Marketing Automation updates

The latest issue (November 7) of B2B Magazine has a couple of interesting articles on Marketing Automation. The first, “Lack of Resources Impedes Marketing Automation Adoption,” reports on the results of a survey conducted in August and September. The survey was conducted by B2B and Aprimo, a supplier of a marketing automation solution. So the highlights are:

• only 44% of b2b marketers have implemented some sort of automation
• a scary 11% are not aware of marketing automation

11%? Really? What, do you live under a rock? But maybe the 11% just didn’t understand what was meant by marketing automation. Still, that is a rather high percentage considering how long these systems have been around.

Of the 44% of “users,” here’s some interesting findings:

• 52% use it for automatic distribution of leads
• 19% leveraging more advanced features such as lead nurturing programs, closed-loop automation (not really sure what they mean by that) and sales/marketing alignment

An interesting part of the article quotes Jeff Ernst, an analyst at Forrester, who says that “full-featured” automation is only being used by about 5% of b2b marketers. Since the survey had a relatively low 276 respondents who likely are B2B magazine readers and more engaged in this area, I believe Mr. Ernst may be closer to the true number. I would be interested in people’s thoughts on this.

As a side note, a little over a year ago, I wrote a blog article on “Evaluating Marketing Automation vendors.” I’m thinking it may be worth re-visiting that article and updating it. There are several new and impressive vendors in this space.

The second article in the issue is “Marketing Automation Requires Buy-In to a Different Way of Thinking.” This article covers some important things to know about implementing marketing automation and the changes/benefits it can deliver.

Both of these articles are worth the read.

ROI and Marketing’s Best Blogs

I read the Editor’s Notes of the November issue of Target Marketing magazine with interest. What first caught my interest was the DATA BYTES sidebar. Pulling from IBM’s interviews with 1,734 CMOs, it highlights the increasing focus on return on (marketing) investment.

This is something I’ve pushed for the past 10+ years at the firms I’ve worked for. Too many times, I’ve been at companies where they see marketing as a “spend” as opposed to an investment. And marketing is to blame for that. If you never prove what you do drives revenue and results, then you will be viewed as a “spend.” As a result, you are among the first for cuts to budget when times get tough. Marketing leaders need to be know more than marketing. They need to understand business.

The primary part of the Editor’s Note was on the new feature they are developing – Marketing’s Best Blogs. Looks promising. And maybe some of you readers with blogs should consider contributing. You’ve got some good ideas out there!