What steps must be taken to ensure a successful marketing automation implementation?

Good question and good answers, but fundamentally the success of automation implementation will be defined by how established and defined your lead management process is. In a recent post by Sirius Decisions, they showed the difference between Marketing Automation with little to no process versus Automation with Process. The results in terms of conversions and revenue of those with processes dwarfed those with little to know process.

To define the lead management process organizations should look at the following:

- Data Management (as referenced above by Kevin)
- Lead Planning (How many leads does marketing need to generate to help sales meet quota)
- Lead Routing (Once you have a lead where does it go and within what timeframe?)
- Lead Qualification (Includes lead definition, assigning qualification attributes to the definition and scoring)
- Lead Nurturing (a continual dialogue i.e. content delivery with your customers)
- Metrics (how you you measure the success of your marketing & sales investments

Once the process foundation is laid you can begin to ensure the technology has a framework by which it will be operated.

Automation will do just that, it will automate. Without defined process, it will automate chaos and in these cases implementations will fail in that the true value will not be realized.

Carlos Hidalgo
The Annuitas Group
@cahidalgo

I have an obvious bias about the importance of contact data and I am certain there are others who can provide a great end to end list of boxes to check during an MA implementation (our partners at The Pedowitz Group for example), but here are three data centric issues that are very important:

1. Remediate - If you are serious about leveraging all of the benefits MA systems offer, think of the system as your “engine.” Then, think of the data you are feeding into your engine as the “fuel.” Clean, high octane fuel means data that has complete, valid account/company level firmographic segmentation data for list sorting and targeted messaging purposes (If you target by industry, size of company, geographic location etc). Also, business card information contained in your database degrades at a rate of 3-6% per month. A good Contact Data Management strategy puts the power of automation to use in stabilizing and transforming your existing data assets into actionable, campaign ready lead generation assets.

2. Provision – Not accidentally, the best thing about a great Contact Data Remediation process [above] is it helps you understand things about the data you’ll need to plan the purchase for additional contact data wisely. I compare this to going grocery shopping, because before you start buying you should look at your provisions carefully to identify what data you do and don’t need. A good contact data provisioning plan helps you understand which contacts you need to buy to fill in gaps left by “Remediation Fallout” ― that is, replacing or updating outdated contact information you had in your database. You’ll also be smarter about what contacts you need to buy to expand your audience from a net-new perspective. Some techniques used here are 1) title density and gap analysis to pinpoint missing personas within your existing target organizations and/or 2) identifying new organizations and persona-groups that you don’t already have on your radar with sales funnel wins analysis and “looks like” list profiling.

3. Maintain – MA systems need a built in “fuel filter” and synchronizer in place to make sure that the investments you’ve made in them are not diluted by the effects of dirty data. Data is perishable and once introduced into your lead generation engine it starts aging and dying. Good data maintenance is a process of automatically monitoring and stress testing records by comparing them to trusted, up to date sources. This sort of data rationalization is the use of meta data to determine the best assortment of objects that generate the most business benefit to the end users and not only keeps data in a high state of campaign readiness, it also creates an opportunity to enrich standard business card records with valuable details that can transform a run of the mill lead or contact record into a much more powerful sales intelligence compile.

So far, great information. One thing we see is companies (like people) get excited about their new toy. This exuberance to get building, scoring, sending, nurturing, profiling and analyzing can lead to unexpected issues down the line. I am the biggest proponent of speeding the time to value for a new marketing automation system, but not taking a thoughtful and systematic approach at the beginning may slow the value of the system over time.

Before initiating implementation follow these three steps:

Roles and Responsibilities:
Marketing automation is an important tool that has a lot of moving parts. It is critical that every member of the implementation team (and later the production team) understands their part in the project. Make sure that everyone’s area of responsibility and the expectations are spelled out. This allows for ownership and expertise to be developed during the implementation that will pay dividends once the implementation is deemed complete and you shift into production mode.

Inventory your assets:
Go through the exercise of creating an asset inventory - every email, landing page, registration form, content piece. Look at the list and decide what needs to be shifted to the new system and what its priority is. Often, I see clients, start building all their assets in the new system without asking the key question – is this asset still useful. Companies are terrible EOLing (end of life) content. Often it lives way past its expiration date and is no longer useful to the company or the lead. Many pieces probably do not need to be migrated which will save money and time.

Plan to shift current programs in stages:
It would be great if marketing automation was being implemented in a vacuum – but it is most likely not. Marketing programs are ongoing and they need to continue or momentum will be lost. That is why it is crucial to think about how to transition these programs in the new system. My suggestion is to start with the most simple programs first (maybe SEM) and work your way to the more complex programs (in progress email drip campaigns). Remember the system is new and there is a learning curve. By using a staged approach your team will get acclimated and trained on marketing automation before tackling the more difficult tasks.

Taking a disciplined approach at the beginning of the process will lead to great returns once your marketing automation implementation is over and lead production has begun.

Mac McConnell
www.bluebirdstrat.com
@macmcconnell

Before a marketing group even begins the campaigns and content development there are a whole series of events and steps that 'should' be in place to ensure greater success and utilization. These are big picture but I find the organizations fail or fall back on MA for email only when they fail to follow these 10 steps.

1. Executive sponsor for sponsorship and enforcement
2. Defined lead management process (lead scoring, nurturing, hygiene)
3. Collaboration and buy-in from Sales management
4. Deep MA systems training
5. Don't oversell the benefits of MA too early in the process
6. Content development strategy
7. Agreed definition of qualified leads/disqualified/opportunities
8. CRM integration helps MA reach direct revenue impact
9. KPI's - measure the right information and performance metrics
10. Communication breakdowns

If these 10 steps are not followed based on my pre-consulting corporate experience, the chances of success greatly diminish.

Yes, lead nurturing and scoring are all important, as-is content marketing. But marketing platforms are process enablers that have impact across an entire organization. The activity-based marketing communications behavior of old school B2B behavior limits a successful MA strategy. The promise of marketing automation is great. Getting there takes heavy lifting.

Brian Hansford
http://www.Zephyr47.com
@RemarkMarketing

There's lots of good stuff in the posts above about steps to implementation of your MA solution.

But there's a big one - make sure you have a budget.

Too many people are betting the farm on MA without realising that it is just the backbone from which all of your marketing hangs.

You will need:
A: a lot of content - really good, engaging content, not cheap stuff you wrote yourself in a bar or those old White Papers yellowing in the stationery cupboard.

B: To work with your web designer to revise your website so that it is a good inbound lead generator. A new social media strategy will also be required.

C: To work with your CRM provider so that it truly integrates with your MA solution and maximises intelligence capture, not just interfaces.

D: As Cody correctly brought up, you need excellent data. You also need a powerful segmentation strategy so that you identify early which vertical someone is in and nurture that company (not just the person who did the form fill) with vertical specific content. You also need to consider size and again deliver to that horizontal - 1 man bands don't want to hear about your success with IBM. That creates a matrix with specific nurturing programs for each.

E: Deep engagement with your sales team so that they have an input into the early stages of engagement, not just sitting there at the end waiting for leads.

F: Brand building and buzz generation programs need to be rethought so that they make best use of the extra leverage MA provides.

G: Last, but not least, you need to evangelise and train people all round the company so that it touches their lives positively. You need to create a feedback loop so that everyone's input improves your installation.

If your MA installation is more than 10% of your total budget, you risk not doing it justice and creating an expensive failure.

Great question, Craig. Congrats on your purchase, but lots more is needed, such as

1) Deep buyer personas
2) Ideal customer profiles
3) Universal agreement on what is and what is not a lead
4) Content marketing
5) Lead Nurturing
6) Lead Scoring
7) Sales Handoff
8) ClawBacks

I suggest a business connect the marketing automation system to their website, and then stop. Focus on laying a strong foundation. Bottom line is you will get vastly more value if you invest in fundamentals.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor
Find New Customers "Lead Generation Made Simple"
http://www.findnewcustomers.com
@fearlesscomp

Cody is right about data quality, but I think he misses the need for content marketing. Your car is only as good as the fuel in it.