Increasingly buyer-centric sales cycles in the B2B space and the tough reality of a drawn-out recession has put a great deal of pressure on marketing organizations (if there is enough people anymore to call it an organization) to cut costs and still improve lead nurturing and customer retention. Marketing automation can dramatically improve this situation for marketers and their companies.

Cost cutting and improved automation has been widely adopted throughout many aspects of a companies’ business. However, marketing automation has often taken a back seat to sales and service automation as companies deploy customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives. Therefore; it should come as no surprise that marketing automation is the weak link in many CRM tools, forcing companies to select multiple, poorly integrated third-party solutions, jammed down marketing’s neck, not meeting their needs.

When you consider the critical role that marketing plays in initiating relationships, supporting the sales cycle, and building loyalty, it is clear that this has to change.

The buying relationship is increasingly based on nurturing and education, provided by B2B/B2C companies that communicate to prospects with the right information, at the right time, and in the right place. You don’t have to be everywhere, just everywhere customers are. Achieving this manually is next to impossible, and at the very least extremely costly. Marketing automation systems that provide lead-nurturing tools and integrate social media should become a necessity rather than a luxury, especially for B2B companies who seem to be lagging behind a bit.

As buyers across the market landscape gather more of their initial info on vendors and solutions online, the role of sales is changing. Sales reps should be expected to make “warm calls” to qualified prospects who have already given you at least their basic information online and who have shown interest in buying. “Cold calls” to uninterested prospects will be considered wasteful, if it isn’t already. And email shotgun blasts will be a relic of the past, a learning curve that has hopefully been straightened out. Automated marketing solutions should enable marketers to track leads from the moment they land on the website until the sales person closes a deal.

Marketing has been wrestling with executive management and sales on accountable, dollars and legitimacy in the boardroom. The time has come for marketers to step up to the plate, prove operational efficiency and show once and for all, that our discipline is and always will be both art and science. And now we have the tools to back it up.

Don’t stagnate automate,

   Categoried under:  Relationship Marketing, Lead Generation Programs