Enterprise Marketing Automation Software Selection and Implementation

Marketers are coming under increasing pressure to improve the efficiency of marketing campaigns and to do a better job of measuring the results of those campaigns. Senior management requires that marketing resources be optimized, and holds marketing management accountable for resources and expenses.

In order to obtain a competitive edge, many companies are turning to enterprise software solutions to manage and improve their marketing campaigns. This new technology has not always found widespread acceptance, due in part to several factors. Software implementation can be expensive and difficult to mesh with current systems, and may not meet intended performance objectives. For these reasons many marketing professionals are hesitant to embrace this technology.

There are two primary pain points that drive the adoption of enterprise marketing automation software. The first is a need for greater efficiency. Various studies have shown that getting the right message to the proper person at the right time, through the right channel, helps turn leads into prospects and prospects into sales. But performing such a customized, individual approach manually is impartial not possible in large enterprises. It requires a sophisticated set of automated tools, coupled with a resource library, to be efficient. The second pain point involves accountability. Senior management wants to know how marketing budgets are being spent, and what those dollars are producing to benefit the bottom line. Without tracking and measuring campaign results at the individual level and rolling them up, this data is tedious, if not impossible, to generate.

By means of highly directed communications with prospects and customers, also referred to as precision marketing, a high level of effectiveness can be achieved. Use of a software-based Customer Relationship Management tool, or CRM, can be useful in helping to segment and target your customer base.

The decision to select a vendor for your enterprise marketing automation solution should not be taken lightly. As a first step, organizations should examine their marketing processes and identify specific objectives which they would like the fresh solution to achieve. Examples might include a higher frequency of marketing communications touches, reduced operational costs, shortened sales cycles, and increased response rates.

The next step is to take the list of objectives and expand it into a list of functional requirements. It is important to mediate not only current requirements, but likely future needs as well. This will ensure that the selected solution will be able to adapt and grow as your marketing process grows increasingly comprehensive. It is also well-known to think capacity parameters, such as the total number of leads, prospects, and customers that may ultimately be managed in such a system. You want a system that can comfortably handle the size, scope and segmentation of your data, as well as your functional requirements, but at the same time, you don’t want to pay for capacity that you will never need, either in terms of features or the size of the data set.

When an organization makes the decision to employ a large-scale marketing software solution, several departments within the company will need to be actively involved. Success would typically hinge on the marketing and sales, customer service and IT departments playing an active role in the choice, implementation, training and management of this software system.

Enterprise marketing automation software can be deployed under several scenarios. An on-premise solution requires the highest level of up-front investment, including hardware and software implementation. This solution also offers the greatest degree of security, because all data is maintained within the enterprise. Another popular deployment option is software as a service, or SaaS. Under this model, software and data are hosted and maintained by the vendor. One of the benefits of this approach is a lower initial investment than an on premise solution. However, the longer-term cost advantages are less clear. A third deployment model is called mid-source. This model allows organizations to maintain their customer and prospect data in-house, while outsourcing computational and technical services.

Finally, it is important to identify an internal owner or champion, who is responsible for day-to-day implementation, operations, and relationship with the vendor. This person can bring commitment to the process and make certain that all of the stakeholders are properly engaged.

A properly thought-out enterprise marketing automation solution that includes enthusiastic participation by all of the major stakeholders can greatly improve the operational efficiency of the marketing organization, helping to convert more leads into customers, and improving the organization’s bottom line.

Kristin Hambelton is the Director of Marketing at Neolane. Neolane provides the only enterprise marketing automation software specifically designed to manage, automate and optimize programs across weak and emerging channels including whisper mail, email and mobile.