Daan Pepijn says, “Regardless of industry, marketing and sales can take up a huge chunk of the operating budget. As the saying goes, “You have to spend money to make money.” While that may be true, using modern IT solutions can amplify and automate your marketing efforts while reducing cost. After all, 78 percent of successful marketers say their marketing automation systems are the most responsible for improving revenues. Improved Workflow and Efficiency Better lead nurturing means a shorter workflow overall. You’re focusing your time and effort on the prospects you know are most... [...]

Malinda Wilkinson says, “There is no denying that marketing automation delivers results: a 10% increase in marketing contribution to pipeline, a 20% increase in generated sales opportunities for nurtured leads versus non-nurtured leads, and converting 53% more leads to Marketing-qualified leads. So, why do just 5-10% of companies under $500 million in revenue use marketing automation? The most common reasons given for reluctance to adopt marketing automation range from lack of time or budget to the inability to get executive approval. One less-talked-about objection, however, is the most... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “What are the top-rated marketing automation products for small businesses, mid-market companies, and large enterprises? To find out, TrustRadius examined 1,647 reviews of 20 leading marketing automation (MA) software platforms posted before Nov 30, 2015 by authenticated customers. MA solutions were defined by the researchers as tools focused on “digital campaign planning, execution, automation, and measurement” that “automate and scale repetitive marketing tasks and the subsequent analysis of those efforts.” Each platform was ranked based on two... [...]

Barry Levine says, “Marketing technology these days is increasingly focused on the future, as marketing moves away from its traditional role of generating demand and more toward a new role of anticipating demand. Instead of a focus on the “mechanization” of common processes like email management, marketing tech is becoming infused with a kind of “marketing intuition” — predictive scoring, predictive marketing, intent data, personalization and other techniques that focus on what the customer or would-be customer is going to do or want next. That’s the premise I pitched to... [...]

Daan Pepijn says, “As social media becomes a growing part of everyone’s daily lives, businesses will need to explore the gold mine of opportunities from platforms like Facebook and Twitter by opening a line of communication with customers. According to a report sponsored by Social Media Examiner in 2012, 94 percent of businesses with a marketing department use social media as part of their platform. In the same report, more than half of marketers dedicate the equivalent of a full workday attempting to engage customers through popular social media platforms. This has created an environment... [...]

Ben Davis says, “Dear *|FNAME|*, the rationale for this article is that personality is more important than ever in marketing. Here are four (100B) reasons that automation necessitates a creative fightback. Copywriting can be automated (but anecdote, analogy and parallel cannot) Automated Insights, a US startup, provides software that’s used, most notably, by Associated Press to create earnings reports and baseball game reviews. The company itself advertises its software as turning ‘spreadsheets into stories’. There’s no doubt this has implications for journalism.... [...]

Scott Gerber says, “Keeping tabs on all those tweets and social media conversations can be a hassle, but you also don’t want to miss out on any leads. Using online tools is a great way to automate your marketing efforts, saving you a ton of time. You’ll be able to manage your social media accounts, schedule blog posts, update your website and more importantly, measure key metrics. The following entrepreneurs from YEC were asked what tools for marketing automation they couldn’t live without. Give these a try, and watch your business get major return on investment“. 9... [...]

Marketing Land team says, “Advancements in marketing automation have created an opportunity for agencies and marketing teams to be the lifeline for their clients. The roles for marketing teams have evolved into supporting a multitude of responsibilities including customer and prospect engagement, relationship management, data analysis and technical expertise. To manage these responsibilities, agencies and marketing teams need to take advantage of today’s marketing automation technology. Join panelists Brandee Johnson and Paige Musto for this Digital Marketing Depot webcast and learn how... [...]

Kevin Lee says, “People with a marketing automation backgrounds are traditionally difficult to hire, which makes that skillset that much more important for young marketers to acquire. I’ve read a number of career-oriented studies, from a variety of sources ranging from Venture Beat to LinkedIn, that point to a sustainable upward trend in the need for technical marketing skillsets. In LinkedIn’s 2014 survey of skills that were most instrumental in landing a new job, marketing campaign management came in at number 12 and a number of ancillary mar-tech skills – business intelligence,... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “It’s as easy as switching on your computer, sitting back, relaxing and letting the software do all your work for you while you secretly read Viz behind a copy of Marketing Week. Right? Right??? What is marketing automation? Let’s take a brief look back at the recent past. Marketing automation has actually been around since the 1980s. The use of software to automatically insert names and addresses from your database onto the letters and envelopes you wish to send to consumers by mail has been a mainstay of direct marketers for decades. The difference between then... [...]