‘Marketing automation’ is one of those buzzwords at the moment, like ‘social CRM’ or ‘life-cycle marketing’. It seems you can’t go to a conference or do a blog search without these current terms popping up. Already raking in $3.2 billion by 2010, the marketing automation industry is expected to grow to $4.8 billion in 2015. What’s all the fuss about?

What is marketing automation software?

“A category of technology that allows companies to streamline, automate, and measure marketing tasks and workflows, so they can increase operational efficiency and grow revenue faster.”

“The art and science of automatically managing the targeting, timing and content of your outbound marketing messages in response to prospects’ inbound actions and online behaviours.”

Taken from two of the leading providers, these definitions together pretty much cover the technical aspect, but let’s get practical. What can marketing automation actually do for you as a businessperson, as a company? 

5 ways you should be using marketing automation

1. Start hyperspecific targeting

Targeting select groups of buyers with the right messages increases likelihood of purchase. But don’t limit yourself to simple demographics like age or job title; you could also target leads according to how they responded to your campaigns in the past, or what they do when they visit your website.

Jupiter Research compared untargeted campaigns with campaigns based on clickstream data, finding that conversion rates can be up to 400% higher for the latter.

2. Smarten up your email marketing

You’re already using email? Great. But is it a one-size-fits-all approach? A study by the Direct Marketing Association found that triggered messages have a click rate 119% higher than other messages.

That means marketers should be programming specific messages to be sent in response to visitor actions, such as purchase confirmation, anniversary or shopping cart abandonment.

3. Nurture leads until they’re ready to buy

This is possibly the biggest advantage of marketing automation. You know that most people who visit your website are just browsing – they’re not ready to buy. But down the line, many will be.

As long as you can capture their details, with a piece of gated content for example, marketing automation lets you set up a series of communications designed to take them through the buying process. Based on their behaviour, you can score prospects from ‘cold’ to ‘warm’ so that your salespeople can allocate their time where it’s most likely to be fruitful.

4. Crack the Social Media Mystery

By this I refer to the lack of measurement that often goes with social media campaigns. Last year, a Satmetrix study found that 67% of companies do not measure or quantify social media engagement. For B2B companies, this figure rises to 75%.

The various marketing automation software providers try to solve this problem by providing integrated dashboards, which deliver analytics across all platforms including social media campaigns. As well as traffic, there is often an emphasis on displaying ROI, which helps you to judge which online marketing channels are working best.

5. Get More Personal with Customers

Yes, you read that right. The term ‘marketing automation’ might conjure up an idea of pushing prospects along through a standardised, dehumanised process. But actually, having access to a high level of information about individual behaviour, needs and interests should make it easier to personalise communications and service to your customers as well.  

Discover the 5 Truths of Modern Marketing.

By offering best practice advice, training or enhanced features, you let your customers get more out of their investment with your products or services. This can improve the value of your brand, customer satisfaction and retention, and is central to what has been termed the 5 Truths of Modern Marketing.

Admit it: you rely on all manner of high-tech gadgets to get you through the day. How many hours could you go without checking your smartphone? Could you give up your laptop for a week? Perhaps, but only because your tablet does pretty much all of the same things. These figures reveal the extent of the global love affair with gadgets, and a few surprising recent trends.

Smartphones: Image vs. popularity

Everyone knows the statistic about more people globally owning mobiles than toothbrushes. But did you know that over one in five of these 5 billion phones is a smartphone?

You may not be surprised to learn that people between the ages of 25 and 34 are most likely to own a smartphone, but the market leader is not who you might expect it to be.

Apple has just 19.4% of the global smartphone market share by the end of 2012. With 68% of global mobile market, Android is blazing ahead in terms of sheer numbers. Yet it could be argued that the iPhone wins the image war, with one 2012 study even linking iPhone ownership to higher levels of education, cultural consumption and earning.

The Tablet: Saviour of traditional media?

In 2012, the tablet really took off. 11% of adults globally now own a tablet computer. And while the smartphone revolution came hand in hand with the rise of apps and mobile gaming — handheld entertainment, there are clear signs that the tablet market is more news- and information-focused.

About two-thirds of tablet users have a news app, and 53% of tablet users access news stories daily on their devices, compared to just 30% who use them for daily gaming. What’s more, the tablet could represent a lifeline for established media organisations, with 80-90% of users seeking news direct from a named source, rather than via an aggregator or search engine.

Switching on to switch off?

Although we might talk about ‘switching off’ and relaxing, in fact the evidence shows that when it comes to downtime, people aren’t putting down their gadgets. Instead, we simply change which ones we use and how we use them.

It’s currently estimated that 49% of all mobile users engage in mobile gaming, and by 2016 it’s expected that 53% of the world’s general population will be mobile gamers. Meanwhile, social gaming numbers continued to grow in 2012, rising by 10%.

E-Readers reached general usage before complex tablets, and continue to be popular. In 2011, 16% of Americans were reading e-books, and this rose to 23% in 2012. Internet retail giant Amazon leads the way; 62% of e-reader owners had a Kindle at the end of 2012.

These figures were gathered by marketing automation company Eloqua to mark TFM&A (the Technology for Marketing and Advertising show), and its open competition to win a Modern Marketing Survival Kit including An Amazon Kindle and £625 in Apple vouchers.

The world’s financial troubles have put marketing departments under greater pressure to prove their worth. But are they rising to the challenge? While research shows that 80% of CEOs now mistrust the value of marketing work, a recent survey also found that fewer than 1 in 3 B2B companies properly measure ROI for marketing activity.

A significant body of research, collated in an infographic by marketing automation company Eloqua, indicates that there is a divide between the expectations of corporate management and the practices of marketing departments.

View the full infographic in Campaign ROI World.

CEOs expect measurable marketing results

There is a significant level of concern at board level that marketing needs to be more accountable, as this Fournaise Group study of CEOs found:

• 80% of CEOS say they don’t really trust the work done by marketers
• 80% say marketers are too disconnected from the financial realities
• 78% believe marketers lose sight of generating quantifiable customer demand
• 74% want marketers to become 100% ROI-focused

Marketers agree in principle, lag behind in practice

Marketers seem to recognise this perception problem created by lack of concrete measurement. Responding to a Forrester survey, 76% of B2B marketers agreed that ‘ability to track marketing ROI gives marketing more respect.’

But when it comes to implementing an effective ROI measurement system, B2B marketing departments are clearly failing to deliver.

Less than 1 in 3 companies properly calculate marketing ROI

Only 28% of B2Bs surveyed by eMarketer answered ‘yes’, when asked ‘Do you calculate ROI to assess marketing effectiveness?’ A further 29% said they calculated it ‘somewhat’, while a full third (33%) said that their company did not calculate marketing ROI at all.

Social media measurement is low

The research also shows that among the companies that do calculate marketing ROI, often using marketing automation software, email and SEO are the best-measured channels, while the value of social media and blogging is far less monitored.

The infographic also reveals the role of marketing automation software, the use of Google Analytics and which ROI metrics B2B marketers find most effective.

Data and statistics taken from the Modern Marketer Universe.

Do you get around? Be honest. Are you the sort of social media user that likes to post, tweet, reply, retweet, repin and share left, right and centre?

Do you get butterflies in your stomach when you see that your ‘number’ (of contacts) has leapt up over the weekend?

Do you frequently find yourself in brief little conversations with connections you’ve never spoken to before, only for it to go nowhere in the long run?

What’s your number?

Don’t get me wrong; social media is all about interaction, and yes, you can and should talk to strangers. But it’s not just about following; it should be about following through.

Social media users who are all about racking up the numbers should take heed. Adding notches to your virtual bedpost is all very well, but you have to consider quality as well as quantity.

We’ve all come across those random ‘people’ who have about a million followers on Twitter, or a trillion Facebook friends. Don’t tell anyone, but… a lot of accounts are simply paying for these attentions. Seedy, or what?

Here are some better ways to up your following

Careful you don’t get a reputation…

No-strings-attached fun is the way to go once in a while, but for real results and mutually beneficial relationships, you have to invest time and effort.

Don’t be afraid to have personal conversations with members of your community. After you share a piece of content – perhaps an article, a picture or a link – you will hopefully get some responses. Don’t sit there counting how many people retweet or share your post; instead reply to someone who has written a response. Ask their opinion. Start a dialogue.

Find something real

It might seem time-consuming and inefficient to concentrate on a few, when you could be out sowing your wild oats. But a wide net is not always the right approach. Social media helps you identify the people who are really engaged with your brand – don’t ignore them, start a relationship with them.

These are your brand advocates and influencers.

Take the time to nurture your relationships and you’ll reap the results. Next time you launch a viral video, these are the people who will share it. When you need to publicise a new product, these are the people who will help spread the word. And if, as you should always be, you’re looking for customer feedback, these are the ones who will give it to you.

For more on the art of wooing your customers online, have a look at this free eGuide: The Marketing Funnel of Love

Social media as a marketing tool

Only 64% of the UK companies surveyed use social media as a marketing tool, meaning that over a third (36%) do not. Within those companies, the PR/communications department is most often responsible for the social media strategy and output (in 26% of cases).

Interestingly, the next most common arrangement is for social media to be shared across different departments (23%), while only 11% of companies using social media marketing leave it under the control of the website team.

Companies cited three top reasons for using social media: creating brand awareness (83%), encouraging social sharing (56%) and gaining trust and followers (55%). Under a third (32%) said they use it for lead generation, while only 16% use social media to assess market perception of their brand.

The most popular social networks

B2B marketers clearly favour the ‘big three’ social networks as marketing tools. Those who use social media for demand generation, 80% use Facebook, 78% use Twitter and 51% use LinkedIn. The ‘professional social network’ trails behind despite figures suggesting that it is almost 300% more effective than Facebook and Twitter for lead generation.

Demand and lead generation

Over half of B2B companies are not tapping into social media’s potential as a lead generation tool. When asked “Is your company using social media for demand generation?”, only 35% of respondents said yes. No was the answer from 53%, while 12% were unsure..

Most companies (43%) admit they have no strategy in place for incorporating social media into demand generation. A third were unclear of the value, while 18% said a lack of tools prevented them from using social media for lead generation.

Is the future social for B2B marketers?

The study indicates that B2B marketers are planning to use social media marketing increasingly. Three quarters of the sample indicated ways their company plans to use it in the future, with “to better understand market perception” as the leading goal (17%).

Marketers expect to see benefits from using social media to generate demand, including increased reach and brand awareness (50%), driving inbound leads to increase revenue (35%) and measurable impact on demand or revenue (28%).

‘Intriguing’ new tools

With a variety of new social media applications and tools appearing continually, Eloqua asked B2B marketers which they find most ‘intriguing’. Social sharing buttons raise the most interest (29%), followed by social activity widgets (22%) and social sign-on (10%).

The original infographic, along with further research and insights, can be viewed at the Modern Marketer mission.

Marketers often refer to the sales team as incompetent ‘cowboys’

This is not a new conflict. On the contrary, it’s a Cold War that’s been brewing and fermenting for decades, erupting here and there in small skirmishes over the phone, passive-aggressive emails and even the occasional explosive boardroom bust-up.

’Fraid so. The most common sign is a hostile war of words. Apparently, marketers are ‘irrelevant pen-pushers’, while salespeople are ‘simple-minded cowboys.’ Marketing and sales teams bad-mouth each other constantly:

87% of the terms used to describe the ‘other side’ are negative, according to figures reported by marketing automation firm Eloqua.

Who started it?

You might as well ask the proverbial chicken and egg question. A better thing to consider is why they are fighting. The answer often comes down to a poor definition and division of roles. While sales and marketing teams both deal with turning prospects into customers, their functions should be complementary but separate.

For example, marketing researcher Jeff Ernst found that sales teams were were using only 10% of the marketing collateral supplied by the ‘enemy department’, spending 30 hours unnecessarily creating their own material.

Are there any casualties?

When two crucial parts of a business work out-of-sync, the collateral damage falls on the organisation itself. Up to 80% of leads get dropped due to poor handover practices between sales and marketing. There is even confusion over when to pass over details — less than half of organisations actually have a consistent definition of what a sales-ready lead is.

Can there be a truce?

Frankly, there has to be. Organisations with strong sales and marketing alignment have been shown to achieve 20% growth in annual revenue. The lengthening of the buying cycle and the rise in independent research by potential customers isn’t helping matters.

Poor sales-marketing alignment alone now causing 4% annual decline in some companies.

B2B marketing author Ardath Albee put it like this:

“Considering that much of the buying process is completed prior to sales engagement, it’s imperative that your salespeople have the insights they need to step into the conversation seamlessly.”

Ever heard anyone quote, ‘War is more profitable than peace’? 

In this case, the opposite is true. The consensus seems very much that getting the sales and marketing teams to wave their respective white flags could be a shrewd business move. How do you think this goal can be achieved?

These research figures were taken from Alignment World at the Modern Marketer universe.

A world of toxic data keeps email open rates low

More and more companies rely on generating leads from consumer collected online, but research reported by Eloqua shows that 14% of this data is faked, while 30% is valid for just one year or less.

21% hit ‘mark as spam’

A further hurdle is the inbox. Email marketing targets those potential customers who have signed up to receive updates via online forms. However, 21% of the recipients report the messages they receive as spam, which condemns emails from the sender company to end up lost in the junk mail folder.

Open rates ‘as low as 6%’ for purchased data

There is, as you no doubt already know, a healthy trade in data purchasing. Many organisations out there offer to sell data — lists of email addresses — to other companies looking to boost their marketing databases. In the vast majority of cases, it would seem that this is a bad investment.

The problem, of course, is that these lists contain people with often no prior contact with the company contacting them. Factoring in the low recognition rates, and the annoyance factor — nobody wants to receive a blatantly spammy email — it’s no wonder that the vast majority of email campaigns run using purchased lists end up in the junk folder. Only 6 – 8% are opened.

Is email marketing dead?

These sobering figures seem to spell doom for email marketing. However, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this can still be a highly effective way of reaching customers. The key issue is the quality of data used to distribute the lists.

Here are three key steps towards building a better email database:

Cleansing

Hands up if you’ve ever given a false name or email address online? So have I. In fact 14% of data from online forms is fake. A good junk scanner helps to weed out spoof accounts and false data.

Maintenance

Even the accurate data doesn’t remain accurate for long. A 2.5% monthly decay rate means that in a year’s time, 30% of data can be rendered useless. And just under a third of subscribers change their email addresses annually. Regular maintenance helps to remove inaccuracies and inactive addresses.

Tweaking

To minimise wastage and maximise ROI, companies often use marketing automation systems. These are programmed to monitor email databases for inactivity, clues of interest or disinterest. Regular manual checking is also vital.

For more insights into the current state of email, social and mobile marketing, visit Eloqua Modern Marketer.