Embracing ‘What’s Next’: Is Your Marketing Automation Technology Future Proof?

Published: January 30, 2012

B2B marketing is in a state of constant flux. New channels, tactics and business demands are emerging on what seems like a daily basis. While there is increased adoption and maturing use of marketing automation, many marketers are still learning how — and if — their current technology can support new strategies, such as mobile marketing and social marketing. In order to realize consistent benefits across these emerging channels (and those that will surely follow), they need tools that can simplify and automate the necessary processes, now and in the future.

This lack of understanding could put marketers’ job security and productivity at risk, should their current solution prove unable to adapt to future business requirements. Over the coming year, it will be more important than ever to do the necessary due diligence to choose the right marketing automation solution to adeptly prepare for the challenges ahead.

This important discussion – future proofing your marketing automation selection – was highlighted in a webinar I participated in back in November, hosted by DemandGen Report’s Andrew Gaffney. Joined by David Raab, principal of Raab Associates, the webinar took a look at the current state of marketing automation and provided advice and best practices on how organizations can make the best marketing technology purchase decisions to prepare for what’s ahead.

David Raab kicked off the discussion by pointing out that 42% of marketers looking for a new vendor rely on online research. Along with this, only 25% of those marketers actually end up consulting with in-house IT before considering a new system. To help fix these “abysmal” facts, Raab framed his recommendations in a series of warnings, or the “Seven Deadly Sins of Marketing System Selection” that include ignoring users, having a general lack of purpose, letting the vendor drive, and focusing only on functions.

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According to Raab, marketers are not prepared for what lies ahead. Recent stats show that 81% of marketers find online marketing “challenging,” mainly because 34% of their marketing budgets are already online and online channels are growing the fastest, making it increasingly difficult to keep up.

Raab suggests a few issues are at play here. First, with the number of marketing channels growing so rapidly, there are multiple new marketing needs that tend to go unfulfilled. Also, with new media and channels steadily increasing, it’s difficult to find qualified people who have experience working with, and marketing to customers using these new channels.

Secondly, a growing number of organizations are still not doing the necessary amount of investigating and educating before making marketing technology purchase decisions. They do their own research (primarily online), they don’t talk to experts, and they don’t talk to sales to determine what needs they might have. Each of these issues has had a significant impact on organizations’ ability to invest in the right marketing automation solution.

Future Proofing Your Marketing Automation Selection

With marketers facing such complex hurdles, what can they do to prepare for success in 2012?

While Raab outlined some of the challenges marketers will face in the coming year, the discussion also focused on three important criteria for ensuring your marketing automation selection is capable of supporting future requirements. Those criteria fall into the following categories:

  • Open Technology Platform

An open technology platform featuring a single code base is critical to being able to adopt and adapt to new channels and functionality that are in line with the organization’s business needs. In addition, having an open API that enables the platform to hook into any CRM system or database is critical to ensure flexibility and scalability of your marketing programs.

A leading music company that adopted an open, flexible marketing automation platform to help forge better direct relationships with consumers is a great example. The company wanted to foster a seamless relationship between music lovers and artists that worked across multiple channels, including direct mail, email and mobile, customizing outreach according to customers’ preferences, taste and habits.

Because of the openness of the platform, the company was better able to capture consumer information from multiple sources and integrate its disparate CRM and customer analytics applications. This allowed the company to get to know its customers on a more granular level, and communicate in a more personalized manner. The platform works seamlessly across various direct, email and mobile marketing channels, allowing the company to send SMS messages to music fans that have opted in through email or direct mail, alerting them to upcoming concerts, new ringtones and screensavers.

  • Flexible Deployment Choices

It’s also critically important to consider deployment models – on-premise, hosted, or a mix of both. There are many options for deploying marketing automation software, so be sure to choose a vendor, and a model, that meets your needs today, yet can be flexible to support future use. For example, if you are in an industry that has strong regulations or governing rules around data security, but at the same time your organization lacks the IT resources to support a full, on-premise solution, look for vendors that offer a hybrid model whereby your data is kept behind your firewall, but campaigns can be executed in the cloud.

  • Committed Partner  

Last but not least, select a technology platform from a vendor that understands your organization’s business objectives and that is committed to your success. In essence, you want a technology partner that:

  • Stays involved and is always accessible
  • Is a good cultural fit – are they people you want to do business with?
  • Is flexible and helpful in working through your selection process

Whether it’s maturing use of social media or entirely new communications channels being entered into the mix, it’s inevitable that marketing requirements will continue to change. However, it’s the technology marketers choose that can make all the difference in their future ability to adapt, and thrive. Choose wisely.

Click here to view an archived version of the webinar.

 

Kristin Hambelton is vice president of marketing at conversational marketing technology provider Neolane, Inc. (www.neolane.com). She is responsible for Neolane’s market and brand strategy and operations including corporate communications, demand generation, product and partner marketing, and digital marketing including search and social media. Follow Kristin on Twitter @KMHambelton.

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