What is the number one reason companies are buying marketing automation? (right or wrong)

There is a lot of "following the pack" and hype, but people are adopting for the promise of doing more with less (automation), increasing the level of one-to-one marketing (targeted drip marketing), increasing visibility, and better managing their funnel stages.

I'm with Kirk. I'm from a small company as well and we're working on implementing a solution currently. My marketing dept. consists of me, myself, and I (with help from a limited time coworker and a manager that is also the VP of Sales). I wear many hats and this is almost an answer to my prayers. Now I'll have more time to do MARKETING and be creative rather than the administrative tasks that come along with being in a marketing role.

I agree with Kirk and Sabrina, one of the goals is to automate non-value added tasks so the marketer can focus on adding value. Ease of use is paramount.
Another goal is to ensure consistent execution of marketing processes.

There are a lot of reasons, but you asked for number one. I believe it to be ENGAGEMENT. Marketing automation software allows you to automate certain aspects of engaging with your prospects and your customers. You can attain a level of knowledge about their interests by observing their behavior as it relates to the knowledge you are sharing through your marketing platform. If they click on a topic, they are probably interested in it.

You can start with marketing automation just by sending a single email to a group of leads, then observing the opens and clicks. Add a layer by adding scoring; if they click they get points. Add another layer by setting up multiple emails so that if they click, they get enrolled into a lead nurturing sequence that provides a series of valuable messages.

You can't engage 100% with a client or prospect through marketing automation software. However, you can keep your name in front of your audience in a low-key way (assuming you are following the best practice of providing value and not just hyping your service), so that when they are ready to buy, they think of you, or, when they are clicking through on your links, you know to call them and personally engage.

Great questions; thanks for posing it.

Imho, hype and hope! The hype out of the MA sector today is amazing, though no more amazing than Client/Server, ERP, and CRM were in their heyday. The hope of all CMOs, marketing directors, managers and support staff for an easier way to make it all work together easily, seamlessly. The hope to make the design and integration of marketing program as easy as working with spreadsheets is for!

Of course, this is not what you tell your boss.

Because a real "business case" exists. For some its just "hope".

Marketo just received Venture Capital funding of $50m to promote the idea, even though their sales are only $14m. That's on top of $25m last year. Eloqua is doing an IPO for $100m.

Some heavy money is being put into selling this idea to marketers. No wonder some of them fall for it.

The perfect marketing automation system eliminates having to enter/create data more than once. It should tie in with the overall client/server (information also used by other divisions within the company) for seamless integration and accessibility.

Depends on the type of marketing automation. In my case, my clients use our system to keep in front of their customers and prospects and to manage their client and prospect database.

To replace worn-out, rusted-through or halting, lame or house-broken go-getters whose conduct if business indicates they may have been present to the work but are long gone even while attending to their daily professional routines and well-rutted sales and marketing routes.

A very simple answer for traditional marketers - because they don't know any better.

Marketers have been brought up on broadcast media. So the idea of being able to broadcast campaigns while they are asleep and "create once, send many times" appeals.

They've been tasked with creating leads for the salesforce, often because the CEO doesn't really understand what marketing can do for a business and wants them to do something he can point at as bringing in revenue. But they don't understand in depth what salespeople actually do. MA seems to give them an easy answer.

Marketing is locked in a battle with Sales for that mythical "seat at the boardroom table". The "We make the leads - you can go out and close them" puts them in charge in that battle.

So it appeals to their vanity, their need to do something and their "push" mentality.

But the reality is that buying has moved on. Sales visits are now at the end of the buying process, after the decision has been made so MQL, SAL and funnels are just junk. Engagement is a two way, buyer led process and interruption marketing and sequential spam reduce sales opportunities, not create them.

So clever modern marketers are looking to Inbound marketing, to integrating social into a powerful engagement process, to true integration with Sales to create a Unified Prospecting unit and to technology which enables and measures online engagement.

Alignment of sales and marketing around the commone objective of selling more stuff to more people more often. You should check out Act-On software www.actonsoftware.com to see why we are the fastest growing MA company in the space.