"Truly" sophisticated marketing automation

You hear a lot in the marketing automation industry around sophisticated marketing. I guess the question is "what really is sophisticated marketing"? Marketbright's new campaign flow designer is a perfect example of sophistication. As marketing and sales guru Mike Pilcher says: "making the complicated simple". Yet even by simplifying the infrastructure for building campaigns with an easy drag and drop tool, you still have to put some thought power into marketing strategy and nurture flow layouts. Sophisticated marketing requires a comprehensive marketing solution that was designed by marketers for marketers. Some vendors claim to be sophisticated, yet at the same time they make claims such as “get up and running in less than one day”. This may only seem obvious to the truly sophisticated marketers, but getting up and running in one day is not sophistication. Let’s get that straight. I would consider sophistication the following:

a. Global approach to ensure message consistency, branding and empower local teams to run programs for specific vertical, geographic and target markets.
b. Consistent data ensuring a 360 degree view of the prospect and drive accurately targeted messages.
c.Common processes from a template-based system driving common processes across all marketing groups, increasing marketing velocity and consistency.
d. Accurate measurement of all marketing metrics providing insight into the prospect lifecycle providing the platform for better decision-making, optimal targeting and improved response rates.
e. Ease of use and powerfully rich functionality from drawing lists to creating and managing campaigns.
f. Simple CRM integration for example, Salesforce.com.

In order to deliver a truly sophisticated solution it requires careful assessment and guidance on best practices. Training and implementation are keys to success, and in order to truly reach sophistication... one day roll-outs are going to end up in disaster.

Reaching Top Executives with Marketing Automation

Most enterprise selling reps are familiar with "Selling to Vito". The concept of reaching top executives and decision makers by delivering tailored information that matches a companies business objectives. This is not a new concept, and it has been proven successful over and over again by sales reps. Yet it requires spending many hours of research and development in messaging. Instead, wouldn't you rather that your sales reps focus on qualified opportunities with decision makers?

With marketing automation eveything changes. Bringing the budget holders into the conversation and developing an ongoing relationship with them is no longer the role of Sales, it is the role of Marketing through effective nurturing. Marketers are faced with the challenge of capturing the attention of the busiest executives and keeping their interest until they are ready to buy so that Sales can move faster through the selling process.

Marketbright is hosting a best practice webinar to discuss the topic of nurturing to C-Level executives. In this session we will raise discussion on the following:

- How to get the attention of a C-Level executive and keep it.
- How to automate the nurturing process to reduce time and resources.
- How to align Sales and Marketing to quicken the selling process to convert contacts to customers.

Join us on Thursday, July 16th 2009 9:00am (PT). Sign up here