Why isn't marketing more automated yet?

I've sat back and watched here. These are the sort of questions we are trying to answer on the Technology Aided Prospecting LinkedIn group where we're crowdsourcing the next generation of Prospecting.

Firstly the question is biased. It entices you to think automation is a good thing.

Let's ask - is it?
When companies moved from having a receptionist to having press 1 for sales, 2 for service - did it improve customer service?

When companies moved from a sales person on the phone to an automated message did it make the call any less annoying?

When CRM meant that the sales guy followed you up every Monday as part of the 100 calls his CRM gave him to do that day, did it make him more helpful in helping you with your buying process than when he did it when he remembered you and your project?

When Marketing Automation meant that opening a white paper meant receiving automated messages for several weeks, did it really improve the results from that marketing initiative?

It seems to me that these may have had short term benefits for the company, but none for the customer. So the customer found a way round - now they can ignore all the noise from vendors while they make a buying decision.

Marketing is actually awash with technology these days. The web CMS. The e-shop. The bulk email programme. Google analytics. Klout. The problem is certainly not enough technology - it is integration of it into a coherent whole where tasks are done effectively once, rather than split into bits which never quite go back together again.

In selling marketing automation, the most common problem is that most marketers don't actually have a process to automate. They don't know the stages their buyers went through and they have never talked to sales to find out. They have a disparate collection of one-off emails, ads, articles and collateral. Automation just shows up the cracks in their methodology.

That's without even considering what is the "right" method of marketing.
Is it chuck stuff out there and follow up the response (outbound)?
Is it chuck so much stuff out there that somebody must surely come and find out what the noise is all about (inbound)?
Or is it find the people the company really wants to deal with and create products which wow them at prices they find irresistible (Tribes)?

Automation makes small mistakes into much bigger mistakes.
Automation distances company from customer.

Do we really want automation for its own sake?
Or do we want a better marketing process?

Big question, with multiple factors involved in the answer. I'll highlight some which I've come across the most, so far:

1) Time. Marketers have very little time and most of the time very little budget. They'll take a big chance to invest that time -and- money to show a CMO/VP or CEO that marketing automation is worth the effort and money. Not many marketers will want to do this - and too much automation can cost them their job!

2) Different platforms/systems internally. Many companies don't have the money for one single all-singing all-dancing CRM where all other 'slave' systems (email, banners, cms, etc.) deliver data that can be acted upon with new automated campaigns. Tying everything together costs a lot if a company has several systems, and so is moving to one single 'umbrella' solution for all marketing.

3) Growing number of touch points. In the old days, it was print, display (outdoors), radio and tv. These days it's print, display, radio, tv, banners, in-game, advertorials, seo/sea, email, mobile, location, events, social media... see a trend? There are so many touch points that most marketers can't even handle/use them all, or even understand how they can benefit from them. Let alone automate their marketing efforts for all those touch points.

To change the game, all parties could benefit from better knowledge of all channels, and all the possibilities of automation. Knowledge will convert into action when they know they can start out small to grow it into something big. Even starting with automating just one or two channels should be awesome.

The most common reason stated is cost - and the concern over realizing an acceptable return on that cost.

The underlying reason is that you should only turn to technology when you have a effective process in place and you are able to identify the weak links in the process that would benefit from automation.

Few organizations have a process that is effective - and when some of those organizations run out and invest millions of dollars in manpower and cash into marketing automation with the hope that it will force them into an effective process...you get those wonderful case studies that cause others to shy away.

I believe that, for most marketers, our understanding of how to deploy technology marketing solutions is evolving. Despite sophisticated Marketing Automation platforms like Eloqua being available, we still struggle a bit on figuring out what the right touch is for automation. This is especially true for field marketing to support sales teams. The jury is still out on how effective the concept of lead scoring and passing sales-ready leads to a waiting sales team is. Sales typically wants visibility at very early stages of the Buying Journey. When it comes to automating aspects of this stage, I don't believe that marketers utilize the Sales team's insight enough at these early stages in order to effectivly nurture prospects to a sales ready position.

Automation isn't about disintermediating people from the process - it's about having people focus their efforts on the human connections that matter.

What an interesting question. First thing I will say is marketing IS becoming more automated. Based on the technologies marketing organizations had access in the past, it's not clear to me that they are necessarily behind by choice. In other words, to say marketing is behind in automation considering the choices they have had in the past for technology isn't necessarily fair. Now that there are technologies to support marketing, we are seeing more and more automated marketing organizations. Looking at your question, it would seem once again that when we talk about automation, we are focused on marketing automation platforms but there are other technologies with traction such as Omniture. If we are only talking about marketing automation platforms, we have a long way to go.

To me, there is one big factor: ROI -- there are too many half-hearted marketing automation implementations and not enough real success stories. This is changing rapidly and will help accelerate the growth of the automated marketing automation. As well, there are so many factors that have to work together to allow marketers to say "My automation roll-out has been successful" including disparate systems and touchpoints (mentioned above) and the fact that sales has to follow up and close leads to make marketing ROI really work.

Also: you would know more than me on this Michael but is the consulting and services revenue really that out of whack? Enterprise software has always had a massive services eco-system and I am not sure that is such a bad thing.

Marketing has every opportunity to be automated. It is the research, analysis, "set-up" which requires an investment. Execution of the marketing plans in many forms can be automated. The analysis after a marketing campaign again needs to have the bright minds and deep thinkers to analyze the results.

Automation is great when a market has a consistency to it. Since the world is moving much too fast and what seems important to a marketplace can change on a whim (or a tweet), Automation might be a barrier to success vs. a key.

One thought: Old people, retired, seniors, etc. As the hairs have grayed, I notice there is more consistency in the decisions and not as reactionary vs. the younger years. Maybe those who want to rely on more automation might find it beneficial to focus on markets which are more stable, less variables and lower tech.

If marketing is about sending the right message to the right person at the right time... how well can the timing be "automated"?

PROCESS.

"Automation" is a tool. "Automation" is a promise. "Automation" is largely software. Ask 10 marketers to build you a campaign. Go ahead, do it - this is not a rhetorical exercise. 9 out of 10 - and probably the full 10 if they aren't part of a very small segment out there - will build you a flowchart style campaign.

1. Send email
2. See who clicks but does not fill form - send them another follow up w/ same offer
3. See who fills the form - pass them to sales (yikes)
4. See who opens but not clicks - send them 2 follow ups w/ same offer
5. Put the rest in the general d base for some future ass backward campaign.

Here's one question I pose right off the bat - WHY WOULD YOU HAVE SOMEONE FILL OUT A FORM TO WHOM YOU SENT THE EMAIL. You already have the individuals info!!!! And no - thinking they are going to give you some rich, in depth BANT marketing info is not realistic on a first touch.

The above scenario sucks - on all levels. And it is what those 9 marketers will build. Not only does it suck on a marketing level (methodology) but it sucks on a process level (automation). Its a one time campaign. It may contain 5 messages but it still requires the same amount of setup the next time you want to generate demand (which of course you will not generate). There are other parts of that example that suck as well but they are less relevant to this discussion - if anyone wants to email me I will be happy to take the time to point them out. PLEASE DO NOT LAUNCH A "CAMPAIGN" THAT LOOKS LIKE THE ABOVE.

The reason why marketing automation is not more automatic is because for 50 years marketers have been thinking about initiatives on a monthly or quarterly basis. That thinking went extinct. Seriously. If you are planning monthly campaigns you need to get back on your dinosaur and go home. If you think about click throughs as a major metric in your marketing mix - you may own a Beta Max. Stop that!

To truly "get" the concept of nurture marketing you must get rid of any of the above thinking. The best thing is I don't even have to prove how bad the scenarios are. I can simply prove how GOOD the alternative is. On average the companies we see using true nurture marketing are driving 43% of pipeline and 72% of revenue through nurtured deals that reside in nurture for longer than 6 months. Can you get there from one time campaigns? No. Can you get there through blasting? No.

Marketing Automation isn't more automatic because it relies on a good process to automate. I was thinking last night about the main difference between CRM and MA. It's pretty obvious when you think about it. On a basic level, CRM requires data to work. Even on it's most basic level MA requires process to work. There is NO out of the box functionality to MA. There is ZERO plug and play. That's a difficult scenario to ROI when the success of software is built reliant on a broken process that the software is being purchased to overcome.

Do you know who is building campaigns that work? Do you know who's MA is automated? Marketing Automation software vendors - that's who. And a handful of other organizations. You need to built your process around the capabilities of your MA platform. It must be a good process. If you see anyone speak about campaign metrics in MA they are not touting the capabilities of the software - they are touting their capabilities as a marketer, backed up by the software. The software enables but it's the marketer that sets their own limits.

Enterprise automation started with the accounting department - number crunching and payroll, which always dealt in numbers, were the first obvious candidates. Over the years, operations, human resources and other departments identified as cost centers also were automated. Then came sales with contact management and eventually their portion of CRM platforms.

Marketing has been last because much of what Marketing does has been regarded as diverse, "warm, fuzzy" or subjective things like "branding" and "event management." It wasn't until analytics evolved that focused on consumer behavior regarding visits to web sites. From there, we are seeing the development of "Net-Centric" Marketing, in which web technologies are now ready to help Marketers better gather, store, analyze, share, and act upon data that directly impacts revenue. This is a pivotal moment in Marketing.

But the challenges to the enterprise are fundamental. Many Marketers, with backgrounds in journalism, English, and creative occupations, do not have the formal training in the disciplines required for success in transformation to a net-centric marketing organization - these disciplines are systems analysis, linguistics, and analytics. They are overwhelmed by the demands of content marketing and the underlying workflows that a lead management process needs. Top level management is just starting to understand the important data that Marketing Automation provides and how that is inherently linked into strategic knowledge of the Sales pipeline, but are reluctant to create a budget for it when it seems so much easier just to "throw another salesperson into the headcount" in order to meet revenue objectives.

The fact that consulting services like Allinio can bring in more revenue than the sales of a Marketing Automation platform itself is no news - that is pretty standard for any type of IT implementation since way back when.

Salesforce took over 10 years to get where it is today, but many companies are still using shrink-wrapped contact management software; Marketing Automation is still new but will continue to proliferate within enterprises.

I think Justin is on the right track.

The main delay I see in marketing becoming more automated is due to the need for a type of marketer who has both creative and process know-how. They exist only in very small numbers.

MA currently favors marketers with strong process abilities, but marketing has traditionally attracted marketers with a strong creative orientation in order to produce the most effective outreach. The result is a major mismatch of mindsets, and the price is a lack of accountability, process, and attention to ROI.

Some creatively-oriented marketers have told me they avoid getting involved in MA because they feel it’s not what they were hired for. On the other hand, process-focused marketers often “run MA” like a system, without the creative inputs and know-how that can exploit the potential MA has to offer.

How to speed the pace of MA in marketing? Retain process or creative specialists for whichever is in short supply among current staff. They can leverage their know-how to meet the marketing challenges going forward.

Most departments adopted automation because it was the only way to meet the expectations of senior management without working around-the-clock. Now that more CMOs are being held accountable for ROI, more marketing departments are looking to adopt automation, at least for the lead generation and lead nuturing processes. What I've noticed is that companies who have tende to adopt automation tend to be engineering-type, high-tech firms. I believe more marketers would adopt automation if vendors would stop talking like engineers and start talking in terms marketers can understand. It would also help if vendors were building software/SaaS that was simpler to for marketers to understand and use.

The question I ask myself when I think about marketing automation is that it is split into two main parts:

1) Delivery channels - I believe that the delivery channels have become so automated that for most key buy's in an organization are bombarded with marketing campaigns that they just don't have time to see the gems they need. One opportunity here may be to shift from only focusing on the buyers (CEO, CIO, etc...) and spend more time focusing on the users - let the groundswell approach build interest.

2) Content - given the above the content of marketing has become too general trying to capture the broadest listener base possible (this a generalization of course), but if we look at the consumer recommendation engine approach something like the way Amazon does it - when I show interest in something tell me all the alternatives, and trends of people "like me" - help me feel comfortable with the decisions I have to make. What this makes vendors do is invest in their customers because it will be the customers that support inclusion in the "like me" category.

Marketing today is an extremely difficult job to pin point the key targets given all the chatter that exists. Don't let the ease of mass distribution dilute your message - target both the buyer and the user to build momentum.

In my humble opinion, marketing is a science that's truly trying to tap on the deep assumptions or behavior of individuals. These assumptions are based on social culture. As such the thoughts behind this study is complex as tapping on the unconscious requires human interaction. However the application of marketing could be partially automated. It is a checklist and we could actually put a check to each item. However, a most important question I would ask myself if Apple had automated their marketing process, they would have launched iPhone 5 as opposed to iPhone 4s. This requires human thoughts. Hence the tools of marketing could to a certain extent be automated but not the thoughts behind that.

Marketing is big, and with Social Media it's the place where everyone is spending time on. Automation is great except it needs to be personalized for each niche and or customer, since there are many variables.

Some marketers do use automation to sell their products..in some ways it's obnoxious in how they use this type of automation, it's using 6 -10 steps and then they repeat the process. Too much sell and not enough relationship development with our clients.

If we all used marketing tools to help us and shared them with our clients, then we all would be helping each other. Does it have to be automated? Perhaps a better way to look at this is creating a system or program in developing relationships with people.

I think marketing resists automation only for people who don't understand how marketing really works. And, in particular, for those who don't understand how things like market segmentation and target marketing work. Here's a White Paper I published 25 years ago when I was at Bell Labs (and recently re-published,) that makes it easy to automate marketing analysis and strategy development. http://www.jvminc.com/Clients/JVP/MOD.pdf Just a thought.

Quality marketing should not be automated. The more personable you become the more responsive your community will be. This is essentially the success social media has experienced. Put the control in the hands of the consumer and don't just throw ads in their faces.

It's my humble opinion, that most businesses don't truely get marketing.

It's virtually impossible to automate anything without first understanding each and every step in the process, and then knowing exactly how you are going to track and measure the activities.

As for what can be done to change the game ? Education - Education- Education !

At FawcettGroup with teach a marketing methodology called The Evolutionary Marketing Process. It's not easy, it takes patience, and a burning desire and willingness of the client to learn how to Evolve their business. That's why we prefer to work with start-ups.

To Remy's points:
1) Time and money: We have a solution that allows marketers to quickly and inexpensively start down the marketing automation road. By starting small and fast it is then possible to present the results of a successful pilot project to the CMO in order to get a bigger budget for the next project.

2) Different platforms: Our solution provides access to information from any application through a simple XML ticket exchange. This greatly reduces the cost of working with multiple applications, databases and data feeds. There is no need to first build a centralized database. It is now possible to start automating right away and to accumulate data going forward.

3) Growing number of touch points: Because we use XML tickets as the means to receive information from various applications it is now very simple to integrate the growing number of new customer touch points (e.g. POS, in-store digital kiosk, web site, mobile, listening platform, the next new touch point…)
Essentially our approach is to provide the marketer with the means to take the next best action following a customer event. We do this by taking into consideration the customer’s state and their profile at the time of the customer event. This allows our solution to send highly pertinent customized responses.

By allowing marketers to start small, to do this inexpensively, to work with different platforms and to easily integrate new touch points it is now a relatively simple matter to begin automating marketing processes and customer relationship scenarios.
(For more information see Whatsnexx: Rapid Application Development for Marketing Automation, or RAD for MA http://bit.ly/ov6mS4)