Marketing Automation: the next step in B2B marketing

Both old and new generation B2B marketers will have to get used to the fact that clients and buyers will be more and more result driven and demanding. This brings many challenges for how do you prove what the ROI of marketing is? How do you prove that marketing actually has added value to the company? Marketing Automation has a solution but before you start, there are a few things to consider.

Work in unison

In many companies Marketing & Sales speak a completely different language: sales is busy with sales targets and hardly relies on Marketing. Marketing is busy with all sorts of marketing and communication activities without discussing this with sales and without using the same targets. When they are not working in unison it is very difficult to deliver good results.

Good communication and clear agreements are a prerequisite for collaborating successfully. You really have to start with streamlining the internal procedures, mapping what client and buyer want by creating buyer persona profiles and a transparent buying process. On top of that you need a clear Lead Management process.

When you use this fundamentally, Marketing Automation will be a technological progress that will benefit not only marketing but the entire company. We already mentioned the rise of Marketing Automation in Europe and interviewed David Raab who is an expert in marketing and analytics. Clearly, B2B Marketing is developing into a specific direction. Without a doubt Marketing Automation will be part of this. See also earlier articles about trends in B2B on Marketing facts.

With Marketing Automation you can:

• Set up email campaigns
• Create web forms
• Create landing pages
• Set up lead nurturing campaigns
• Generate marketing reports

The list goes on but these are a few basic functionalities. Then we are not even talking about progressive profiling, social publishing, competitive analyses and website visitor tracking. Marketing Automation gives you the possibility to keep an eye on the digital body language of your prospect/lead. With that we mean that you can trace exactly what your prospect is interested in and which content he viewed on your website. This way you can adapt your marketing campaigns and adjust to the potential buyer. In short, it is a tool that you can use for ‘listening’ to your target. More and more B2B marketers realize that they’d like such functionalities combined.

Prove it

B2B marketing is in a constant process of development. One in which we as marketers have to professionalize constantly. At the same time we have to prove ourselves more often – to colleagues, sales and the management team. Often people think that marketing is a black box. A large budget and a lot of energy are put into it, but it is not always clear what the organization gets in return. It is time for a change in this matter.

As mentioned before, Marketing Automation offers the opportunity to generate reports. Like many analytics tools it is possible to see how many visitors the website gets daily. However, Marketing Automation takes it a step further. It offers options for lead scoring, mapping online behavior of potential buyers and the average cost per generated lead. With the tool we show how many leads (Marketing Qualified Leads) the Marketing Sales team had and how Marketing actively contributes to generating and qualifying leads.

In short, a Marketing Automation system forces to adjust processes and that way leads to a better sales & marketing alignment. It stimulates a close cooperation and it works miracles on two (former) competing departments to one entity; a department that we also call the ‘Revenue Department’.

The ‘next-gen’ of B2B marketing

The next generation marketers should embrace Marketing Automation and focus entirely on technological developments. Companies will demand transparency within the organization more and more. When marketing can show that they support the sales team in all aspects, then the true ROI of marketing will come up. Subsequently, it will be clear what our added value is. The next generation B2B marketers will not avoid technology but will just embrace it. Will you be part of it?

Would you like to know more about Marketing Automation or would you like to watch a demo? Please contact us on [email protected]