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INTRODUCTIONIf you’re considering a marketing automation solution, you’re probably familiar with the benefits: incredible productivity, targeted engagement, alignment with sales, and serious insight into what’s working—and what isn’t.

But the truth is that not everyone who adopts marketing automation is thrilled with the results. According to a recent survey by Raab Associates and VentureBeat, 25% of companies using marketing automation say the benefits weren’t worth the investment. But that also means that 75% of companies are achieving their goals with marketing automation—in fact, many are going far beyond their own expectations.

That’s why, as you evaluate solutions for your business, you’ll want to know: Which factors make the differences between dissatisfaction and success? What do companies who succeed with marketing automation have in common?

In this guide, we’ll review the commonalities between satisfied marketing automation users, and we’ll prepare you to place your company in that happy majority. We’ll give you the tools to build a framework of functionality and features, and help you identify the capabilities that will matter most to your success.

25%

75%

25% say marketing automation isn’t worth

the investment.

75% say marketing automation is worth

the investment.

2 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

HOW TO FIND A SOLUTION THAT SATISFIESFirst of all, you might be surprised to learn what doesn’t correlate to satisfaction with marketing automation. The size of training budgets, the size of your company, your company’s success measures, your project goals…according to Raab Associates and VentureBeat’s survey, none of those factors significantly impacted success.

Instead, the common thread among satisfied marketers was deceptively simple: these happy marketers clearly defined their goals, carefully conducted their research, and compared more than one solution.

Remarkably, it didn’t matter how many solutions the marketers compared—as long as they examined more than one, their satisfaction rates skyrocketed. Why? Even a single side-by-side comparison gives marketers real context into which features and functionalities they need.

On the other hand, as Raab Associates wrote, “Marketers who looked quickly, took the first system they found, and deployed with little advance planning were likely to pick a system that didn’t meet their needs—or may have chosen a system that was technically adequate but failed to use it effectively.”

In short, the most satisfied marketers were those who invested time in defining their goals (regardless of what those goals were), and then searched carefully for a solution that met them.

As you conduct your own evaluation, follow these five guidelines provided by Raab and VentureBeat’s study:

3 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

The behaviors with the biggest negative impact were:

1) Taking less than a month to select a solution

2) Only examining one system

Marketers are understandably eager to get started with marketing automation, but rushing the evaluation process is an easy way to land in the “unsatisfied” group.

4 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

1. TAKE YOUR TIME

What kind of programs do you plan to run? Which of your existing systems will need to be integrated, and what new integrations will you be interested in adding? Will you need to hire new people, or can your current team manage the solution on its own? These are the types of question you’ll need to answer—before you can effectively evaluate a solution.

Features and functionality are the true differentiators between one marketing automation solution and another. Which features do you actually need, and which solutions provide them? Raab Associates recommends creating detailed scenarios, and then reviewing how that scenario might be handled in each solution.

2. DO YOUR HOMEWORK

3. FOCUS ON FEATURES

5 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

Now that you know how you’ll use marketing automation, start mapping those processes step-by-step. The study found that the most satisfied marketers started leveraging a full range of features right away—which means they were ready to go out the gate. Look for a vendor who can help you plan for your first month, quarter, and year with marketing automation. What steps will you need to take?

Thanks to your initial research and planning, fast execution should be a breeze. Ask your vendor how quickly you can get started with their solution, what steps they will take to help you implement it, and what resources they have to support your onboarding. If bandwidth is an issue, Raab Associates recommends supplementing your staff with additional resources in the beginning. The important thing is to start delivering value from day one.

4. PLAN AHEAD

5. DEPLOY QUICKLY

6 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

WHAT TO CONSIDERAs you might have gathered, the common thread among satisfied marketers is preparation—sufficient research to understand your needs, feature-focused comparisons relating to the needs identified, and reviews of specific scenarios you might encounter. But where to start?

Effective evaluation might sound like a daunting task, but once you break down the process, it’s surprisingly intuitive. In this guide, we’ll help you create a framework of standard functionality and features, and identify what you’ll need in a solution.

Here are the areas you should consider, and questions to help you form your own list of needs:

7 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

INCREASING MARKETING PRODUCTIVITYYour marketing automation solution should help you do the work with the biggest impact on your business faster and more efficiently—this is a bottom-line requirement that any solution should easily meet. But when it comes to functionality and features, what are you actually looking for?

USABILITY:

As you evaluate different solutions, keep in mind that there will undoubtedly be a learning curve with any new tool. While you want to be sure you can get started quickly, remember that a system which seems easy to learn upfront may in fact provide very limited functionality—which you willsoon outgrow.

This problem often appears in the workflows required to complete a task. Some solutions require marketers to use rigid workflows for basic functions, such as creating email campaigns and landing pages. For example, every time you create an email, you must:

1) Create a list, 2) Create an email, 3) Associate that email to the list, and 4) Schedule the send. The initial simplicity of this process might appeal to you, but as your proficiency using the new tool quickly grows, you will still have to follow all the steps, in order, every time.

Let’s say you want to create a series of emails, but you don’t have your list created yet. You can’t—because you’re locked into the system’s workflow. As you might imagine, this “easy” workflow quickly becomes a hindrance. Look for a solution that’s easy to use, but still offers you flexibility.

8 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

INCREASING MARKETING PRODUCTIVITYEMAIL, LANDING PAGES, & FORMS:

Marketing automation solutions can usually replace your current email service provider (ESP), though the depth of email functionality does vary across vendors. Here are some of the features you’ll want to evaluate, and the reasons you may (or may not) need them:

FEATURE: BATCH EMAIL MARKETINGYou Need This if:

n You send large batches of email to customers and prospects

n You want to track and report on deliveries, opens, and clicks

n You want to track clicks on specific links within emails (note: not all solutions can track this behavior)

FEATURE: FORM CREATIONYou Need This if:

n You want to place registration forms on landing pages, microsites, or your website

n You need to capture registration info for your database

n You want to progressively ask visitors different questions, building out their profiles over time (note: only solutions with “progressive profiling” capabilities can do this)

FEATURE: EMAIL DELIVERABILITY/REPUTATION MANAGEMENTYou Need This if:

n You want to ensure that your messages are being delivered and monitored

n You want to automatically handle opt-ins and unsubscribes

9 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

INCREASING MARKETING PRODUCTIVITYFEATURE: TRIGGERED EMAILSYou Need This if:

n There are specific prospect/customer behaviors that you’d like to automatically respond to with an email (i.e. clicking on a specific link, or speaking with a sales rep)

n There are specific prospect/customer events that you’d like to automatically respond to with an email (i.e. reaching a certain lead score)

FEATURE: MOBILE OPTIMIZATIONYou Need This if:

n A segment of your audience reads email messages on mobile or tablet devices

FEATURE: LANDING PAGE CREATIONYou Need This if:

n Your emails include invitations to attend events, receive more information, or download specific assets

n You want to direct traffic to customized landing pages, rather than your generic homepage

n You’d like to build landing pages without the help from IT

FEATURE: TESTINGYou Need This if:

n You’d like to experiment with your subject lines, copy, graphics, calls-to-action, frequency, etc.

n Your audience is continually growing/adjusting its needs and preferences

n Your conversion rates aren’t as high as you’d like, but you aren’t sure why

INCREASING MARKETING PRODUCTIVITYPROGRAM LIBRARIES:

It’s always easier to edit than to start from scratch. If you find yourself re-inventing the wheel each time you run a program, look for a solution with a library of pre-built, verified best practices and programs. Raab and VentureBeat’s study indicated that marketers who get up and running quickly are the most satisfied with their solutions; pre-built programs will help you jumpstart implementation and see results fast.

Depending on your specific needs, you might be looking for different features in a program library. Which of the following templates/pre-built programs will help you succeed?

n Email templates n Landing page templates n Webinar programs n Tradeshow programs n Lead scoring models n Lead nurturing workflows n Other_____________

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO):

If you’re looking to drive more inbound traffic, SEO can help you drive more, quality traffic to your website by allowing you to optimize your website. This makes it easier for prospects to discover your site through search engines. Not every solution has tools to help your search rankings, but here are some of the common ways marketing automation can boost your SEO:

n Tools to analyze key word rankings and those of your competitors, so you can target areas of improvement

n The ability to generate lists of new keywords closely related to your company and competitors

n Recommendations on web and landing page optimizations, to help search engines more effectively crawl and index your site

n Identification of inbound link opportunities based on your targeted keywords and links to competitor sites

11 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

CLONING AND TOKENS:

Every marketing program contains multiple emails, landing pages, forms, segmentations, and workflows. The ability to “clone” an entire marketing program—copying all of the assets within a program at once, instead of individually—saves you a lot of time. Likewise, you may want a solution that uses “tokens”—these allow you to auto-populate your messages with program-specific information (like names of webinar presenters, event dates, images, and times).

After you’ve cloned a program, you can simply change the token once—and all of those details are updated in every single asset.

The need for this feature depends on the volume of programs you run—or the volume of programs you aspire to run. Fill in the following to hone in on your needs:

Do you run campaigns that you’d like to repeat—such as weekly email sends, monthly webinars, or annual events? If so, list any repeatable campaigns:

When it comes to repeating campaigns, which features do you need?

n The ability to keep multiple emails, landing pages, forms, segmentations, and workflows intact from one program to the next (e.g. create a tried-and-true webinar program template for your organization, then allow your team to replicate that program quickly and easily)

n The ability to personalize cloned programs with program-specific info (such as names, dates, and times)

n The ability to edit all program parameters in one place and automatically update all the underlying assets

INCREASING MARKETING PRODUCTIVITY

12 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

CALENDARS:

Marketing activities can be hard to coordinate—often, they’re hard to even see. It’s a challenge to get the whole department on the same page, let alone any cross-functional teams, especially when different groups have varying responsibilities and priorities. And using a variety of disconnected calendars and tools only exacerbates the problem.

If this sounds familiar, consider calendaring functions as you evaluate solutions. Here are some features to look for:

n Click-and-drag functionality—Flexibility is key. Can you “pick up” a program, and then drop it somewhere else in order to change the date and time?

n Placeholders—Can you add programs to the calendar, move, or tweak them, all without the program going live?

n Task execution within the calendar interface—Planning makes a lot more sense when tied directly to execution. If you move a program on the calendar, does it automatically reschedule within your program, or do you need to update the program separately?

n Calendar view during campaign planning—Without visibility, scheduling conflicts are inevitable. Can your team view their calendar and plan campaigns at the same time?

n Advanced filters—Can you filter your calendar based on campaign tags, allowing you to slice and dice your calendar to create meaningful views?

INCREASING MARKETING PRODUCTIVITY

CREATING TARGETED, RELEVANT CAMPAIGNSAs a marketer, you want to be empowered to communicate with your audience in a personalized, highly relevant way—at scale. Your marketing automation solution should allow you to easily target the right person, with the right message at the right time across channels.

As you evaluate marketing automation, you’ll need to consider each solution’s ability to segment your audience, and to nurture those segments to become customers.

14 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

SEGMENTATION:

Segmenting your communications with buyers is essential to your marketing success. Traditionally, marketers have segmented their databases using demographic and firmographic criteria, such as job title, company size, industry, region, language, and more.

Some marketing automation solutions can also segment your audience by behaviors. On the basic end, some solutions can segment by behaviors like “clicking on an email” or “filling out a form.” On the more advanced end, other solutions can segment based on cross-channel behaviors—including those that occur on social or in person.

Which of these ways will you want to segment your audience?

n By firmographics (job title, company size, industry, etc.)

n By simple behaviors (such as “clicking on an email” or “filling out a form”)

n By cross-channel behaviors (such as “visiting a tradeshow booth” or “sharing content on Facebook”)

Here are some examples of segments you might want to target within marketing automation:

n Leads or contacts from a specific industry who have visited the company website in the last 60 days

n Leads or contacts at companies larger than 1,000 employees, who have clicked a specific link in an email in the past two weeks

n Leads or contacts who have shared content on a social network in the last two weeks

n Leads or contacts who have participated in a social poll in the past 30 days

n Customers who have visited the company’s knowledge base more than three times in the last week

n Prospects (not customers) who have visited the company booth at a tradeshow in the last 90 days

n Prospects (not customers) who have visited the company’s pricing page on the corporate website two times in one day

CREATING TARGETED, RELEVANT CAMPAIGNS

15 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

LEAD NURTURING:

“Lead nurturing” refers to the way you engage potential buyers over time, encouraging them to become customers using timely, relevant content and powerful messaging.

To create a lead nurturing campaign, you simply set up a series (or “stream”) of content that you’d like to deliver, and your marketing automation delivers it in the order you specify. Solutions with only the most basic lead nurturing (often called “drip nurturing”) will typically follow a process like this: send an email, wait, send another email, wait again. If an email does get opened, the system sends a new one. If an email doesn’t get opened, the system simply sends that email again.

But as you consider your own lead nurturing requirements, you might decide that the ability to “listen” to leads is important to your business. Do you want to know how leads are engaging with your content? Evaluate potential solutions in the following areas:

FEATURE: MULTI-CHANNEL LISTENING

While “drip nurturing” allows you to listen at a very basic level (i.e. you know that an email wasn’t opened), many marketers want to listen for behaviors across multiple channels. Advanced, cross-channel listening gives you a complete picture of your prospects and customers.

YOU NEED MULTI-CHANNEL LISTENING IF:

n You want to consider cross-channel behaviors when sending nurture emails—for example, if someone engages with a certain product on your website, you can automatically start sending them emails relevant to that interest

n You want to consider demographics, firmographics, and behaviors when sending email

n You want to co-ordinate your marketing across channels—for example, a customer responds to an SMS message, and then you follow up with a related email

16 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

CREATING TARGETED, RELEVANT CAMPAIGNS

FEATURE: INTELLIGENT CONTENT DELIVERY

Content is the fuel for your lead nurturing strategy. The right content at the right time is often the difference between an “unsubscribe” and a “tell me more.” That’s why, if you’re continually creating new content, you’ll want to easily add it to campaigns, and ensure that the right people receive it.

Some solutions make it easier than others to put the freshest content in front of prospects, add content to nurture campaigns, and avoid sending too many nurture emails (or duplicates) to your database.

LOOK FOR THIS FUNCTIONALITY IF:

n You continually create new content to share with your database

n You have time-sensitive invitations/promotions that you want to easily add to nurture streams

n You’re concerned about over-sending to your database (or sending the same content twice)

INTELLIGENT NURTURE STREAMS:

Delivering fresh content to prospects and customers is always a challenge. If a prospect downloads a piece of content from your website today, you’d hope that your marketing automation wouldn’t send that same content in a nurture email a day later.

Unfortunately, most solutions wouldn’t suppress that content—at best, you might be able to manually suppress the content by programming conditional logic into your campaigns. Solutions with intelligent nurture streams, on the other hand, can automatically suppress content an individual has already seen.

17 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

CREATING TARGETED, RELEVANT CAMPAIGNS

REAL TIME PERSONALIZATION

Marketers spend a lot of time and energy to be targeted with their email content, but what about personalizing other channels? Real time personalization allows you to create a customized experience across email, web, ads and mobile—not just for known prospects and customers, but for anonymous visitors as well.

LOOK FOR THIS FUNCTIONALITY IF:

n You want to serve up different content when different types of visitors come to your website (e.g. a visitor from the healthcare industry might be shown a different report than a visitor from financial services; or a customer might be shown an invite to an appreciation dinner, while a prospect is shown a demo)

n You want to identify behavioral attributes of your website visitors (like product interest, buying history, site browsing history, number of visits, search terms used, and price sensitivity) and serve up content based on these attributes

n You want to identify profile attributes of your website visitors (like place of work, size of company, revenue, industry, and geo-location) and serve up content based on these attributes

n You want to personalize with content you already have in your CMS, or content management system (note: some solutions are only compatible with one CMS, so look for solutions that can be used with any CMS)

CREATING TARGETED, RELEVANT CAMPAIGNS

Don’t just deliver names to the sales team—deliver qualified leads who are ready to engage. Your marketing automation solution should be able to “score” leads based on their readiness, nurture leads until they reach a high score, and help the sales team prioritize the names you’ve worked hard to acquire.

LEAD SCORING

Lead scoring is one of the core tenants of sales and marketing alignment. The process of lead scoring defines and assigns scores to your leads, which indicate their readiness to buy—and therefore their readiness to be handed off from marketing to sales.

Basic marketing automation offers rudimentary lead scoring capabilities. Using generic scoring criteria to judge a limited set of behaviors, these systems simply assign a single score to each name in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool.

On the other end of the spectrum, more advanced solutions let you use multiple scores for multiple products, score website visits and form-fills based on their relevance, score based on complex behaviors, and separate interest from fit.

To pass along only the most qualified leads to sales, which of these lead scoring features will you need?

FEATURE: MULTIPLE LEAD SCORES

If a lead is very interested in Product A, but not interested in Product B, a single lead score will only tell you that they’re generically interested—not which product they’re interested in. Multiple leads scores allow you to measure interest in multiple products, and also allow you to set up workflows triggered by those scores.

YOU NEED MULTIPLE LEAD SCORES IF:

n You have multiple product lines n You have multiple business units n You want to create automated workflows specific to one product or another

19 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

ALIGNING MARKETING AND SALES

FEATURE: CUSTOM SCORING CAMPAIGNS

Generic scoring campaigns allow you to score behaviors like “filling out a form” or “visiting your website,” but they can’t take the relevance of these forms and websites into account.

Most marketers want to assign different scores to different forms—for example, a form fill related to a sales inquiry should be scored more highly than a form to unlock an early-stage ebook. Generic scoring also can’t score visits to different pages on your website differently—for example, a visit to your pricing page would be scored the same as a visit to your jobs listing page.

YOU NEED CAPABILITIES BEYOND GENERIC SCORING IF:

n You want to score certain forms more highly than others

n You want to score visits to certain web pages more highly than others

FEATURE: SCORING BASED ON BEHAVIOR

Basic marketing automation solutions can score a small selection of web and email behavior—form fills, landing page visits, email opens, and clicks.

But buyers today are multi-channel—they also engage with your brand on social networks, and at in-person events. The most basic lead scoring also can’t take timing into account—it can tell that someone has visited your website three times, but it can’t differentiate between “three times in one week” and “three times in one year.”

This kind of information could make a huge difference in the urgency of a sales follow up.

LOOK FOR A SOLUTION WITH BEHAVIOR-BASED SCORING IF:

n Your audience engages with you on social networks

n Your audience engages with you at in-person events

n You want the frequency of a prospect’s engagement with your website to affect their score

20 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

ALIGNING MARKETING AND SALES

FEATURE: SCORING BASED ON FIT

Knowing that a potential buyer is interested in your company is important, but to accurately score them, you need to know they’re actually a good fit—before your sales team pursues them. That means you’ll want to take into account both demographics and firmographics.

For example, if you sell SaaS solutions for enterprise businesses, a person who lists his job title as “student” might not be a good fit, even if he’s very engaged with your website. Very basic lead scoring can’t distinguish between a member of your core audience, and a person who’s highly unlikely to buy.

FIT-BASED LEAD SCORING MAY BE NECESSARY IF:

n You want to target specific people with specific demographics

n You want to target companies with specific firmographics

n You’re concerned about passing the highest quality prospects to your sales team in a prioritized fashion

Sales Insight

In the era of “Big Data,” you’re probably collecting more information about prospects than your sales team can actually use. But while sales doesn’t need to know about every email open, form conversion, or webpage visit by a prospect, you do need a system for filtering and presenting them with the most useful, relevant prospect data.

If your marketing automation solution doesn’t provide that system, you’re back to square one—potentially bombarding your sales team with meaningless, isolated activities. As you evaluate marketing automation, ask how each solution gives sales the insight they really need.

FEATURE: PRIORITIZED LEADS AND ALERTS

Every organization has a unique sales cycle, which is why sophisticated marketing automation solutions allow you to define which leads are most qualified, and which activities should trigger alerts to sales.First, find out whether potential solutions can prioritize your leads by who is most likely to buy.

21 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

ALIGNING MARKETING AND SALES

YOU’LL WANT THE ABILITY TO PRIORITIZE LEADS AND ALERTS IF:

n You want your sales team to target leads with the most buying potential first

n You want your sales team to consider lead score when deciding who to contact

n You have a variety of content, ranging from early-stage to late-stage

n Visits to different pages on your website might indicate different levels of interest

n You want to create unique alerts for your sales team

Some solutions can prioritize leads by their score (which ideally takes demographics, firmographics, and behavioral criteria into account), before delivering the list to sales.

Next, consider alert prioritization. Alerts are typically sent the sales team when a lead completes a relevant activity—for example, you might create a unique alert for when someone visits your website’s pricing page twice in one day. But basic marketing automation can only employ generic alerts.

These solutions can alert the sales team when any piece of content is downloaded, but you wouldn’t be able to prioritize one piece of content (like a product-specific demo) over another (like an early-stage ebook).

22 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

ALIGNING MARKETING AND SALES

UNDERSTANDING WHAT WORKS One of the biggest wins for today’s marketers is the ability to prove their ROI (Return On Investment). While the success of marketing campaigns was once difficult—if not impossible—to measure, marketing automation has empowered marketers to definitively tie their activities to won deals.

As you evaluate solutions, consider the type of reports you’ll need to draw clear links between campaigns and revenue. The more clearly these links are drawn, the easier it will be make data-informed decisions about how to spend future budget, and to base your spending decisions on what has (and hasn’t) led to new business.

Here are some of the core features that will help you tie revenue to campaigns:

FEATURE: PROGRAM ROI ANALYTICS

To understand which channel, program type, or specific vendor works best for your

business, you’ll need to be able to sort and compare different campaigns.

You’ll want access to important metrics (like revenue, pipeline, investment, new names generated, SQL’s generated, demographic fit, etc.) for each program, and you’ll want to be able to view that information by channel, type, and vendor.

You also may want to compare different content offers. For example, you might be running a content syndication program or a sponsored email list with an outside vendor, giving you access to a database of leads who fit your criteria. Sophisticated program reporting can tell you which content works best for each database.

LOOK FOR PROGRAM ROI ANALYTICS IF:

n You use multiple vendors to run marketing programs, and you want to know which to renew

n You run marketing programs on multiple channels, and you want to know which channels work best for new names, opportunities, and pipeline

n You run paid programs (like content syndication or sponsored email), and you want to know which content works best for each

23 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

FEATURE: MULTI-TOUCH (MT) REPORTING

Today, it typically takes between five and ten touches from marketing (such as an ad, a webinar, an email, a piece of content, etc.) to close a deal with a new customer. If that’s the case in your organization—or you suspect that it is—you’ll want a solution with what’s called “Multi-Touch” revenue attribution.

Basic marketing automation solutions only allow you to see the first or possibly last touch from marketing that influences a deal. For example, if a potential customer clicked on a display ad, downloaded a report from your website, attended an in-person event, watched a demo, and then bought your product, only the display ad would get credit. This is known as “First-Touch” revenue attribution, and while the first touch is important, and it doesn’t tell the whole story. The same is true for “Last-Touch” revenue attribution—it’s good information, but it’s incomplete.

Multi-Touch revenue attribution, on the other hand, would give credit to every campaign in the scenario above—your display ad, your report, your event, and your demo would all get credit for the deal.

MULTI-TOUCH REPORTING IS CRITICAL IF:

n You marketing team touches prospects multiple times before they become customers

n You want to give credit for closed deals to each marketing touch

n You want insight into which programs drive the best results so you can make the best decisions for future programs

n Your executive team wants specific data on how marketing investment drives results

24 l How to Evaluate Marketing Automation

UNDERSTANDING WHAT WORKS

EXPANDING THE VALUE OF MARKETING AUTOMATION Two other areas to consider when looking for a marketing automation solution are the ecosystem you’ll inherit and the expertise the vendor will provide.

For example, you might be looking for a webinar provider who is familiar with your

solution, or you might need translation services as you go after a new geography.

Look for a platform with a large ecosystem of partners who have marketing solutions that extend the capability of your marketing automation. If you’re new to marketing automation, you’ll want the vendor you select to have a variety of resources and support, as well as the ability to connect you with a community of like-minded marketers.

CONCLUSION As Raab and VentureBeat discovered in their survey, marketing automation is not a one-solution-fits-all technology. The most successful, satisfied users were those who took the time to identify their own unique needs, and to find a solution that could actually meet them.

Start with the five guidelines outlined by Raab—take your time, do your homework, focus on features, plan ahead, and deploy quickly. As you evaluate, use our framework above to decide what you will need to

be successful—whether it’s being able to quickly replicate programs, do sophisticated segmentation, or gain deep insights into your marketing’s ROI.

Finally, ask yourself how your needs will change in the future. Migrating to a new system is painful, so don’t underestimate your future growth. What kind of capabilities and functionality will you need six months, one year, or five years down the line? Select a solution that not only has what you need now, but can grow with you into the future.

Marketo (NASDAQ: MKTO) provides the leading marketing software for companies of all sizes to build and sustain engaging customer relationships. Spanning today’s digital, social, mobile and offline channels, Marketo’s® customer engagement platform powers a set of breakthrough applications to help marketers tackle all aspects of digital marketing from the planning and orchestration of marketing activities to the delivery of personalized interactions that can be optimized in real-time. Marketo’s applications are known for their ease-of-use, and are complemented by the Marketing Nation™, a thriving network of more than 250 third-party solutions through our LaunchPoint™ ecosystem and over 40,000 marketers who share and learn from each other to grow their collective marketing expertise. The result for modern marketers is unprecedented agility and superior results. Headquartered in San Mateo, CA with offices in Europe, Australia and a joint-venture in Japan, Marketo serves as a strategic marketing partner to more than 3,000 large enterprises and fast-growing small companies across a wide variety of industries. For more information, visit marketo.com.

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