5 Steps to Successfully Implement a Marketing Automation Solution
Marketing automation increases sales and maximizes efficiency by automating repetitive marketing and sales tasks. Evaluating, selecting and implementing a business critical application such as marketing automation can become a challenging task. This 5 steps guide will give you directions in your marketing automation implementation.
1. Determine the desired benefits
First, start by analysing your current marketing processes. If you don’t have processes you will not get the best value out of your marketing automation solution.
No technology, no matter how sophisticated, can be successful without a strategy to guide it. You need to understand which parts of your marketing processes can be optimised through automation. Focus on what marketing automation will do for the company. Consider the effects on the bottom line and determine the added return on investment.
2. Plan and Budget
Outline the specific requirements of each department in order to properly prepare for the search phase. Plan how both marketing and sales will use marketing automation and reap benefits.
Justify your spend by determining the value of marketing automation. How will the marketing department benefit from such a solution? How will the sales team benefit? How will lead generation and nurturing improve?
3. Search and Select
The search process is about finding the best solution for your company. You have your plan and budget in place to guide you through the process. Focus on what is most important and look around to compare the features of various solutions.
Look for critical features such as prospect tracking, automated lead nurturing, email marketing, landing pages, CRM integration, lead scoring and grading, reporting and advanced web analytics.
4. Organise Your Data
The current customer data you have may be stored across multiple platforms. In order to make the implementation process easier, gather all data into one location. To insure a seamless transition into a marketing automation platform, use one consistent format for customer data.
If you have a CRM system, your customer data should automatically synch with the marketing automation solution.
5. Effectively Implement Your Solution
The final step of the process is also the most important. The actual implementation of the marketing automation system needs to be managed from the top down. Executives need to demonstrate the importance of the solution for the success of the employees as well as the company.
Make sure you understand how the marketing automation tool works before undertaking big automation projects. Start and keep it simple and once you understand and use your tool better then go for the more complicated processes.
Read Your Marketing Automation Success Kit and learn the basics of marketing automation, gain information to help you find a solution that meets your specific marketing goals.
You'll find handy checklists to :
- Help determine budgeting considerations,
- Analyse your current lead generation strategy,
- Learn how marketing automation can take that plan to the next level.
