Issues in Sales Marketing Automation Technology
Over the past few years, applications and software have been developed to make almost any workplace task easier, and that’s where we get sales and marketing automation technology. The primary goal of using this sales and marketing technology is to enable marketing personnel to create a campaign across multiple media channels and automate processes and individual tasks.
Common Sales and Marketing Automation Technology Platform Features
The main draw to adopting this type of sales and marketing automation technology is the ability to automate tasks. As each platform offers different features, there are a few that IT marketers find especially helpful. Listed below are the most used features that are offered by most sales and marketing automation platforms.
Email Automation
This is by far the most used feature offered in marketing automation platforms. An email process is triggered when a lead takes a particular action on a website, such as submitting a form or requesting a free consultation. The lead can receive a specific email after completing the form. The emails they are sent can be as simple as a thank you for filling out the form, an online calendar to schedule the free consultation time, or even a CTA to be given another offer.
This is one of the simplest features to use. The only steps that need to be done are creating the email and deciding which action will trigger sending it to the lead.
Nurturing Campaigns
Many marketers are putting greater emphasis on nurturing sequences. This is due to the opportunity to form relationships with contacts that aren’t ready to buy. Research has shown that 50% of qualified leads are not ready to buy.1 Marketers recognize the need to interact with these leads. By using nurturing, these leads will keep your company in mind when they are ready to make a purchase. 
Many companies find it difficult to dedicate time and creative efforts to pursuing customers that are still researching and exploring options. They accept that this group can be extremely beneficial to market to, but feel they can not take time away from going after leads that are ready to make a decision. By implementing sales and marketing automation, these types of campaigns are much easier to manage. Some marketers also consider this a great way to “test market” content.
Lead Intelligence and Analytics
A great tool for determining the effectiveness of marketing and sales processes is lead intelligence monitoring. Lead intelligence gives you insight into the behavior of your web visitors. Which, in turn, leads to more sales. The purpose of this is to increase sales or shorten buying time. This can also be helpful during content strategy. Knowing which types of content resonate most with your visitors will lead future content strategies.
Current State of IT Marketing
Traditionally, small to mid-sized IT companies are comprised of multiple programmers, developers, and support personnel. Many firms don’t have a large budget to dedicate to creating marketing strategies or forming a diverse marketing team. Many IT marketers specialize in a few areas, such as search engine optimization or creating content, and outsource other pieces of marketing. This prevents many companies from creating a cohesive marketing campaign.
Adoption of sales and marketing automation technology in the tech industry has been very slow. By automating sales and marketing, new campaigns can be introduced at a much faster rate. This is possible because one platform manages many different aspects of the campaign. Teams that have utilized this technology are experiencing less stress creating and managing campaigns as well as increased sales.
Are you ready to start using sales and marketing automation technology to increase the speed to market of your campaigns? The new Microsoft® co-funded programs offer access to sales and marketing automation.
1 Vaughan, Pamela. (2012, January 18). 30 Thought-Provoking Lead Nurturing Stats You Can’t Ignore. Retrieved from: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/30901/30-Thought-Provoking-Lead-Nurturing-Stats-You-Can-t-Ignore.aspx
