How’d your week go?We hope things are just peachy, but if you’re like some of the marketing teams we met with this week, chances are you had more than your fair share of hair-pulling situations.
It is expected that the number of companies using marketing automation will increase by at least 50% in 2015. The reasons?
Inefficiency. Missed opportunities. Sheer and utter frustration.
Below are some of the signs you could benefit from marketing automation.
1. You dream about Excel spreadsheets. Perhaps there was a time you loved your job, devising complex strategies to convert website visitors into leads, coming up with creative campaigns to engage the audience. But now, the majority of your time seems to be spent on mundane tasks like building and editing lists, managing unsubscribes, writing e-mails, and developing landing pages. It’s inefficient. It’s repetitive. You need glasses for the first time in your life from looking at tiny details on screens all day. And sometimes you wish you’d just gone to work for your dad’s construction company while your pride was still in tact.
2. The sales team has shunned you. They no longer returns your calls. They follow up on only a small percentage of your leads, telling you the rest are no good. You are not invited to the sales manager’s Halloween party, which really peeves you since you were looking forward to dressing up like Don Draper for the 6th year in a row.
3. The competition just got that hot lead YOU were after — and already paid for. A huge percentage of marketing budgets usually goes toward purchasing lists of contacts. But often, those contacts aren’t yet ready to buy. And, even worse, you aren’t able to identify and flag the reasons they rejected you so you can recover the sale at a more appropriate time. Just like that, another one bites the dust.
4. Upper management is breathing down your neck for metrics. They need you to prove the effectiveness of your campaign and justify your budget. Thus far, you’ve managed to avoid delivering by using your best stall tactics. However, “I’m waiting on information from the agency” just isn’t going to fly much longer.
5. The sales and marketing teams aren’t talking. Marketing doesn’t know Linda from sales had her baby. Sales doesn’t know Toby from marketing was selected to be on Wheel of Fortune (is that still on?). But, even more important, marketing isn’t providing sales with the wealth of useful and potentially lucrative information they possess because they have no way to make it actionable for the sales team.
6. The message just doesn’t fit. When was the last time you bought a one-size-fits-all item of clothing? Probably not for a while, since it’s rare they actually fit right. If you are not tailoring your content to each individual prospect, “probably not for a while” most likely describes the last time your prospects opened your e-mail, clicked your links, or visited your site. Or maybe you’re one of those singular customers who fit perfectly into that one-size-fits-all unitard. In this case, you would be the fortuitous exception to the rule — just like your current customers. But you just can’t figure out how to efficiently deliver the targeted content you need to increase your market share.
7. You’re drawing a blank on content ideas. You don’t have the proper insights and information to know what content you should be producing. So, instead, you’re scratching your head and thinking about posting a “Bet you can’t think of a name that starts with ‘S'” meme.
Sound familiar?
If so, we’ve got a plan for you.
Next time the boss wants you to prove the success of your campaign, tell him you can’t. That you don’t have the right tools to measure or to accomplish the company’s goals.
Then make the case for marketing automation. If you need help, we’d be happy to help you form a plan and provide you with informative materials and cost estimates. (We think you will be pleasantly surprised at pricing!)
According to the Annuitas group, companies that nurture prospects with marketing automation achieve a 451% increase in qualified leads. Based on the customers we’ve seen this week, we estimate marketers who use automation could improve the quality of their sleep by 200%, boost their level of job satisfaction by 350%, and increase their number of proud stories to tell mom about work by 600%.
So tell Dad you’re sorry, but the hard hat look just doesn’t work for you.
