Although marketing automation is still fairly “new” in the technology landscape, it’s still kind of fun to think about what marketers used to have to do before MAPs came into their world. And by fun, I mean scary!
What would be the current state of sales funnels and bounce rates without marketing automation? What would be the condition of marketing departments and sales channels? What would be the state of marketing and sales management if marketing automation and all its benefits wouldn’t be part of B2B marketing today?
The marketing world would look very different without lead intelligence and workflow efficiency. Marketing wouldn’t be able to provide richer, faster and more actionable customer insight. The tedious, repetitive tasks of marketing would take a huge toll on big, ineffective marketing teams, and there would be no performance-driven, conversion-centric programs at scale.
In a world where leads would increasingly bounce out of the sales funnel and marketing and sales teams would be out of sync when it came time to agreeing on when a lead becomes sales-ready, marketing would still be operating through Outlook and Excel spreadsheets.
Below is a list of 5 essentials that marketers would miss out on in a world without marketing automation platforms (MAPs).
1. Streamlined marketing and sales process
Without a streamlined marketing and sales process marketing wouldn’t be able to create a seamless workflow. It would become impossible to gain a good understanding of the processes it takes to generate more qualified, sales-ready leads, and there would be no ability to agree upon a common set of definitions at each stage of the sales funnel.
2. Segmentation
Without MA, marketing wouldn’t be able to define audience segmentation within the scope of two primary criteria: who is being targeted – by industry, region, company type/size and behavioral findings, and what the typical buying behaviors or needs are at each stage of the buying cycle.
3. Data and insights
Marketing wouldn’t have the data to know the lifecycle of a lead and the steps that that lead took to get to its current stage in the sales cycle. Marketing would have a hard time establishing lead scores, lead nurturing programs and lead generation campaigns without enough customer insight.
4. Content management
Without MA, marketers wouldn’t be able to identify key conversations, topics and trends in social media and other channels. There would be no platform on which to monitor conversations to gain insight into customer behavior and habits in order to distribute the right content to the right customer at the right time.
5. Lead nurturing
Marketers wouldn’t know the best way to generate demand and execute the kind of lead nurturing campaigns that would work to retain prospects and transition them into paying customers. Without a lead nurturing process in place, marketing wouldn’t be able to execute campaigns to reach out to potential buyers by educating them on the best possible solutions to their problems.
Marketing automation is an amazing tool when used correctly. It allows marketers to optimize staff resources, run successful, measurable, complex campaigns, and manage their time effectively. MA makes it possible for companies to connect with their customers in a highly personalized way that is simply not possible to achieve using manual efforts.
Are you stuck in the old world or the new world when it comes to marketing automation?
