Daniel Burstein says, “How do you move 18 to 20 segments of customers through the learning process of a complex sale? Mitch Zlotnik, President, and Seth Pauley, Vice President, both ofAudimute Acoustic Panels, used marketing automation to educate customers with content on a large buying decision. To learn the process they used to find the right marketing automation solution and agency to help create this low-touch ecommerce operation, I interviewed Mitch and Seth. “We’ve been rapidly growing for the last eight years. We’ve found a good partner selection helps you grow your business. A... [...]

Pete Prestipino says, “Email and cross-channel marketing solution StrongView recently released results of its 2015 Marketer Trends Survey, confirming much of what you may likely expect from the channel – its awesome.  For 61% of the nearly 400 respondents, email marketing remains the top target for increased investment in 2015. What’s more, a full 93% plan to maintain or increase investment in email for the 2014/2015 holiday shopping season. Marketers that participated in the survey also noted that they are increasing efforts to improve context and relevancy through the application... [...]

Erin Hogg says, “Small marketing teams with huge goals are a challenge for many email marketers. The task of increasing engagement with limited resources was a challenge HighQ, an enterprise cloud solution, faced, especially because there were no team members dedicated to email marketing. Read this case study to learn how bringing on a dedicated marketer to own the email channel in coordination with implementing marketing automation led to a 47% average open rate, a 18% average clickthrough rate and driving more engagement from prospects”. Marketing Automation: 2,500% email list growth for... [...]

Jason Siffring says, “So you’re thinking about implementing marketing automation? Don’t do it… yet. Marketing automation (MA) software can add to your workload, alienate important prospects, and cause you to add hundreds of dollars to the swear jar. Or… it can deliver real, positive ROI. The difference is planning. So don’t buy into a marketing automation solution until you’ve created a plan for implementing it. I know that’s sounds obvious—like “don’t build a house without a blueprint.” But it’s true—and too often ignored”. So... [...]

Erin Hogg says, “Precor, a top fitness equipment manufacturer, faced a challenge with its CRM system: it was not integrated with the lead nurturing cycle. The marketing team needed a way to identify profiles and personas for their potential customers in an attempt to leverage a holistic approach to the individual lead lifecycle. This candidate for the MarketingSherpa Award — Reader’s Choice Email Campaign implemented automation to nurture leads more effectively by serving up the right message at the right time. Read on to learn how Precor achieved 74% increase in new leads through revamping... [...]

Ben Davis says, “To some extent, the pros and cons of marketing automation are two sides of the same coin, similar to deciding whether to keep a boyfriend or girlfriend and writing ‘decisive’ in the ‘for’ column and ‘controlling’ in the ‘against’. There’s definitely a feeling of ‘how far can we take this’ within marketing. What started out as triggered emails is fast turning into a conversation where machine learning pops up fairly often. Automation won’t just be about doing the grunt work of comms, it will also be about... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “Nearly half of global marketers (45%) say the lack of an effective strategy is hampering the success of their marketing automation efforts, according to a recent report from Ascend2. Other factors seen as major hindrances to marketing automation success include budget limitations (44% of marketers cite as a challenging obstacle), lack of skilled staff (40%), insufficient data quality (34%), lack of management buy-in (23%), and the difficult-to-use interfaces of marketing automation software tools (22%)”. 2014 Marketing Automation Benchmarks and Trends MarketingProfs  [...]

Kem Ann King says, “Marketing automation is amazing. It lets you create marketing campaigns and automate processes more quickly and easily than you could ever imagine. That is, after you set everything up! The setting-up process itself is one of the most important factors determining marketing automation success, because it’s your first and best opportunity to get everything right. I know, because I recently implemented marketing automation software at SiteSpect, where I head up the marketing department. Having just completed a 60-day marketing automation implementation process, I... [...]

Sam Kusinitz says, “Triggered emails can be a great way to deliver the right content at the right time to the right people. A sincere thank you, a courteous confirmation, or a concerned abandoned cart message that automatically follows a specific behavior someone took on your website can be the difference between a very happy customer and losing a contact altogether. As long as the automated email is relevant, timely, and provides value to the recipient, triggered emails can be used to save marketers a tremendous amount of time and, more importantly, better engage your contact database. Take... [...]

Jonathan Pavoni says, “As the consuming public starts demanding more information about the products and services that they purchase, marketing automation software becomes a necessary tool for marketers in every industry. This software allows practitioners the ability to communicate to a large and diverse group of prospects over a specific amount of time. However, the “automation” part of marketing automation can sometimes lead to list fatigue and message saturation. The combination of this powerful software and a “hungry” sales team can churn through even a large database fairly... [...]