Marketing automation has come a long way in popularity and acceptance. Sirius Decisions estimates the adoption rate of marketing automation to increase by 50 percent by 2015.
But success the of marketing automation tools depends on having clearly defined goals in place. This becomes even more important since the marketing landscape is moving away from the traditional ways of acquiring leads, such as increasing visibility and adopting innovative campaigns. With 50 percent of prospects not ready to convert immediately, the automation program needs to incorporate not just all the different lead generating activities but also the entire scope of lead nurturing components.
The marketer, for instance, needs to identify the specific need of a prospect, have a clear cut understanding of the solution offered, and the message to be communicated. The marketer also needs to understand the ideal prospect, and figure out methods to approach him or her. A good rule of thumb is to profile the specific characteristics of top 20 percent of the customers, who normally account for about 80 percent of all sales, as ideal prospects.
With these parameters in place, the marketer can then apply automation to find out where a prospect stands in relationship to the brand and make suitable engagement interventions aimed at nurturing the prospect. Ways to do so include applying the automated solution to score the prospect against the ideal prospect, and to score the effectiveness of the engagement initiatives versus the responses.
This webinar does a good job of further exploring this methodology of painting a picture of the ideal prospect in detail. Are you profiling your customers effectively?
