When it comes to marketing automation, there is a whole lot more to it than just setting up emails and social media posts to be sent out on a scheduled time. Automation is truly revolutionary and offers numerous benefits that every CMO needs to be aware of. Here are a few.

Marketing automation plays an important role in efficient inbound marketing campaigns. It does not, however, work if one’s inbound marketing efforts cannot consistently produce and generate qualified leads.

In order to exponentially multiply sales without exponentially multiplying work, you need to automate. Your marketing automation will only work if it’s done correctly. Bash Foo has transformed marketing automation from a strategy to an art by discovering and understanding the marketing automation needs of each business it serves.

Marketing automation is not a stand-alone fix for generating leads and increasing revenue. It’s a way to magnify what you’re already doing well. That’s how Bash Foo helps small businesses. They implement best practices and automate your campaigns to produce substantial growth.

Marketing automation requires effort and skill. When done correctly, it provides a huge return on investment.

When you’re aligning marketing content with customer needs, then marketing automation becomes a lot easier and a lot more effective.

The following stats, facts & best practices support the wisdom of integrating direct mail into email marketing campaigns for incredible outcomes.

When respondents who said they weren't using marketing automation were asked why not, a quarter cited a lack of familiarity with marketing automation software, while others just didn't know where to begin.

In 2015, messaging applications overtook social media in total usage.  In addition to outbound engagement, best-in-class companies also use internal communication tools such as Slack, Trello, and Chatter to maintain consistency around key accounts and opportunities. Automating internal communications ensures holistic engagements and better outcomes in a 2.0 framework.

New middle-layer tools such as Zapier and Tray.io are the key to these extended internal or external engagements. Middle-layer tools don’t replace MAP. Rather, they extend the range of possibilities and open the door to a wider range of engagements in the future.


The term “demand generation” arose from the marketing automation tool platform. Now, there’s another marketing role taking shape as a result of the new level of data connectivity: the growth hacker.  AdRoll uses multiple tools to source individual and behavioral data. Multiple middle-layer applications run logic and automate the execution of experiences across a web of applications. It’s the power behind their modern revenue engine. This extended range of possibilities has increased their demo setups by 13 percent.

PCMag: Where do you think AI and ML will take MA over the next five years? What new features and opportunities will they give marketers?

Michelle Huff of Act-On: ML will act as marketers' co-pilot in their decision making and campaign execution process. AI will influence when, what, and where to engage with buyers and customers, predetermined by ML that can consume, digest, and compute mounds of data and turn it into actionable triggers and marketing activities. Essentially being able to predict and tailor outreach down to the best message, at the perfect time, and across the ideal communication channel.

AI will build on the foundation MA provides—a centralized engine for tracking, scoring, measuring, connecting, and learning from interactions with prospects and customers—and, ultimately, will give its users a way to anticipate and adapt engagement to their buyers' behaviors and actions.

Most B2B marketers are already using or plan to use some form of marketing automation technology. See how and why marketers are using automation tech and the challenges they're facing.

Among the other key findings:

Only 27 percent of the respondents strongly agreed that marketing automation had resulted in increased contributions to the pipeline. Forty-nine percent somewhat disagreed, and 20 percent strongly disagreed.
Twenty-four percent of respondents strongly agreed that marketing automation was delivering ROI, while 55 percent somewhat agreed that it was, and 18 percent somewhat disagreed.
Twenty-four percent strongly agreed that they were more efficient because of marketing automation. Fifty-eight percent somewhat agreed, and 13 percent somewhat disagreed.
Thirty-seven percent agreed they were using marketing automation to its fullest capacity, while 38 percent say they somewhat agreed that they were, and 23 percent somewhat disagreed.

1. IT’S A MARATHON NOT A SPRINT

2. THE RIGHT SKILLS ARE ESSENTIAL

3. COLLABORATION CAN HELP WITH GDPR COMPLIANCE

GDPR requires businesses to handle personal data in very specific ways and this means marketing and sales teams will need to start working together. Though it will lead to more work, GDPR compliance will actually help B2B marketers do a lot of the customer-centric things they’ve been planning to do anyway.

4. ABM WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOU MARKET.

Although B2B marketers are increasingly reliant on marketing automation technology, consumer-oriented businesses increasingly see the need to adopt automation technology, despite the cost.

According to eMarketer, which cites recent data from agency Bold Digital and marketing tech firm SimilarTech, enterprise companies account for 41% of all brands using marketing automation worldwide in 2016 because business-to-consumer (B2C) sales cycles tend to be much shorter. However, B2C marketers are increasingly looking to automation, particularly in the internet and telecom space, which now accounts for almost ten per cent of those using automation.

"However, these are the questions I can’t answer with today’s tools:

• Why did this person buy?
• Who did they compare us to when it came to us vs. looking at competitors?
• What features are important?
• How will they define success with our product?

With all of those things, I can look at all the data available today and still have no idea.

The way that it’s built today, that type of stuff only gets there if a rep enters it into a field. “Here’s why this person decided to buy.” And in that case it’d be totally anecdotal, assuming they even bothered to do it.

FAIL #1: NOT INCLUDING THE RIGHT PEOPLE IN THE DECISION
FAIL #2: CHOOSING THE WRONG VENDOR
FAIL #3: NOT GETTING THE RIGHT SUPPORT OR SERVICE
FAIL #4: NOT GETTING EDUCATED
FAIL #5: YOU CAN’T GROW WITH THE PLATFORM

Chart of the Day: Don't forget your Lead Scoring We all know about Email Marketing Automation, but what is Lead Scoring? In the chart, we can see that Emai. Marketing topic(s):Marketing automation. Advice by Kim Greenop-Gadsby.

Are you using your marketing automation platform to its fullest capabilities and potential? If you're not including data from social media channels, you're missing out on leads - and sales.