You may be wondering why a leader of a Marketing Automation software company is telling people they shouldn’t be using Marketing Automation. Hey nice post, Einstein. I’m sure the prospects will be beating down the door now to purchase your tool. I get it. But if you hang around long enough it might actually make sense to you, and you may think I am smarter than you originally thought. Yes, I am an optimist…
I decided to write this article after seeing this post in which the author called Marketing Automation a “failure”. Asserting that this rapidly growing industry is a failure was a great subject line that brought out all the big marketing automation vendors, analysts and consultants to comment on and agree with the post. And guess what, I agree with the post too!
For most organizations right now who jump into marketing automation without a sound strategy, process and execution plan they may as well set that money on fire. Because they will fail. Failure in this case is subjective, but safe to say they will not be nearly as successful as they should be.
I had a similar conversation about this topic with one of Net-Results’ top partners, Andrew Hunt of Inbound Sales Network. Andrew is a very savvy inbound sales and marketing leader who has helped hundreds of customers with many marketing automation systems.
“Often when we start working with clients who have tried marketing automation and failed it is because they did not truly grasp the aspects of the tool. They purchased the product and used it the exact same way they had used their ESP (Email Service Provider) previously. They really need to play out how to use the behavior aspects of marketing automation in order to get maximum results. Most of our work with clients revolves around building out that strategy.”
As I said, he gets it.
At Net-Results we are considered the most channel-friendly marketing automation vendor in the industry. We take great pride in that. Why, you may ask, do we focus so much on partners and not just on end-user customers? The answer lies in the paragraph above. We want and demand our customers to be successful with our product. While our customer retention rate is quite high, the vast majority of our turnover comes from customers that do not have the right plan in place to maximize their investment. This is why we generally have a partner involved as much as we can when working directly with a prospect. While our tool is straightforward to use, it is quite powerful when used properly. A lot of organizations haven’t figured out what “used properly” means to them. Our fantastic group of partners worldwide help out tremendously there.
John Common, CEO of Intelligent Demand, and I got into a spirited discussion (he’s quite the passionate fellow) about this as well. John’s company has worked with us with a number our customers and he also gets it regarding demand generation and marketing automation. One thing he said about marketing automation really stood out to me.
“It is a disruptive technology in that it forces a company to think differently about its most important process: revenue creation. This is a good thing! At most companies today, marketing and sales are working from an outdated playbook that was written back when interruptive, batch-and-blast, product-focused, hunch-based marketing actually worked, and sales was in control of the buying process. Those days are gone, but the thinking behind that playbook still exists. At Intelligent Demand, we refer to this “shift in thinking” as moving from Marketing 1.0 to Marketing 2.0”.
And he’s right. It is a shift in thinking. As much as marketing automation tools have gotten simpler over the years, the results of the tool are still reliant on the strategy and process of the organization. That will never change, no matter how “smart” we make our technology.
So, when I say you’re not ready for marketing automation I assume you may be among the many organizations worldwide who still need to figure out processes and goals before you call us. Or call us and we can refer you to one of our great partners. Or you can just call me to tell me that I am smarter now than you thought I was at the start of this post. Either way, we want you to achieve great results and we’d love to talk to you!
