Marketing Automation has become the new tool of choice for companies looking to engage with prospective new buyers at the very top of their sales funnel.  Despite the overload of emails we each receive on a daily basis, email remains one of the most powerful Marketing tools when executed correctly.  Yet Marketing Automation isn’t just about email delivery, each time you log onto sites like Amazon, their Marketing Automation pre-populates the site with your details, and adapts the content you see to target your own individual preferences.  Even when you leave a site, the software/programmes can be used to re-target you, with advertising and lead nurturing emails, all the time gathering data on you and your buyer journey.  Sounds great and it is great, – so where is the problem?

Tools like Pardot, Marketo, Hubspot & Infusionsoft have taken off in recent years as every marketer seeks to attract new business.  Pricing varies on numbers of users, numbers of contacts etc but it’s easy to pay over £1,000 per month and upwards, and when it works its money well spent, but often it’s not, because it just doesn’t work and here’s why:

• Marketing Automation will fail if the original value proposition is not fully developed.  This can often happen when early adopter sales are mistaken as proof of acceptance of main mass sales capability.
• Marketing Automation fails because users have failed to clearly and correctly identify the buyer persona and buyer journey.  If you market to everyone you end up marketing to no one.
• Marketing Automation fails if messaging is not targeted, specific and relevant to the recipient.
• Marketing Automation fails if you don’t have a consistent supply of new, high quality content.

The success of Marketing Automation is predicated on a number of ingredients that the user inputs and without these key inputs it can never work.  Unfortunately, many buyers are not aware of this before purchasing the service and then leave feeling disappointed.  For most people it’s sending a series of emails to keep their Brand front of mind, so it’s actually like FedEx – a delivery system.  Like FedEx if you don’t have a clear picture of who you are sending your message to, and if you don’t put the right contents in the parcel, then despite the fact that FedEx are the best parcel delivery business in the world, it just won’t work.  Marketing Automation is not a Silver Bullet that solves sales & marketing  problems on it’s own.  Like any other software it’s only as good as the information we put into it.

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