Would you be interested in something that can streamline all your marketing workflows and systematically touch your potential leads through different mediums with the perfect message at exactly the right time?
I’m confident the answer to that question was a resounding yes, and if so, keep reading and we will dive into exactly what you need to be considering when thinking about purchasing marketing automation software or any software to supplement your marketing efforts for that matter.
What Marketing Problems Are You Looking to Solve with Automation?
- Have you fully mapped out your customer journey and clearly defined what your lifecycle and customer journey funnel looks like?
- Do you need a CRM or a full-scale marketing automation platform?
- Are you looking to drive better alignment between sales and marketing?
These are just a few of the important questions you need to ask yourself before you dive deeper into the world of automating your marketing.
Finding out exactly where in the journey when your leads are ready to buy is a goal all sales and marketing teams aspire to find.
Mapping out your customer journey will help you clearly define which pieces of the funnel you should potentially be automating and getting more out of to nurture your leads down the funnel.
Sometimes a basic CRM or referral marketing software is enough to supplement your basic marketing efforts, and other times, a full-scale marketing automation suite with more capability and flexibility is what you need to more effectively capture, track, and convert leads to sales.
Do your due diligence and learn what’s out there in the market and based on the needs you’ve identified, find a few promising options and schedule some demos to get hands-on experience with each software.
What Should I be Looking for to Differentiate the Top Competitors in the Market?
- Do they offer a live demo?
- Do they have these……..key features?
The key to getting the most out of whatever automation platform you choose is to simply make sure you’re not paying for features you never will use. Doing a live demo will give you a good sense of the software’s features and if they align with the needs and problems you’re trying to solve for.
The landscape of marketing automation features is extensive and sometimes overwhelming. Are you looking for precise lead-scoring capability? Or are you just looking for a better way to streamline your email marketing automation workflows? Do I want to track website visitors and have alerts for monitoring results and targets based on behaviors?
Answering these questions beforehand will ensure you aren’t paying for something you will never see the benefit from.
Do you have a Well-Constructed Plan to Implement the Software Effectively?
Optimization is the name of the marketing automation game, and to do so, you’ll need to come up with an onboarding plan to effectively and efficiently integrate the software within your marketing and sales teams.
Looking deeper at platform simplicity and usability will play a large role in clearly answering this question as well.
You want something intuitive and with a solid support team to handle any of your questions as you continue to use the platform.
Marketing automation is also great for holding your marketing and sales teams accountable because it gives you a clear path to measuring and tracking results from your efforts and campaigns.
A plan to measure and track results along with systematic goals should be defined before making the plunge.
Are your Marketing and Sales Teams up for the Task?
Are you confident in your ability to consistently use and keep up with the automation platform?
This may sound like a dumb or obvious question but in reality, there are tons of companies out there that buy these software platforms only to use them for a month and then fail to maintain or keep up with them.
This is the easiest way to waste your investment.
Finding staff that is dedicated to integrating this into your daily and weekly activities is essential for getting any ROI on these types of platforms.
What are your Long-Term Goals for your Marketing Automation Efforts?
Defining these goals should be your top priority when digging through the market of marketing automation software offerings.
Reducing your staffing costs may be one goal that you use this software to accomplish. By setting up lead nurturing campaigns that are automatically triggered based on certain criteria, you can drastically reduce your staffing and streamline your efforts.
By optimizing your selling and customer follow-up, an increase in your customer lifetime value is the likely outcome. When you combine this with better lead management and prioritization, your sales activity will definitely produce better ROI.
Targeting your potential customers across multiple channels is another massive benefit of marketing automation. Whether it’s through email, text, social, or other different marketing channels, the ability to craft messages and adjust timing allows you to make sure your leads see and feel exactly as you want them to and hopefully are ready to buy when they are at the peak of their interest.
If you’re interested in a tool that can automate all your referral needs and create a massive influx of quality leads, be sure to learn more about ReferMe IQ™.
Post author: Peter Velardi
