Accelerating Growth Through Better Sales & Marketing Decisions

A CRM Client in Need

We received a call recently from a manufacturer with 80 sales reps that was being diversified from its parent company. Their challenge was that they had to remove all of their current and historical data and reports from the parent Dynamics CRM, keep emails connected to CRM, and upgrade CRM to the newer version to leverage the mobile connectivity, all while keeping their sales team selling.  In addition, all of this activity was under an aggressive diversification time frame that had overloaded the manufacturer’s IT team.

InfoGrow stepped in with a fully engaged plan and brought up the manufacturer’s current CRM version in our data center. Our data migration plan kept the sales team live with no downtime.  They barely noticed that their CRM had been moved.  The client dropped me an email commenting that was a pleasure working with our team and that “it is a breath of fresh air to work with a partner who seems to understand our needs, responds timely, and provides support”. 

Working with another happy client, we are now focused on improving their user acceptance of CRM while helping them to streamline their sales and marketing processes.

If you’re considering a CRM system or wish to improve what you already have, please visit us here to learn more.

CRM Deployment: Do You Need the Drill or the Hole?

I was hanging a picture in my home over the weekend and it got me thinking about the deployments of CRM systems. Yeah, I know, I need a life. You can just ask my wife.

However, one question kept coming up as I was pondering this: Would organizations be more successful when deploying CRM systems if they separated their goals or expected benefits from the CRM tool itself? CRM is just a tool – the drill, if you will. Managers don’t want or care about another tool. They care about the benefits or results of using that tool – the hole – more customers, better customer retention and more transactions with customers. So the objective should not be to get really good at using CRM, but rather how to measure if we are meeting our expectations when using a CRM system. How well are we achieving the benefits of the hole?

Working from this mindset puts a completely different spin on how a company deploys a CRM system. First, as I just mentioned, you should have measurable expectations for why a CRM system is needed. “We need more or better holes and faster”.

This mindset will help you plan the deployment of CRM, developing phases for how your team will master their use of the tool to achieve the goal. Your goal, needing more holes, is never going away. If by some chance you acquire all the customers you’d ever want, you would still need to adjust the goal to be successful -- in this case, you might shift focus towards having better, more profitable customers.  A CRM effort is a never-ending journey rather than a one-stop destination. (Tweet this)

As with any journey, you will have mile-markers for how far you have traveled, and how far you wish to go the next day. Let’s recognize that these reference points are measurements. How about applying ways of measuring the effectiveness of staying the course, and how you are progressing towards getting more of those better customers? Do you think a CRM system can help with that?

The criticism of CRM is often around user acceptance. Organizations often put a drill in everyone’s hand and then tell everyone to go throughout the land and drill holes. Correcting the root cause of user acceptance issues can be found by thinking through some of the following questions. Do the users all agree on what a good hole looks like? What shape, depth, angle or size? Is the drill too heavy for some to hold? Is it a manual drill rather than an electric drill? Is there electric around where the hole should be placed? And finally how, as a manager, do you know that everyone in the organization has the same answer for each of these questions?

Perhaps there is a need for a phased plan, and a way of measuring your progress on this never-ending journey.

 

A well-oiled CRM system gets you the hole and provides the measurements needed to be effective.

 

I would be happy to have a conversation regarding the desired hole you are trying to make and what approach to using tools might work best.

You can sign up for a Free Sales and Marketing Assessment at - infogrow.us/assessment-90 or give me a call anytime at - 800-897-9807 ext. 224

More Sales This Month – This Quarter – Next … ?

Do you know what is going on in your pipeline?

I was at an organization this past week with lots of data and expensive technologies, but they are failing to achieve their expected sales outcome.  Their question was how is this possible?  

In their case the technology, even the information, is not the issue. The real issue is that they don’t have a view into their sales pipeline process.

Their account reps and managers lack a view into the sales pipeline process through their CRM.  As such, using the advantages of a sales opportunity pipeline to drive next action is not relevant.  The information associated with the prospect opportunity is not aligned with their sales process. So even the basics, such as what step in the process is the opportunity, or what action will it take to move the prospect to the next step is missing from CRM to guide the sale rep.

In this environment, one can forget about having a valuable sales forecast. Far too many of their opportunities are not only not being won, but neither lost, as they end up as a No Decision.  Without vision into the sales process, the no-man’s land of no decision is where the opportunities go to die a slow death, fading off over time.  These opportunities get discussed each week until they just drop out of everyone’s memory.

 How to Fix

 You may have a sales and marketing system, CRM, which can deliver up this information. However, is it working to drive the activity for the growth goals that are expected this year?  

Step one: Can you flowchart the sales process?  If not, you cannot expect a CRM system to be of much help.

Step two: Are you able to list what action(s) the buyer needs to take in order to move them to the next step in your process?  Do you know your next sales or marketing actions that will help them move forward?

Step three: Set up your sales process inside of CRM to drive the next action of the sales rep, or marketing, and in a way that gives you vision into the process and everyone’s actions or lack of actions.

Step four: Monitor, measure, monitor more and make changes as needed.

 

Keep in mind that CRM is not a destination but a journey.  Your monitoring and measurements will better position you to fine tune the process.

 

Should Sales & Marketing be changed to Marketing & Sales?

A recent study by Marketo and The Economist found that the majority of marketers feel their positions will encompass sales in the near future, as reported by ClickZ (link to full article).

The study of 478 CMOs suggests that 55 percent believe that marketers will be responsible for the customer journey in three years.  The article also quotes the Marketo CMO “Marketing is really the new sales function” and that “In three to five years marketing is going to be the de facto owner of the entire customer journey.”

The marketing-only emphasis of the article is further down the path than I am prepared to go, especially with surveying only CMOs. However, there are considerable changes taking place in the role that marketing plays in an organization, and the seat that marketing has or does not have at the “C” level needs to change.  

Most organizations have moved past seeing marketing as being only responsible for development of sales sheets, websites, trade show set-up and branding. Marketing is now tasked with measured expectation for lead generation.  With budgets more tightly connected to leads, marketing campaigns must track lead source throughout the sales process and out past closing.  In addition, in some organizations the marketing spend on technology (marketing automation, web-site, and analytics) is outdistancing the technology department itself.

I do believe we will see more shared CSO-CMO roles in the futures, and perhaps the emphasis should be CMO-CSO. However, marketers must be will to step up their game in this new role.  They need to provide the data to a sales-dominated organization that the world has changed.  Having “hunters” may not be the only (or most effective) means for prospecting. Being “hunted” through in-bound marketing efforts may be the organization’s future as we compete world-wide. 

If marketers are held responsible for lead generation and customer retention, then they must be the ones to step up and take charge of the CRM system.  This means data management and working to a clear alignment for the sales and customer retention process with solid reporting.  To paraphrase that famous management consultant Joan Rivers, “Can we talk – seriously now?”  Sales just doesn’t have the orientation, interest or attention span to develop and manage data.  A measurement is essential in this new sales world.  Marketers must be out in front and truly become the architect and general contractor for building sales growth.  

 

ClickZ article link

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2393776/in-the-future-marketing-and-sales-could-mean-the-same-thing?

 Also reference my past blog post on markers taking charge of technology

Marketing Must Master Its Own Technology

http://blog.infogrowcorp.com/sales_marketing_effective/2011/08/marketing-must-master-its-own-technology.html

CRM Helps B2B Companies Gain a Competitive Advantage

Successful business is all about finding, serving, and keeping satisfied, loyal customers. To be most effective, these customer relationships must be managed among a company's marketing, sales, and customer-service departments. The best way to achieve this multi-function process is with a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system and its CRM database. And, often overlooked, a strong commitment is needed from top management that everyone involved will use the system.

CRM integrates marketing, sales, and customer data from many sources, inside and outside a company, providing an all-inclusive view of one’s business. CRM helps businesses turn data into actionable intelligence. It does this by providing a better understanding of prospects and customers, managing leads, and tracking sales. Benefits include: (1) selling more products and services, quickly, easily, and effectively; and (2) having the right information at the right place and at the right time for better-informed business decisions

Data is the core of marketing and business intelligence. Data, by itself, however, is of little value. When organized and analyzed, updated, and made available company wide, however, data yields high benefits with today’s marketing and information technologies. A CRM database becomes a strategic asset, not a mere holding place for contacts, leads, and other non-organized data -- yielding increased revenue and profit.

Without CRM, managers often make business decisions from their gut feelings because they have too much data to manage, the data is not easy to access, is not maintained, or may not even exist. Although companies can produce similar products, by contrast, intelligence-rich companies will have excelled on a new level of quality, creativity, and efficiency. And unlike material assets which decrease with use, an intelligence asset increases with use.

InfoGrow can help you turn your customer data into tighter, longer-lasting, loyal customer relationships and giving you a measureable competitive advantage. We welcome your call: 800-897-9807 x 224. 

How Marketing Automation Can Be Successful Yet Fail

I 
have noticed a disturbing trend in working with digital marketing agencies. Their lead generation campaigns utilizing in-bound marketing techniques and solid marketing automation tools are highly successful in generating leads, but sometimes the campaigns and their services are being cancelled.  No, it is not a lead quality issue -- the leads generated meet exactly the criteria set by the sales managers. Nor is it the quantity of leads, in some cases the number of leads generated have exceed expectations. 

The issue that causes the program to be cancelled is that the sales reps are not following up on the leads provided. Amazing isn’t it, that in today’s environment, qualified leads would go untouched? We are not just talking a handful of leads; I have seen cases where over a hundred leads go to waste.

How can this possibly happen?  Often, there is no CRM system.  Without one, no one has insight into what work is being done on a lead and there is no way to measure outcomes – lead-to-quote ratio or lead-to-close sale. This lack of quantitative results makes it very easy for all parties to hide behind old excuses and point accusing fingers at each other.

How can the wasted resources of generated leads and loss of these potential opportunities be fixed?

There are three overriding principles that must be in place for a marketing automation lead generation program to be successful. First, there must be a realization that in today’s world, sales and marketing must be joined at the hip, with a common language, shared goals and with undisputed joint measurements. This can’t be accomplished without a CRM system in place. I have never seen the passing around of Excel files work past the first couple of weeks.

Second, the new ecosystem of connected Marketing Automation and CRM only works when definable and written marketing and sales processes are waved throughout the technologies. Let’s get real; if you can’t flowchart how a lead flows from an inquiry (or from some other call-to-action response) through qualification, nurturing, and to quoting, then you don’t really have a process. 

Third, it’s about leadership. Every aspect of finding more customers like your best ones is far too important to leave to inadequate data and lack of measurements or accountability of both the sales and marketing teams.

Leads are potential assets of the company -- future customers.  The fundamentals of finding more good customers, keeping the ones you want, and turning transactions among them requires attention at the highest level.  Studies continue to show that marketing is generating half of the leads needed, while sales continues to find the other half.  Who is making sure that both sides are playing nicely together so that not one of those leads is wasted?  Not one sales opportunity is missed?

Using SIC/NAICS Codes to Segment and Utilize Prospect Data

Do you know of a prospect list database provider that can correctly identify a company’s SIC / NAICS / Market?

Since SIC/NAICS codes are self-reported and often a business organization has more than one reported, it can be hard to determine what is “correctly identify”. Working with the codes is often more of an art form than science, although the science principle of test and test again truly applies.

If you have a complete company name, address and main phone number you can have the codes appended to your data. In considering working up market share analysis you also determine what other demographics should be appended to the data at the same time.  Do you segment your customers and prospects by their annual sales volume, number of employees or other items like number of PCs or advertising spent?  The quality of the segmentation demographics you need will lead you to the right list provider.

InfoGrow provides data hygiene and market share analysis services, so if this is something you've wondered or would like to learn more about,  please visit:  www.infogrowcorp.com/marketanalysis.

Moving Sales Reps From Order Takers to True Lead Developers

 Your best customers are the foundation of your current and future success. Knowing your best customers today can help you find and keep your next best customers tomorrow.

 Customer-and-prospect information, however, is more than just a spreadsheet with names, addresses, and sales figures on it. All organizations have this basic data. To outdo your competitors, you should convert raw data into sales-and-marketing intelligence via maps integrated with your CRM software.

We are visual animals and putting customers and prospects locations on a map allows marketers, sales reps, and managers, to better understand data relationships.  Seeing is believing and something as simple as a map with, say, green dots for customers, blue dots for prospects, and red dots for competitors can quickly move sales reps beyond order takers into becoming true lead developers.

Maps turn data into knowledge and allow sales reps to focus on both their best customers and nearby potential best customers. Moreover, sales managers who use maps can better manage territories by seeing important data often hidden in the rows and columns of spreadsheets. The results: more customers, more sales, and more efficient sales calls.

 

To discover more visit www.CRMCallPlanner.com or call InfoGrow @ 800-897-9807 

 

Filling the Sales Pipeline for Manufacturing - Hitting 2014 Sales Goals

No one would doubt that B2B customers are shopping and buying differently today. Thanks to the internet, customers move more quickly along the buying process armed with increased knowledge and more choices. Now that more than half of 2014 is behind us, what needs to change for your team to have better than a 50% chance of meeting the sales goals set for this year?

The sales pipeline may seem ominous, but it doesn't have to be. The fundamentals remain the same: 1) find more customers, 2) keep the ones you want, and 3) increase sales revenue. Perhaps your company has many years of success, but a different approach and a better system in place to monitor activities and results they bring could be necessary for continued growth.

Here are a few basic questions to consider in evaluating your odds for future success.

How well is your current system telling you:

• Your quote-to-sales conversion ratio?
• Your sales pipeline?
• The typical length of your sales cycle?
• The potential value of a sales territory?
• Your loss reasons on a missed sale?
• How well your sales reps are following your sales process?
• How often sales reps communicate with a key customer?

Effectiveness begins with this information being in front of each member of your sales team daily. From there, it's up to each sales rep to drive their own daily activities and make better decisions as to where and how they spend their time. This is a key to their success, as well as yours.

Spreadsheets, listing the status of opportunities, may work for your "A" reps that have the customer/prospect follow-up discipline in their DNA. However, your "B" and "C" reps will not develop the same discipline without the behavioral change of having this level of detail in front of them hourly, with monitoring and coaching.

Answering these questions, and driving best practice behaviors along your sales and marketing process is what you should be expecting a technology system to do for you. For continued growth you require a one data-truth within the company that keeps everyone in sales, marketing, and service on the same page with prospects and customers.

With three months left in 2014 it is not too late to see results yet this year, or begin planning for the year ahead.

---Bob Sullivan, InfoGrow

We Will Always Begin with Knowing Your Business.

How can you effectively help somebody, if you don’t truly know what it is they do in the first place?

I’m not sure that can be done, but many companies today seem to put out the message that they “know” what you need and  how all your ills will be cured if only you purchase this product or that service.  It’s a “one-size fits all” approach, if you will, but here’s the problem with the one-size; by trying to make it adaptable to almost everyone, it works perfectly for almost no one.  Have you ever gotten a t-shirt at a concert or sporting event that was listed as a one-size fits all type?  How did it fit?  My experience has been that it ends up being way too big for smaller or medium size individuals and a little too snug for larger folks. 

Now this isn’t to say that companies offering products that appeal to a wide array of customers don’t have merit.  Just like the event T-shirt mentioned before, it had the musician or team you liked on it, it may have looked good from a visual stand point, it just didn’t fit right so it was rarely, if ever worn.  In business, the bottom line is, some companies will offer software or services that may help you in a problem area; but unless they really get to know you and how your business operates these solutions will never allow you to reach your full potential or maximize your ROI.  In fact, much like the T-shirt, they may cease to be used very much at all after the initial excitement period passes. 

Here’s is where InfoGrow pledges to be different:                                         

“We will always begin with knowing your business.”                             

That is the very first statement in the InfoGrow “No Results Missed” Pledge, and it’s first for the reasons alluded to above. Businesses are like complex ecosystems, and until they are fully understood, truly effective solutions cannot be recommended.   We can only help you do things like optimize your sales territory and increase revenue, if we completely understand what your business is and how it functions on a daily basis.  That way we can tailor our solutions to fit your company perfectly.  Then, just like a t-shirt designed to fit you just right, you’ll want to use it all the time, maximizing your ROI and helping you reach goals.

 

For more information about how InfoGrow will work with you to understand all of your business needs, please click here.

 

Or you can take a look at InfoGrow’s full “No Results Missed Pledge”.

The Importance of Visualization in CRM

Some of the world’s most successful athletes practice visualization before beginning a competition.  What is visualization?  According to the book “Dance Anatomy”  “It’s the act of planting an intuitive thought and letting that image grow to increase performance.’  ‘When you  repeatedly train your actions (with visualizations), you induce physiological changes and increase accuracy.”  Whether it was Michael Jordan envisioning a game winning shot, Jack Nicholas imagining a sharp eighteen foot putt, or Tom Brady picturing himself throwing a thirty-yard touchdown pass, the idea is that if you spend time think about it, or see it beforehand, the more likely you are to actually execute it in real life.

 

What does all this have to do with CRM and mapping?  Simple, the philosophy of visualizing to success in sports, works the same way in business and sales, if only you are willing to practice it.  By adding mapping to your CRM that’s essentially what you are beginning to do.  A mapping solution embedded within your CRM can do so much more for a company than just hand out simple directions, it will help you to:

• Identify Potential Opportunities: Allows field sales reps to see who they are calling on, but also displays similar companies around them who they could be calling on.
• Segmenting Your Audience: Helps marketers to visualize a target area and adjust or focus their message accordingly.
• Increase Territory Value:  Understanding who your target audience is and where they are located, quickly and simply by looking at a map, allows reps to talk to the right people and maximize time.  Leading to overall greater success and efficiency.
• Drive User Acceptance of CRM: By incorporating visual tools within CRM, users feel more comfortable in understanding and utilizing the information the system can provide.

You can even take it one step further and ask reps to take a moment to visualize having a successful call, making a successful presentation, or closing a deal before going into an actual meeting.  It sounds silly, but is it any different than what those successful athletes are doing?  When you incorporate more visual information into the marketing and sales process the results are clear; you make better business decisions with the information, increase overall performance, and engage employees and the utilization of better data.

 

CRM for Success - Importance of Consistent Messaging and Data Mining

CRM for Success is the monthly webinar series that we kicked off for 2014. This series is exclusively for CEOs, CMOs, and CSOs. Each month we will provide you with the management insight necessary for maximizing the expected benefits of CRM. We stay on-point and keep the sessions short. CRM for Success is offered every third Thursday of each month at 1:00 p.m. EST and will last 20 minutes. Each installment will focus on one key issue, plus we allow time for Q&A on the CRM topic presented or any other CRM question you may have.

April’s installment focused on – Consistent Messaging Throughout the Organization. It covered work templates, email templates, workflow emails, articles, and knowledge base.

 

May’s installment focused on – Data Mining for Pinpoint Targeting or Analysis. It focused on demographic and transactional data.

 

We know that you are committed to success and strive to grow your organization. We will show you how to leverage Dynamics CRM in that effort.

 

14 Ways Marketing Automation Helps B2B Marketers Use Data More Effectively

"Marketing automation" is software that replaces manual methods for marketing purposes. Marketing automation is data-driven, requiring data that is valid, up-to-date, reliable, and complete. Generally, data originates in various places; however, to be used most effectively, data should be managed in a central database where all contributors and users follow a format-and-content standard.

Although the IT department typically maintains such a standardized database, marketers should be responsible for their database, not only for the content, but more importantly, for the quality of information. It is important that marketing, which initially enters leads, be aware of what happens to data provided to sales. Realizing the significance of this, some companies have their own technical specialist, a Chief Marketing Technologist, assuring that data will be used most effectively with a "marketing automation" tool.

13 Ways Marketing Automation Can Improve Your B2B Emails

In B2B marketing, email acquaints prospects with your company, persuades the to buy your products/services, and builds and nurtures relationships. With email, you can educate, announce new products, promote events and offers, gather data, generate and qualify leads, build traffic on websites, upsell, and more. According to MarketingSherpa, for six out of ten marketers, email is producing an ROI.

Email Service Providers

A common way for B2B marketers to conduct basic mass-volume mailings is to use an Email Service Provider (ESP) that hosts email-mail marketing services on their servers. Typical services include batch emails, blast emails, and reports on open rates and click-through rates.

An ESP is often the choice for marketers with a small budget, with a small database of names, and simple marketing requirements. 

While a basic email marketing program will find and keep satisfied customers, Marketing Automation offers more advanced capabilities and automated features, for both email and beyond. 

Marketing Needs a Chief Marketing Technologist

Today's technologies have come a long way from green-bar printouts, spreadsheets, bulky calculators, and slow-speed modems. High-tech tools are creating more value and intelligence from ever-increasing data and analytics -- and with a good ROI.

When technologies first arrived at companies, the IT department generally oversaw and managed the software, hardware, systems, and programming for all departments – including marketing.

With increased complexities and the need for fast updates and upgrades to meet specific challenges and opportunities, marketers are finding that they are better off having their own Chief Technologist. According to Gartner, nearly eight out of ten organizations now have the equivalent of a Chief Marketing Technologist (CMT) and over seven out of ten CMTs report directly to the marketing department.

New technology-related strategies and processes, such as marketing automation, CRM, web analytics, and SEO auditing, require that marketers master their own technology.  For this, the marketing department needs a Chief Marketing Technologist who can interface with other C-level functions and bridge the gap with IT.

Guest Blog - 5 Business Fundamentals That Lead to Great Marketing

Behind every great marketing success story is a great business — an organization with such a strong foundation that the marketing (almost) comes easy.

Take the 10 most admired companies in the world, for example: Apple, Google, Amazon, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, IBM,Southwest, Berkshire-Hathaway, Disney, and FedEx.

According to Fortune Magazine, these companies excel at innovation, product and service quality, people management, and global competitiveness, among other factors.

They also excel at marketing – and that’s not a coincidence.

Here are five fundamentals of a successful business that are essential for a smart marketing strategy, based on my experience as a marketing consultant.

CRM for Success - Well-Executed Follow-ups

CRM for Success is the monthly webinar series that we kicked off for 2014. This series is exclusively for CEOs, CMOs, and CSOs. Each month we will provide you with the management insight necessary for maximizing the expected benefits of CRM. We stay on-point and keep the sessions short. CRM for Success is offered every third Thursday of each month at 1:00 p.m. EST and will last 20 minutes. Each installment will focus on one key issue, plus we allow time for Q&A on the CRM topic presented or any other CRM question you may have.

March’s installment focused on -Well-Executed Follow-ups. It covered follow-ups for the right reason, at the right time, using the right method, as well as activities created by workflows and “renewal” opportunities. If you missed the live seminar, view the recording here.

We know that you are committed to success and strive to grow your organization. We will show you how to leverage Dynamics CRM in that effort.

Be sure to sign up for this month’s installment which will focus on Consistent Messaging throughout the Organization. We will go over work templates, email templates, workflow emails, articles and knowledge base.

Related articles

CRM for Success - Well-Executed Follow-ups

CRM for Success - Monthly Executive Series

CRM for Succes - The Digital Pulse of a Customer's Health

We Will Help You Leverage Technology for YOUR Growth

What our No Results Missed Pledge means to you.

We will help you leverage technology for your growth by communicating a roadmap for you success, even if it means referring you to other resources if we’re unable to meet your needs.

One of the biggest challenges we see with clients is knowing what should be done next, i.e., having a roadmap.  Too many technology projects become one-off efforts, which often fail because there is no follow through. User applications are that installed and forgotten often lose relevance for the user because there is no on-going support, training, the process changes or new users are added.  Technology is often a jounary rather than a destination, and without a roadmap there is no direction as to where the effort is heading. Lack of direction causes an organization to stop growing with a tool.

Guest Blog - Lead Nurturing from a Sales Perspective

Sales and marketing teams are often at loggerheads, each complaining that the other has not played its part in lead nurturing and qualification. The marketing team might accuse the sales team of not acting on qualified leads passed to them. On the other hand, the sales team usually accuses their marketing counterparts of passing on unqualified leads. This blame games goes on in most organization with no end in sight.

To eliminate distress in the business, sales and marketing teams should be encouraged to work together. Lead nurturing is the duty of the marketing department. However, there are several ways in which the sales team can contribute to help the business achieve revenue objectives faster and more effectively.  Below is an overview of how the sales team can partner with their marketing counterparts for better lead nurturing.

Research on buying cycle

The marketing department can get useful insights on the buying cycle from the sales team. Sales and marketing should work together to segment the buying cycle in the top, middle and bottom of the funnel. The marketing team can then proceed to match lead nurturing content to prospects in the different buyer levels. The sales team will come in handy in identifying the offers that convert the prospects. The marketing team can use this information to align the content they use to nurture leads.

Make the Most Out of Your Marketing Automation System

A successful Marketing Automation (MA) system is more than software and technology . . . More than automating your current marketing process . . . And more than a plug-and-play tool.

When selecting a MA system, marketers often go through a checklist of desired product features and CEOs identify expected results. These, of course, are basic steps to successfully automate your marketing processes. But there's more.

For a MA system to perform satisfactorily, here are three more criteria often overlooked when talking with providers. These criteria can mean the difference between your loving, or hating, your Marketing Automation system.

Realize That Marketing Automation is a Strategy

A starting point when buying a MA system or deciding whether or not to invest in MA at all is to have a strategy: measurable goals and a plan to achieve those goals. Define and rank your goals, for instance (a) track leads from click to close, (b) increase qualified leads, (c) enhance cross-channel communication, (d) shorten the sales cycle, and/or (e) reduce marketing-and-sales costs. 

If you are not operating now with a good strategy, manually or with a non-MA system, then adding a MA system will merely amplify what's not working right. And you will join many others who are pondering why their MA system isn't meeting their expectations.