In the recent Gleanster Research paper, “The New Rules of Digital Engagement,” analyst Ian Michiels offers straightforward guidance for implementing marketing automation.
Consider whether your existing process is working well. Automation will only accelerate mediocre results unless organizations address people, process, and technology value drivers. Take the time to re-visit marketing and sales processes before implementation, and let impending automation be a forcing tool for improvement. Once you’re satisfied with your processes, you can get on with the actual adoption.
One thing we emphasis at Lead Liaison is cleaning up your existing lead database. For example, go through your CRM before integrating it with Lead Liaison. Make sure all old leads/contacts are removed. Keep people in your CRM that you plan to market to.
The most common mistake organizations make is over-engineering the implementation process. There’s no need to create complicated and highly customized communication strategies. Survey results show that within the first 30 days, Top Performers are capable of using more features and benefits from marketing automation than most other organizations accomplish after the first year of adoption. How do they do it? It turns out that Top Performers simplify adoption by limiting configuration and customization on a new implementation.