A Fool With A Tool is Still A Fool
As I wrote in my earlier articles about the Power of Marketing Automation and The Role of Marketing Automation in B2B Industry, how important it is for today’s Marketing World. I was watching the Spiderman movie and I still remember the dialogue of Peter Parker (Actor):
Whatever life holds in store for me, I will never forget these words: “With great power comes great responsibility.” This is my gift, my curse. Who am I? I’m Spider-man.
In marketing automation, Peter Parker’s statement is very true, If the organization will use all the features of Marketing automation then they’ll be benefited, but if they’ll fail to use their full power, it’ll become a curse for that organization. We see it over an over again in many organizations where people expect a new Marketing automation tool to work its magic (and probably put its money worth at work) so when results are low on expectations, they blame the tool instead of the people, the skills, the process, the organizational set up, or all of the above. This approach would only lead to undertake different tools which set to fail again. People think, it’s just like Juice machine that if you squeeze the fruit from one side, and you will get sweet juice from another side. But they forget that any Marketing automation tool you implement in your organization should enable or enhance a business process. Unfortunately, many people mistakenly believe that the Marketing automation tool itself is the solution, when in reality, Marketing automation tool is at best 20 percent of the value equation the other 80 percent is based on the human factor. Marketing automation needs constant care and awareness for it to work effectively. Too many companies skip on these details and think they can let their automation do all the work which is not exactly the best way of accomplishing your goals. Marketing automation works as a supplement to your sales strategy, allowing you to strategize the path ahead. It’s not meant as something you can set and forget. But lots of organizations invest in marketing automation thinking they’ll be able to flip a switch and watch the money flow in. And it’s just not going to happen that way.
Marketing automation does not solve the problem of understanding the buying and selling process,it only magnifies it. There are a lot of things that marketing automation cannot do for you and you need to consider that:
• It can’t think for you
• It can’t develop strategies
• It doesn’t know your customer
• It can’t create content for you
• It is not an analytical brain
• If you don’t get the results you are looking for, it won’t tell you what to do next.
So, before implementing any marketing automation tool in any organization (Either B2B or B2C), we need to take care of the below items:
• Is your data clean enough?
• Is your sales and marketing process properly aligned ?
• Do you have a Team with right knowledge to use the tool to its fullest?
• Do you keep up to date of all new marketing strategies and tactics?
• Do you fully understand your buyer’s cycle?
• Do you have the right content to feed prospects?
After implementation of Marketing automation in any organization, Most of the marketers will list goals such as “more leads,” “better leads,” and “better reporting” and expect this within three to six months of implementation. Many organizations often overlook the results of their implementation in less than six months. The immediate value of Marketing Automation if implemented correctly is by revising the process.
In the first few months of implementation of Marketing automation, marketers should take the process and the Marketing Automation team already in place and streamline it by using Marketing automation technology. It is a great time to re-align sales and marketing on lead management, the definition of a qualified lead and how that plays into scoring and the different touch points along the lead success and their success paths. This time you can also identify holes in the content pipeline and make sure there is a plan to fill them.
Now we can say that Marketing automation tool is not the exact solution to get easy success of any organization. Yes, it’s an important piece of the puzzle, but it’s not the all-encompassing solution so many people believe it to be. If you just focus on the Marketing Automation tool, you may end up the fool. But if you focus on the business, the Marketing Automation tool and the people within the organization using the tool, you’ll be the leader who not only uses Marketing Automation effectively, but who also sees great gains in productivity and profits.