Technology in Business Marketing Automation
Defining & finding its place
Marketing automation technology has a
direct impact on bottom-line cost reduction and top-line growth. For a very conservative definition, marketing automation is seen as technology that helps
automate marketing management and
customer engagement. In some cases
marketing can be automated with formalized processes, but excluding technology, this is more marketing optimization
and process. Technology can automate
manual, repetitive, mundane tasks in the
marketing function and therefore, would
be seen to exclusively provide the
source of marketing automation.
There are two sides to marketing automation:
•
Marketing Management Automation. This encompasses automation
of internal marketing processes and
includes things like budgeting and
planning, workflow and approvals,
the marketing calendar, internal collaboration, digital asset creation and
management, and essentially everything that supports the operational
efficiency of the internal marketing
function.
• Customer Engagement Automation. This encompasses automation
across one or more marketing channels: email, the website, intranets,
direct mail, and dozens of marketing
channels. In other words, the technology helps automate the process
of engaging with customers across
one or more channels. This might
include setting up an email campaign, sending it out, and tracking
performance; or creating a new
home page with a contact form; or
more importantly, managing communication with a prospect across multiple channels and tracking their behavior to identify the relative potential to purchase.
The line between marketing management and customer engagement is very
thin , and technology providers that deliver marketing automation typically automate elements of each.
in the right technology for the organization's resources and culture.
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tion between performance and the use
of automated technology in the marketing function. However, it's important to
note, that well performing firms display a
unique set of organizational capabilities
that allow them to extract more value
from technology investments.
Despite the noted benefits, challenges
abound when it comes to automating
marketing activities.
These include:
Without a measurement and analytics
component, all "automated" technology • multiple siloed niche solutions for
is of little more value than a car without a
automating marketing activities. This
steering wheel. As such marketing autois a huge problem for most o