Well, marketing automation has transfigured the world of marketing. Google searches for marketing automation have reached to the highest and these massive search volumes for marketing automation suggest increasing interest in awareness of technology. But if we see the other side of the story, the things are not rosy for everyone. There are companies which implement it but fail to produce tangible results. If marketing automation is not implemented rightly, it could be a costly affair.
It has been observed many businesses are devastated losing quite a lot of investment on marketing automation software in hopes they will be able to make huge profits using the software and the processes will become a lot easier and streamlined. There are definitely some reasons which are beyond the scope of the software and if not implemented correctly can lead a failure to an extremely powerful marketing tool.
Are there any common marketing automation software failures? Let us view some common misconceptions with regards to marketing automation which many marketers have and discuss what is the right viewpoint in relation to them?
- A common misconception, about marketing automation software, is that it will completely take over your marketing functions.
- Marketing automation is designed to enhance the scale of your already existing marketing efforts. It aims to save your time, money, effort and of course valuable resources.
- Whenever implementation of marketing automation software comes, it is very much important to have a good marketing automation strategy.
- A clear and concise strategy is what is required else your marketing efforts will be misguided and wasted.
- With an improper strategy, rendering of software completely remains underutilized and possibly irrelevant.
- Marketers need to have a steady and strong enough organic lead flow through the marketing funnel in order to have what is necessary to implement marketing automation for optimal success.
- Marketing Automation yields productive results when it is worked to improve proven processes.
- Automation helps organizations to be more effective with digital marketing.
- Effectively practiced automation will simplify, speed up and make lead generation lot more transparent and accountable.
So many misconceptions! Let us quickly jump to the reasons for marketing automation failure:
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Here are some research done on why marketing automation software most often fails to deliver.
1- Laying Down Poor Strategy
If marketing automation is implemented without proper strategizing, which could suit your business unique goals, market offerings are ought to fail. Putting ahead technology and placing technology above everything else is the common mistake which many organizations make. Organizations commonly face the trouble when they go out and invest in fancy, expensive market automation without much indulgence in strategizing things beforehand. Enterprises need to train the staff on the technology and then handover the marketing automation software.
2- Not Involving Right People In Decisions
Since automation helps your business grow revenue by offering you to capture, communicate and track with and prioritize prospects, therefore it is imperative to involve sales team as a part of the decision to implement marketing automation at an early stage. Not only sales team be involved in important decisions of implementing marketing automation but it is also important to involve their decision which platform is right for them. Involving sales team in conversation will help in choosing best system to meet your business and customer needs both.
3- Wrong Investment Policy
Organization commonly makes a mistake of buying an expensive market automation software without much research and paying due diligence. Ideally, enterprises must first ensure that everything else must be made sync with technology and place the aptly to make it work. For successfully implementing marketing automation, it is very much important to match it with the current business processes. Also, you must prepare your staff to use such technology. While you are in search of best marketing automation tools and technologists consider these elements in your vendor evaluation and selection process:
- Consider the complete list of requirements for marketing, sales, and IT.
- Entire well-defined goals.
- Reviews of analysts.
- Peer and Customer recommendations.
- Reviewing in-house talent.
4- Incorrect timing
Typically customer journeys span while following above mentioned following steps. Another step is the consideration of your product-where prospects decides to learn a little more about your product and at this moment they become leads, conversion- the time where actual purchase happens, the retention phase where the first time buyers repeat this process of becoming regular customers. So here are the actual marketing phases of your brand or product, but for a while stop thinking like a marketer and think like a consumer. Your sales rep must be shooting emails, follow up calls to tell your prospects to buy, buy and buy. Of course, it is very much annoying. The reality is that a pitch is aligned with the wrong stage of the sales funnel. Instead, sales-focused message offers highly impactful result among the audience which is readily convertible.
5- Choice of Marketing Channels
Well, email marketing has lost its influence over the years since the advent of social media. It is one marketing channel option which comes with its own limitations. It limits the number of viewers to your message and this is at times very disappointing. Also, it limits the scope of data which marketers need in order to serve their prospects wants and needs a better way. A sound and well-designed marketing system which uses multiple channels is need of an hour. Involving social media in order to reach wider audience helps in a greater way. Quality-rich and precise content work greatly in getting prospect’s attention.
6- Missing Mobiles
Many organizations are forgetting that 95% of their users on mobile. Marketers operate on various devices and in cross-platform environments, therefore never miss or ignore mobile as your marketing platform. Even survey says that 48% of emails are opened on mobile devices, but among this percentage, only 11% of emails are optimized for mobile. The drawback is that audiences stop listening and 69% of mobile users delete the emails which are not optimized for the small screens. Therefore, it is advisable to keep the messaging simple and use bullet points for offering key information. Don’t make users scroll a lot and avoid the designs which require re-sizing.
Conclusively, marketing automation will drive tremendous opportunity for your business if the goals are placed rightly. So, if you have already implemented marketing automation and it didn’t go the way you wished to, no need to worry just try following the solutions discussed in this blog. This is a domain where you can miss a lot of things and make silly mistakes.
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References: marketo, hubspot, business2community, crmsearch, marketinginsidergroup, jdrgroup
Pratyush Kumar
