Business Case for Marketing Automation | Lead Views - a B2B Lead Generation Blog

Raab Associates estimates that the marketing automation market will grow 50% in 2013 with small and mid-size businesses at the very heart of it. Are you considering a marketing automation solution? Here are some pointers to make a convincing business case to present to all your stakeholders.

What Problems Can Marketing Automation Solve?

• Absolute ignorance of who visits your website.
• Limited information on leads.
• Marketing laden with lengthy processes that can easily be automated.
• Unable to do lead attribution.
• Sales and marketing use different tools and platforms with no integration.
• Unable to measure returns from marketing campaigns.
• Long sales cycle, slow conversion, slow revenue growth.

Marketing Automation’s Competitive Advantages

The competitive advantages of marketing automation include:

• Better engagement with prospects.
• Measure marketing ROI.
• Optimize marketing campaigns & investments.
• Higher conversion, higher revenue.
• Track every lead through the entire demand generation cycle. Leave no lead behind.

Key Success Factors

There’s something in it for everybody. Address all stakeholders.

Senior management: Get a complete overview of marketing performance and the sales pipeline.

Marketing: Automate repetitive manual processes. Run multiple multi-channel campaigns through one platform. Generate robust reports that demonstrate ROI.

Inside Sales: Get a ready list of leads to follow up with daily.

Sales: Have complete visibility of leads. Make informed pitches. Close sales faster.

IT: Own all data.

Financial Justification

Cost of Marketing Automation

	Base Price	Module-Based Pricing	User-Level Pricing	Other Levers
Product A
Product B
Product C

Use an ROI calculator

We have a series of in-house ROI calculators that can help you evaluate benefits, results and ROI by using our marketing automation product. We can tell you among other things:

• Incremental annual revenue and ROI.
• Increase in revenue through lead nurturing.
• Increase in conversion rate of anonymous website visitors.
• Reduction in form fatigue.

Write to me tduranle@calliduscloud.com and I can help you with your specific case. I can also give you a time frame for financial payback.

Convince the Key Stakeholders

Use the above numbers to get buy-in from:

• C-suite
• Marketing
• Inside Sales
• Sales
• IT

Risks & Contingency Plans

Identify all possible risks. Have a contingency plan for each one of them. Here are a few examples to start with.

Risk 1: Users may expect all marketing to be on auto-pilot.

Contingency plan: Set clear objectives and expectations. Start the education process with end users. Follow it up with periodic and thorough training on the product.

Risk 2: Management may lose interest.

Contingency plan: Use reporting to the fullest. Showcase ROI.

Risk 3: Marketing budget may be slashed.

Contingency plan: Switch to a no-frills basic plan.

Have a Short-Term & Long-Term Plan for Marketing Automation

Start with a basic plan.

• Complete implementation. Train the primary users.
• Set short-term objectives.
• Train and develop advanced users for demand generation.
• Chalk out integration strategy into CRM.
• Identify what processes to automate.
• Set up lead scoring.

Have a longer-term plan:

• Run multiple marketing campaigns through multiple channels.
• Pull in leads from your webinar, website and content downloads. Set up different drip campaigns based on leads’ behavior and interests.
• Give sales a comprehensive historical view of each lead for faster wins.
• Optimize marketing campaigns and investments.

Read more at : Business Case for Marketing Automation | Lead Views - a B2B Lead Generation Blog