tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794386793170803972.post403169145639512307..comments2024-01-22T07:31:42.008-05:00Comments on Digital Body Language: Marketing Automation - What does it mean?Steven Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06376596253100522418noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794386793170803972.post-60551008175734821922009-07-31T12:41:10.038-04:002009-07-31T12:41:10.038-04:00@Jep Agreed on Automation for even small b2b shops...@Jep Agreed on Automation for even small b2b shops. The longer your sales cycle, the more you'd like to know about your prospects. Additionally if your customers have a lot of repeat business, in one category, it would be great to push them into buying in another category. (Think consumables kits).<br /><br />My take: since the "information gatekeepers" are unnecessary these days, any tools that can help marketers deliver timely infor are needed, whethere through outband or inbound techniques. Maybe it is time for a new word. I think that there are still many marketers that are in the dark, and do not realize that marketing is no longer in control of the message and the timing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794386793170803972.post-70578973895145645272009-07-28T17:24:01.316-04:002009-07-28T17:24:01.316-04:00Jep,
Good point that a centralized database is a k...Jep,<br />Good point that a centralized database is a key underpinning of marketing automation. Without consolidated, clean, and standardized data, it is really not possible to get a good view of buyer interests at all stages of the buying cycle. Agreed, that this is relevant at all sizes of organizations (at least those big enough to truly have a marketing function).<br /><br />Adrian, that's an interesting observation on where the "drive" comes from. That dynamic, like any operational metrics, can really drive behaviour in the wrong direction if one is not careful...Steven Woodshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06376596253100522418noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794386793170803972.post-13997954426382337972009-07-28T16:54:32.435-04:002009-07-28T16:54:32.435-04:00Steve, I agree with your analysis, and I think it ...Steve, I agree with your analysis, and I think it also applies to relatively simple scenarios. You focus mainly on complex scenarios to emphasize the need for Marketing Automation, e.g. sending out email on behalf of up to 100 sales people. But even a small company quickly sees the limits of plain email marketing and basic web-to-lead-forms. <br /><br />I feel a big bottleneck is data quality. Basic web-to-lead does not allow progressive profiling, or proper deduplication. And after a prospect filled out a form, you'd like to add his web visits to the database: very hard to do without marketing automation. And for email marketing: how to send a webinar reminder _only_ to people who have not registered yet. This is possible, but just a lot of work because you need to pull the data from the CRM system. <br /><br />So having a single repository with all relevant information about your prospects is making life easier for even the smallest B2B marketing organization.Jep Castelein (LeadSloth)http://www.leadsloth.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794386793170803972.post-61380028726151540042009-07-28T13:41:27.587-04:002009-07-28T13:41:27.587-04:00Steve,
I'm going to come back to your ending...Steve, <br /><br />I'm going to come back to your ending statement to get your opinion as to how marketers should sell the shift that they are going through to 'requesters' - field marketers, brand marketers, campaign planners whose request delay this critical shift from occuring in many organizations. The requesters in my experience are in the position of power when it comes to forcing marketing's hand in pushing out outbound tactics to drive demand, and powerless when it comes to refusing investment and interest from either channel partners or the product teams themselves. <br /><br />We had requesters in my inside sales days at a large technology company. The requesters created the 'sales plays' - product focused sales tools to support sales, call sheets to sell the value of the product into larger organizations and lists generated by either the customer's install base or perceived fit. I've heard more dial tones and voicemails with this approach and I would consider myself to be among those who could carry their territory. Sales executives started to adopt the notion of go-to-market strategies and adding a 'solution spin' to a combination of products, stating that it would be the way to drive incremental revenue. However, during sales cadence with my managers and conversely the way in which requesters were hired and fired centered solely around traction on pushing and tracking traction with products. <br /><br />You can imagine it is very easy for marketers to remain in 'batch and blast' mode primarily due to the fact that they must respond to the volume of rerequestors who in turn have to feed others either within or around the organization. This for me leaves me with a few questions. How should marketers turn the corner with these folks and sell them on automation? How can marketers serve sales and also serve the "requesters"? Is scoring a piece of the puzzle to please all parties?Adrian Changhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13958340475387008061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794386793170803972.post-22528401018734455392009-07-28T11:41:09.081-04:002009-07-28T11:41:09.081-04:00David,
Interesting - yes, some of the phrases tend...David,<br />Interesting - yes, some of the phrases tend to take on lives of their own. "Inbound Marketing" seems to really be starting to be specifically bucketed as blog/seo/viral-oriented content marketing for discovery.<br /><br />That's an interesting point on whether offer recommendation on a call script or through a banner are things that the average marketer thinks of under the umbrella of "marketing automation". Not sure, but a very good question.Steven Woodshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06376596253100522418noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794386793170803972.post-77424053892654087102009-07-28T10:32:39.523-04:002009-07-28T10:32:39.523-04:00Steven,
Poor choice of words on my part -- I forgo...Steven,<br />Poor choice of words on my part -- I forgot that 'inbound marketing' has become a buzzword in its own right, mostly meaning Web traffic generation. <br /><br />I was actually referring to later, personalized interactions such as deciding which offers to make on a personalized Web page or in a telemarketing script. It's pretty common for marketing automation systems to preselect messages for individuals and push them to those channels, and some systems also will select messages in real time as an interaction progresses. The most obvious example (although it deals with buyers rather than prospects) are cross sell and upsell recommendations.<br /><br />I know your vision encompasses much more than just email messages, which is why I was puzzled to see your original definition limited to 'outbound'.David Raabhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03489754392712536104noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794386793170803972.post-63907908114804282072009-07-28T09:33:46.284-04:002009-07-28T09:33:46.284-04:00David,
that's a great question, and of course ...David,<br />that's a great question, and of course there would be minimal need for marketing automation without a heavy focus on driving the inbound interest that makes inbound marketing so crucial in today's world. However, the things that a marketing automation system allows you to control are the outbound messages. In order to define the targeting, timing, and content of those messages, you MUST be inately aware of the prospect's interest, as evidenced by their engagement on your web properties - classic inbound marketing.<br /><br />I think of inbound marketing and marketing automation as intrinsically linked, but not the same. Inbound marketing is a marketing approach where you "seek to be found" through social media, search strategies, etc. Marketing automation allows you to leverage the fact that you have been found, understand buyer interest, and personalize your entire interaction with them.<br /><br />In terms of lead scoring, yes, it is obviously a critical technique. However, at the end of the day, I view lead scoring as an approach to understanding buyers - which is a necessary part of the definition. Without using scoring to identify area and level of interest, it is difficult or impossible to define the right targeting and timing for your content.Steven Woodshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06376596253100522418noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7794386793170803972.post-46568728670915057832009-07-28T09:22:55.242-04:002009-07-28T09:22:55.242-04:00Steve, this is an excellent description of the fac...Steve, this is an excellent description of the factors driving marketing automation. My only quibble is that your definition is explicitly limited to "outbound" messages. Inbound messages such as personalized Web pages and scripts for phone and online chat agents are an important part of managing the buyer relationship. The marketing automation system should certainly coordinate them with outbound messages.<br /><br />I'm also surprised that your definition leaves out other key functions that you mention later in the post, such as lead scoring and CRM integration. The www.raabguide.com site has several (free) papers that describe this broader vision of marketing automation in more detail.David Raabhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03489754392712536104noreply@blogger.com