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We hear it all the time: companies are impressed with the capabilities of marketing automation, but they just don't feel like it's the right time to implement.
According to SiriusDecisions, marketing automation adoption is expected to increase 50% by 2015 — meaning that within the next two years, one or more of your competitors could be leveraging this powerful marketing and sales tool. With those kinds of odds, companies can’t afford to keep ignoring marketing automation just because the time isn’t right.
While many marketers have been investigating possible platforms for several months and recognize the benefits they offer, like lead nurturing and lead qualification, they continue to put off implementation for a variety of reasons. This delay strategy can put your business at a serious disadvantage, especially if it causes you to fall behind your competitors or lose new business.
Fortunately, many of the scenarios that marketers view as unfavorable for marketing automation implementation are actually some of the best times to integrate your new tool. Let’s put a few of these common implementation hangups to rest by discussing why each of these scenarios are actually great times to implement a marketing automation system:
While it’s natural to want to take some time to familiarize yourself with your new tool, this is actually a great time to consider adding a marketing automation solution. By integrating marketing automation with your new CRM, the two systems can begin seamlessly and automatically passing information back and forth. If you can start learning how these two systems work together right from the very start, you won’t have to go back to learn a second system later, simplifying the learning process and laying a foundation of good habits for the future.
Another common reason that companies put off implementation is that tensions between marketing and sales are at an all-time high. If the two teams can’t get along, how will they ever be able to use a marketing automation system, together? Fortunately, this is an issue that marketing automation is designed to solve. With lead scoring and grading to help marketing and sales teams agree on the definition of a qualified lead, and automated lead assignment to ensure that leads get passed on to sales reps at exactly the right time, your two teams will soon be working together toward a common goal: increasing your company’s bottom line.
While many marketing automation features do rely on content, you shouldn’t let this dissuade you from implementing what could be a very helpful tool. In fact, not having a robust store of content can work in your favor when you first start using marketing automation. Instead of wasting valuable time building out a library of content that your buyers may or may not find helpful, you can use marketing automation’s tracking and reporting features to experiment with a few basic pieces of content, then see what works and what doesn’t. By looking at the log of touchpoints with your prospects, as well as their responses to your emails and landing pages, you’ll get a better idea of the types of content that interest them — and that is where you should be spending your time.
Rebranding seems like a really busy and overwhelming time, but implementing marketing automation at this point can help you establish a consistent look across all of the elements of your site. With an automation platform, you can easily build landing pages that match the look and feel of your new site, meaning that you can immediately start capturing lead data and judging the impact of your site redesign on your lead generation efforts. You can also begin managing all of your marketing materials in one place, giving you the ability to track content effectiveness once your new website goes live.
If you would like more information about marketing automation and implementation, take a look at our white paper, “CRM & Automation: The Dynamic Duo,” which includes a walk-through of the integration process.
