The Inbound Growth Blog

The Inbound Growth Blog covers all topics relating to an integrated marketing strategy. We write about inbound marketing, social media, integrated marketing strategies and the sales process.

Small Business Marketing Automation - The People Factor

New Call-to-action

Posted by John Beveridge on Jul 9, 2012 8:58:00 AM

This article is a collaboration between John Beveridge of Rapidan Strategies and Ashley Furness of Software Advice, Inc.(http://www.software advice.com/crm) @CRMAdvice

small-business-marketing-automationSmall business marketing automation software can drastically improve how today's business owner launches and tracks lead generation efforts. But the technology isn't what makes the difference. It's how your team uses these advances that really matters.

There are three key ingredients to marketing automation success: process, content and technology. This week, Software Advice advisory board member and LeadMD CEO Justin Gray identified a fourth ingredient to this sales and marketing cake: people. Here are six reasons Gray sees as why marketing automation will never substitute for people.

1. Vision

In order for marketing automation to be effective, you have to start with a vision. Marketing automation can’t predict what your company goals are, or if your marketing program is staying aligned to those goals. It can’t think of a creative campaign. And it can’t come up with a fantastic new way to go after a hard-to-reach demographic. 

2. Content Creation

Your marketing automation program is useless without the consistent iintroduction of new pieces of relevant content. In fact, you may need to hire an outside vendor to help you create the content you need for a successful inbound marketing campaign. That company needs to have knowledge of your business and your buyers and the talent to create content that communicates your value proposition in a way that is appealing to potential buyers. This company will create the blogs, eBooks, whitepapers, videos, email text, website content and more needed to make your automation program work. 

download-inbound-marketing-campaign-ebook

3. Targeting

Marketing automation software doesn't know who your target demographic is and who they are as PEOPLE, at least not until a human feeds it that information. Your employees can get into the behaviors and minds of the customers and appropriately tell the software how to approach them in an automated way.  This is why it's important to include your sales team when developing buyer personae - after all, they are the people that have the closest relationships with customers and prospects.

4. Definition

In order for any marketing automation program to work, the marketing and sales departments must reach agreement on what defines a lead and how those leads are nurtured and passed along. This is always evolving and takes a human to manage. Your marketing automation software can’t provide guidance here–it’s looking to you to do that.

5. Initiative

The inbound marketing process is constantly evolving. The latest ideas around inbound lead generation, the management of those leads over time, and the further monetization of the customer base all come from the initiatives of your team, not your software.  It's important to either have staff on hand that are conversant in the "state of the art" or to hire an inbound marketing consultant to fulfill that function.

6. Results

Generating reports and analyzing results are two different competencies. Until a marketer knows what their benchmarks will be, what their target is and how to extrapolate that data into ongoing strategy, those numbers will remain only numbers.  One of the elements that makes the marketing automation process so powerful is that most everything can be measured.  People are needed to interpret that data so that the process is constantly being updated to more of what works and less of what doesn't.

People are the defining factor between success and failure–100 percent of the time. You can build the best marketing automation system in the world, but managing that system is the devil in the details. 

Orange-Social-Media

 

 

Topics: Inbound Marketing, Business Management

Get the Ultimate Lead Generation Handbook


Learn 30 tips and tricks to supercharge your lead generation.

Ultimate Lead Generation Handbook