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What's driving those who are hating on Marketing Automation?
There are a select few who use their blog posts, Focus and LinkedIn feeds to try and dis-credit marketing automation and its place in the B2B landscape. Is it fear? A lack of true understanding of a comprehensive marketing automation strategy? Or is it they are trying to differentiate in an attempt to sell their product or service?
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5 Answers
Great topic.
Ultimately Lead Management Software will at some point shake the term that has left it open to ridicule - automation. It sounds obvious but I'll say one of my favorite sayings yet again - in order to automate something, you first have to have something worth repeating.
What I consider to be Marketing Automation is a Godsend. The ability for an on-demand software platform to enable repeatable, track-able and relevant messaging for the purposes of identifying interest is something that simply did not exist 10 years ago. Because of the youth of this industry and the platforms that have taken center stage many are looking for chinks in the armor of an entire emerging industry. The weaknesses they uncover are anything but weaknesses in technology. Technology does what you tell it to. You'll notice earlier I said ENABLE. The Ron Popeil message of 'set it and forget it' (which I will admit some tech vendors perpetuate) is simply not achievable. BUT, if you design a great campaign with repeatability in mind - a good Marketing Automation platform can execute it for you. Simple as that.
However, if you purchase MA and expect that your life will be magically transformed into some bottle popping, P Diddy style, vacation where you live the good life while your marketing robot crushes campaigns and floods your org with leads - keep dreaming peter pan.
That dream is what many of the "haters" in this space attack. It's an easy target. I haven't seen any marketers tweeting from St. Barths about their marketing robot lately. If anything marketers are working harder. They now have a platform that shows them just how bad they had done in the past or exposes what can now be achieved. They are working with consultants to shorten the learning curve, and spending money on content creation and email deliverability. It's hard out there for a pimp. Whoever said differently, lied.
For many Marketers this is a harsh reality - and after paying a MA contract for a year they are discontented at the amount of work this "automated" solution is causing. That dream starts to emerge again and here comes that messianic software vendor shouting from the mountaintop about how outdated the technology they purchased is and how they have that magical manna from heaven.
Speaking of messianic software vendors, let’s not forget Salesforce.com was once called Salesforce Automation. The company smartly shortened that term to SFA and (I had to just login to verify this) has now dropped the nomenclature all together from their app home screen. In fact, if you’re a dreamforce attendee you'll undoubtedly concur that they are doing everything they can to distance themselves from sales in general (they are a PLATFORM - say it with me). Anyway, the point is the only people who blame their CRM when their sales reps aren't selling are competitive CRM vendors. Salesforce cut this off at the knees when they shifted their marketing and became more than a sales tool.
You are seeing this happen in the MA space right now as vendors focus less on automating tasks and more on driving revenue. Until the message is perfected however, you are always going to have those parasitic naysayers looking to feed off of some of the carcasses left in the wake of good marketing. In my opinion they can have them – if you’re the type of buyer that wants a miracle – I ain’t selling.
Carlos,
I have also seen people with decent reputation as marketers make some very skeptical statements and judgments about Marketing Automation. I've tried to enlighten some of them, but their persistence has led me to believe that there are underlying motivations.
To characterize the motivations would indeed include fear and incompetency. I say incompetency not to be insulting, but more to objectively describe one's possession of the skill set required to implement a marketing automation platform.
As both you and I have preached, there is a process design which must precede the actual implementation of the chosen technology; This entire effort requires systems analysis skills, and the ability to project manage over a long term horizon.
Most Marketers, even if they've had a formal education in Marketing, do not necessarily possess the technical skills for Marketing Automation, which also requires SEO (linguistic skills), analytics (deeper number-crunching skills), and more intense content production.
Also, given the "carte blanche" budget of the past (even if it was small), some Marketers are in denial when it comes to being a servant or even partner to sales; the threat of Marketing Automation is that it may initially underscore serious inefficiencies that Marketing functions with on a regular basis.
Until Marketing realizes 1: that Marketing Automation will give them and their organization not only efficiencies but also a strategic advantage, and 2: they must get over the steep learning curve of implementation which may expose any incompetencies and force them to acquire new skills or get replaced, and 3: "warm fuzzy" marketing is an increasingly dead end career path, there will be naysayers who will search for an audience willing to remain with them in the fog of unaccountability where they have been floating for years.
Justin's answer is "stand-alone" good.
Honestly, I don't know exactly who Carlos is talking about exactly so guessing "why" they are bashing the market is hard for me. On a side note, I keep saying "Don't hate the player, hate the game" over and over as I write this.
Bottom line, haters will make the marketing automation business better. Lets make sure we are "keeping it real" -- the market does have growing pains: There have been a number of unsuccessful marketing automation implementations and adoption is suffering. "Haters" will seize on this fact. To me, this is part of growing up and frankly, never goes away. ERP and CRM had the same growing pains and continue to. (just ask Michael Krigsman: http://www.focus.com/profiles/michael-krigsman/public/ or read his project failures blog: -http://www.zdnet.com/blog/projectfailures).
There are some potentially positive things that can happen as a result of the haters:
1. The vendors can put down their swords and join together to fight perception instead of each other to create a market much larger than a $200MM one.
2. We can have the "right" conversation about lead management success. Strategy, people, process, content, commitment, executive buy-off, and THEN marketing automation.
Great question - and great answer Justin (feel like I should say 'amen'). Like Craig I don't necessarily know who the 'haters' are but the parallels Justin's answer draws with other parts of the CRM market are on target.
These software platforms are tools - plain and simple - and that's ALL they are. In the hands of someone who knows how to effectively use the tools, they can do tremendous good. In the hands of someone who does NOT know what they're doing, however, they can do far more harm than good.
All the hyperventilating circulating through the blogosphere, message boards, etc.. around who's got the 'best' tool (or the 'worst') is almost entirely a waste of time & energy. Because until and unless you're looking at how CUSTOMERS are USING these tools, it is meaningless.
In any market with pundits (and if the market has a TLA (three-letter-acronym) attached you KNOW there are pundits) there will be those who try to stand out by being either excessively positive or negative. Ignore the outliers - focus your attention on those who express their opinions and tell their stories around specific customer instances and engagements. If they can't do that, tune them out.
Great thread. As with anything, it's just easier to say no than to figure out how. But we're preaching to the converted here. We get it. Craig's point about building the market is critical. 200MM seems criminal for such a valuable set of tools.
We've had somewhat recent entries to the market through acquisition by Oracle (Market to Lead), IBM (Unica), Teradata (Aprimo), and some established leaders in Eloqua and Marketo. The challenge is that the huge companies are still working to make M.A. a cohesive part of their product strategies and messaging, so we're not seeing the real muscle applied to building the market, yet.
Is the term "Automation" putting off those who have traditionally focused on "warm & fuzzy" or "arts & crafts"? Perhaps, but maybe vendors are also focused on defining "what it is" VS "what it does". We have the people, processes, and technologies needed to connect marketing spend to revenue performance. It's tough for anyone with a clear conscience to say: "no, we don't want that." The question is whether or not someone feels empowered/capable of being that change agent, for naysayers, the answer is clear.
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