturing and lead scoring. But a) this does not come out of the box and b) many companies focus on the "progressive" bit and unfortunately forget about the "profiling" part. In other words: they keep hammering you with emails, PURLs and reg forms just in order to get your profile completed, not paying attention to your likes and dislikes. To me it's rather a matter of attitude and the ability of customer centric selling than a missing functionality in marketing automation systems.
What I'd love to see though: a real cloud-ready marketing automation platform that would have a "plug & play"-functionality for useful apps, e.g. a "personality-scoring-app".
Best,
Matthias
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The state of marketing automation reminds me of the early days of CRM in the late 1990's. After a long stretch of trial and error with homegrown solutions, the first wave of adventurous CRM early adopters began implementing systems and got real results, but it was very difficult and unpredictable. As CRM became more mainstream ("crossed the chasm"), the next wave of buyers had similarly high expectations, but didn't have the true understanding of all the geeky technology, business process change and the culture change required. Eventually both CRM products and the buyers expectations matured and CRM moved out of the "trough of disillusionment" (as Gartner calls it) back to a sustainable and ubiquitous reality.
Marketing automation solutions are delivering real results for early adopters, but it's still early in the market. MA products have a long way to go to be both easy and complete. And customers' expectations haven't been tempered by the experience yet. Without this body of shared user experience, expectations are being set by MA vendors, which might be a little aggressive. :)
So I predict that in a few more years we'll see the typical things that happen as early tech markets get big - easier to use products, more complete features, more realistic expectations by users, faster implementations, industry-specific solutions and lower cost of ownership. And, as happened with CRM users, MA users will learn which customer touches should be automated and which should not.
In the long run, I do believe marketing automation will become part of the CRM suite and help manage customer interactions throughout the customer lifecycle rather than the "lead gen funnel," which is where B2B MA players hang out now.
It's an exciting time to be in the marketing technology business for sure.
Greg Head
CMO, Infusionsoft
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Carlos definitely makes an interesting and valid point. Despite the fact that more marketers are planning to adopt marketing automation in the immediate or near future, the actual adoption rates are still remarkably low. And of those that have invested in a marketing automation solution, the majority aren’t taking advantage of the range of available functionality offered to them. This definitely points to a significant skill set gap, which needs to be addressed before we start thinking along the lines of what’s next…
As we all know, there is always going to be a “next big thing,” so the smartest thing marketers can do is invest in a solution that’s based on open standards that not only protects them but supports future channels, technologies and trends, and ultimately helps grow with the business.
And at the end of the day, perhaps we should be focusing more on the next big thing in building stronger relationships with our customers and prospects. In order to compete in today’s hyper-interactive environment, marketers need to develop more personalized one-to-one conversations across all marketing channels. Understanding how marketing automation can help develop those lifetime dialogues and foster and maintain those relationships be critical.
Thank you, Kristin!
You're bringing up a very important aspect here, that is one of the key reasons why marketing automation has not succeeded yet as well as it probably could given all its functionalities and benefits these can create for businesses.
And I believe, that there is a separate discussion here on focus.com on exactly this topic, i.e. why the adoption in the market is so low.
I like your remark on "open standards", which seems to correspond with Justin's statement on communities and sharing.
And of course, you're right, marketing automation shouldn't just be a fancy toy for a few geeks, but a tool, that should enable marketing teams to drive better and more relevant dialogues with their audience.
I'd say that most of the marketing automation systems out there can be useful in this sense, yet again a tool can be only as powerful as the user who handles it.
In summary: So far, "education" seems to be the next big thing in marketing automation. Market education on the one hand, and user education on the other.
Justin, it's me again :-)
So, once again thank you for your answer. If you know where one can get 'Success' as a feature, please let me know ;-)
But I see what you mean, and I absolutely agree on the community idea and the sharing aspect. I was thinking that it would have been pretty cool if one could export certain mechanics from marketing automation, like nurturing paths or scoring models, and share it. But then I guess that very few people would share their programs and hence vendors will not invest in a unified format that would allow to share these programs across different platforms.
Back to your final statement - "When Marketing Automation truly becomes a skill set and an industry, instead of a product name, THAT will be the next BIG thing" - I'm not sure it will be THE big thing, but it certainly will be the NEXT thing. It has to be, and I am doing my bit here in Germany to push marketing automation to a broader audience, which currently means: market education.
Thank You for sharing! I've shared it on the Chief Marketing Officer - India http://www.facebook.com/cmoindia page. Best! Shakti Saran
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Indeed some of the top vendors have come out with new functionality and integrations over the past few weeks and months and they should be lauded for their innovation. However, I do not think we are ready to talk about the next big thing when many end-users and marketers are still grappling with acquiring the right skills to make the most of these features and functions.
Consider these statistics from Sirius Decisions:
- 85% of b-to-b marketers that describe themselves as “self-taught” professionals
- 81% of b-to-b organizations spend $1,000 or less per year on marketing skills development
- Only 25% of organizations that have purchased marketing automation are utilizing it to the fullest
These statistics show that the next big thing should be and hopefully will be a push to educate marketers, not just in the use of technology, but in how to market and engage in the Buyer/Web/Sales 2.0 world.
The more marketers are educated, the more value they will get from their automation solutions. The vendors for their part should continue to innovate and develop these solutions while encouraging their customers to pursue the skills development that is needed.
Carlos Hidalgo
The Annuitas Group
@cahidalgo