Why Believing these 5 Marketing Automation Myths Makes you A Rookie

October 20, 2016 6:35 pm Published by Leave your thoughts

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I had recently been discussing marketing automation. Not with a prospect, but with a genuine friend of mine who had started his own business in the sports medicine field. He was doing ok for himself and I was very happy for him. But we had very different views on marketing automation, he was going on and on about how he didn’t have time to learn such a system for not much benefit, he thought marketing automation was impersonal and his main sales approach was face to face or over the phone. All I could think was WHAT A ROOKIE. His novice within the subject of marketing automation made me realise that maybe other people might be making these rookie mistakes as well. I mean, he is highly intelligent, switched on and motivated, so if he couldn’t see it, there had to be more.

So here we are, why believing these 5 marketing automation myths makes you a rookie.

1. Marketing Automation is only for “Marketing” people

It still amazes me every time I speak  with a CEO or a sales manager and they can’t believe how much marketing automation is about the sales process. I understand, most people identify marketing automation due to the name as only for the marketing department, but this is so wrong. Marketing automation can have major implications on an organisations sales process and the software is directly related to all stages of the typical sales process. When used alongside a CRM system, marketing automation allows sales people to follow their prospects through every step of the way, observing how their prospects are engaging with their organisation’s content. This can have a major impact on how a sales person works, saving them time by not having to follow up on unqualified leads. The goals of your marketing automation system need to be determined by both marketing and sales departments together.

2. It’s too impersonal

Is sending the right message to the right person at the right time too impersonal? That’s what marketing automation is capable of.

[ctt template=”5″ link=”5gKk6″ via=”no” ]Is sending the right message to the right person at the right time too impersonal? That’s what marketing automation is capable of. [/ctt]

If you have had a bad experience with marketing automation in the past, this isn’t marketing automation but rather the work of a bad marketer. When done correctly (the way it should be), marketing automation should help make the sales material more relevant & beneficial in the buying process of the prospect. If it doesn’t, then it shouldn’t be there no matter through what means it is communicated. Period. Marketing automation isn’t about mass email sending which I think many believe. It’s all about nurturing and where e-mail is only one way, albeit a very cost-effective one. Unfortunately, there might be a few bad eggs creating this myth though, and that’s sad, but not a reason to not do it.

3. I’m not technical enough to use Market Automation

It is totally understandable to think that a marketing automation system could be way to technical for your expertise. But if you have ever used a CRM system and an email service than you are more than technical enough to master a marketing automation platform in no time! There is no need to hire new IT guys to manage your system, marketing automation systems have faced a lot of backlash because of their dashboards. Because of this, the majority of marketing automation systems have gone through whole re-designs with a focus pf becoming user friendly, which is only good news for all of you guys out there.

4. The Set & Forget Mind-Set

Having a set it and forget it mind-set when it comes to your lead nurturing isn’t what marketing automation is about. To get the full benefit of using marketing automation you need to continuously check-in on your campaigns, doing this, both you and your leads will benefit. In particular when you are at the beginning of your journey with marketing automation, you want to monitor how people are engaging with your campaigns. How people relate to your campaigns is feedback and you should be observing this feedback to your benefit. Making sure you analyse a new marketing campaign every few weeks not only allows you to make adjustments to what isn’t working but it also allows you to manually follow-up your leads when they are at their peak interest.

5. But we’re only a small organisation, it’s too expensive for us

This was true a numbers of years ago as marketing automation was mostly reserved for the ‘big guys’ but this is no longer true. The fastest growing adopters of marketing automation systems is now small to medium organisations. Now if you think about where you place within your market & industry against your competitors, is claiming that you’re too small to be using marketing automation really the way to grow your business? (Obviously, we talk for our own stuff, and we ourselves at Sonician provide our Otto-system very reasonably priced which has the easy-to-use design, and is an insightful system that provides the tools that can actually make a difference to your bottom line). But what’s most important is of course as always that you understand your organisation’s goals and finding the system with tools that suits your needs best.

 

If you’ve made it this far, I think it’s fair to say you’re no longer a rookie (Yay!).

But in all seriousness, marketing automation isn’t just a passing trend, it’s here to stay, and there’s good reason for this. It has been proven as a reliable, powerful, and necessary sales and marketing tool when used correctly. These benefits are the reason why we now have so many options available to businesses of all sizes, if it was just a passing fad it surely wouldn’t have become so fundamental to so many organisations. Because of its large surge in popularity, unfortunately myths have been spread which have actually kept many businesses with a need from getting started. If you’re looking for a marketing automation solution or only beginning to explore the idea, remember what is fact and what is a myth when researching the topic.

 

Your own next step in Marketing Automation?

If you think improving your online  marketing is important for you, I would suggest you try out our very own 2-min test here from us at Sonician in order for you to figure out if Marketing Automation could be for you. You’ll find it directly at: www.sonician.com/survey/2mintest/

 

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This post was written by Fleur

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