I was honored and excited to have Mat Sweezey on a recent RingLead webinar covering marketing automation myths. As the author of Marketing Automation for Dummies and a marketing automation evangelist at salesforce.com, Sweezey knows a thing or two about this challenging yet exciting thing called marketing automation.

During the webinar, I had a chance to ask Sweezey some questions from the audience, as well as some of my own. Here’s a look at his answers.

How do B2B and B2C differ when it comes to marketing automation?

Let’s start from the top and move down. First, how is the purchase made? B2B is considered a purchase, while B2C is often considered the impulse buy. Nurturing works in both B2B and B2C, however, in B2B, you’re nurturing somebody over a much longer sales cycle, whereas a B2C purchase, the nurture has a much shorter timeframe around a specific product.

What is one marketing automation myth you’re constantly facing?

Many believe marketing automation is for marketers, but that’s simply not true. Sit your sales reps down and let your marketing automation vendor do a five-minute demo on behavioral-based tracking. I call it the “Eye of God.” The salesperson will see how they can get access to every interaction, with any marketing touch point, from any of their prospects. This changes their world. Now they know who to talk to, when to call, what to talk about, and more. Suddenly they realize that they can benefit from marketing automation, too.

If you can show your sales team that marketing automation is not a marketing tool, but that it actually helps them scale, become more effective with their time, and close a lot more business, then sales will understand it, adopt it, and support it.

How much automation should sales reps be doing?

While sales should be involved in marketing automation, Marketing should own the platform. Only marketing should have the ability to make administrative changes, launch programs, etc. That way sales is not changing the lead status or launching emails that are out of marketing’s overall plan. Marketing and sales need to sit down, figure out the marketing automation flow and automate from there.

Thanks for your time today, Sweezey, and great insights.

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