Why Marketing Automation is Critical to Driving Sustainable Growth

7/28/2019 Why Marketing Automation is Critical to Driving Sustainable Growth

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Best Practices Series

Produced by:CRM Media

The compelling case for a disciplined approach to marketing automation is that it isthe only way to ensure a steady stream of leads, prospects, and opportunities thatwill eventually lead to more sales, customers, and revenue.

Producing a consistently strong inflow of new business possibilities is crucial todriving sustainable growth and can help insulate an organization from otherinefficiencies in the business model or challenges from outside competition.

Its that simple, and its quantifiable and repeatable.

In this Best Practices Guide to Marketing Automation, both SAP and SalesFUSION

offer compelling cases for embracing marketing automation as a way to generateleads and convert those leads into customers.

For more information on this topic, be sure to visit their websites.

Bob FernekeesVP/Group PublisherCRM MediaInformation Today, Inc.

SPONSORS

WHY MARKETINGAUTOMATION IS CRITICAL

to Driving Sustainable Growth

1 Concourse ParkwaySuite 190Atlanta, GA 303281-800-558-1760www.salesfusion.com

Bob Fernekees,Group Publisher212-251-0608 [email protected]

Adrienne Snyder,Eastern/Midwest Account [email protected]

Dennis Sullivan,Western Account Director800-248-8466 [email protected]

SAPPAGE 2

SAP CUSTOMERS GAIN THECOMPETITIVE EDGETHROUGH INTEGRATINGCUSTOMER ANALYTICSWITHIN MULTI-CHANNELMARKETING PROGRAMS

SalesFUSIONPAGE 3THE TOP FIVE WAYSINTEGRATING MARKETINGAUTOMATION TO YOURCRM CAN SAVE ATROUBLED DEPLOYMENTAND INCREASE CRM USAGE

3999 West Chester PikeNewtown Square, PA 19073Phone: 1-800-872-1727www.sap.com


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WP2 June 2013 | CRMMagazine Sponsored Content

According to Aberdeens January 2012Customer Experience Management: Using thePower of Analytics to Optimize CustomerDelight research, the top challenge facing48% of companies with CustomerExperience Management (CEM) initiativesis integrating customer insights withinexisting business activities (i.e. marketing).Customer analytics tools provide theremedy to this challenge by helpingcompanies extract crucial insights fromcustomer data gathered through multiple

channels (e.g. social media and web).Thirty- nine (39) companies within theJanuary 2012 CEM study report usingSAP as their customer analytics provider.

Findings from this research reveal thatSAP customers are 36% more likely (49%vs. 36%) than all other companies to usecustomer analytics tools as a keycomponent of their marketing, sales andcustomer service activities.

This article highlights how SAP customers

perform compared to their peers by usingdifferentiating business processes andtechnology tools required to establish asuccessful customer analytics program builton precision marketing.

SAP CUSTOMERS OUTPERFORM OTHER

BUSINESSES IN THREE KEY

PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

First, SAP customers are able to attain 67%better year-over-year performance increating social buzz, compared to allothers. They also report substantial annualimprovement in their customer satisfaction

and customer retention results.

SAP clients are also far more likely (32%vs. 11%) to accomplish year-over-yearimprovement in their return on marketinginvestments - a key metric validating thesuccess of an organization in effectivelyusing customer data for personalized multi-channel and multi-touch marketingcampaigns.

These improvements dont happenovernight, they are the results of a well-

established and nurtured effort in makingcustomer information a strategic

differentiator ofprecision marketingactivities.

Key Business

Processes

Sixty-nine percent(69%) of SAP usersdeploy an onlinecommunity that allowstheir customers toengage each other

within an interactiveonline discussion. Thisis contrasted by 39%adoption of thiscapability by all other organizations.

Customer analytics tools help marketersand other key customer-facingorganizational departments (e.g. Sales) sortthese online conversations by numerouscriteria (such as demographics and priorpurchase) within dashboards showingcustomer activity. These activity results are

then used in conjunction with existingcustomer profiles to identify insights basedon customer behavioral and feedback data.Research shows that companies with thiscapability are far more successful (5.2% vs.2.4%) in increasing customer lifetime valueyear-over-year, compared to those withoutthis capability.

Key Technologies

In addition to a well-crafted strategy toblend the processes mentioned above withtheir customer analytics programs, SAPcustomers are also utilizing a set of

technology enablers to support theseactivities. As illustrated in Figure 4, theyare 18% more likely (66% vs. 56%) thanother businesses to deploy CustomerRelationship Management (CRM) toolswithin their customer analytics programs.CRM has long been a pillar of Best-in-Class customer engagement strategies.

In fact, Aberdeens September 2011 reportLeveraging the 360 Degree Customer Viewto Maximize Up-Sell and Cross-SellPotential shows that Best-in-Class

companies are 27% more likely (71% vs.56%) than Laggard businesses to use this

technology to establish a unified view ofcustomer insights. Considering that theability to effectively integrate customerinformation within existing businessactivities (i.e. marketing) is a topchallenge faced by 48% of businesseswithin the CEM study, the value of thistechnology becomes clear. By deployingthis technology more widely than their

peers, SAP clients are able to bettermanage the core ingredient of customeranalytics programs: customer data.

Key Takeaways

SAP customers are more adept in adoptinga set of differentiating business processesand technologies that are critical toachieving success through customeranalytics deployments. They focus onbuilding an organizational infrastructurethat allows effectively capturing, storingand using customer insights within myriadbusiness activities, including multi-channel

and multi-touch marketing programs.

They are also more likely to be able tomicro-manage their customer interactionsby segmenting customer behavioral andfeedback data based on certain criteria.These insights allow companies withenhanced precision marketing capabilities -engage the right customer with the rightcontent through the right channel at theright time.

To find out how your company can benefit

from SAPs experience, visit www.sap.comtoday.

SAP Customers Gain the Competitive Edgethrough Integrating Customer Analytics

within Multi-Channel Marketing Programs


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Sponsored Content CRMMagazine | June 2013 WP3

CRM deployments can suffer a variety ofsetbacks. One of the most common setbacksis poor adoption, usage, by the sales team.Marketing Automation Solutions, integratedand embedded within CRM, can play asignificant role in improving your CRMdeployment in a variety of ways. Over thelast several years, marketing has risen aboveits traditional standing in the CRM world,which had been low man on the totempole. Marketing historically was the other

technology that existed outside of CRM.Poorly understood and generally operatingoutside of the framework of the core CRM,marketing automation as a technologysolution was even further from the core.

Todays marketing automation solutions;those that holistically combine EmailMarketing, Web Analytics and otheremerging channels such as Social Media, areadding tremendous value to traditional CRMdeployments and, more so than ever, have theattention of the C-suite. These holistic and

fully integrated solutions are now consideredby many to be a must-have technology inthe new social web selling environment.

Why all the sudden attention? In a word,Social Web. Today, a companys prospectivebuyer has taken control of the top of thesales funnel and many buyers are engagingin self-directed sales cycles using websites,blogs, social platforms and other emergingoutlets to evaluate solutions to the level thatnearly 70% of a traditional sales cycle mayvery well be complete by the time youactually speak to a potential prospect.

In addition to this, many B2B companiesoperate with much smaller sales teams andrely heavily on web-based marketing. Goneare the days of large telesales and inside salesteams supporting field reps working smallgeographic territories. Companies are nowmuch more laser focused on buildingstrategic, efficient, and cost effective lead-to-sale and lead-to-revenue models.Technology, like marketing automation,fully supports these strategic efforts.

Marketing Automation Solutions, likeSalesFUSION, have focused virtually all of

their development efforts on fullyembedding demand generation technologyand processes into CRM because thisprovides significant financial benefits to mostB2B companies. Furthermore, for thoseCRM deployments that may be languishingor suffering from poor adoption & usage,adding marketing automation to the mix hasproven to jumpstart, invigorate and align thesales & marketing executive teams to fullyleverage the CRM investment.

Here are the Top Five Ways integratingmarketing automation to your CRM cansave a potentially troubled deployment andincrease overall CRM usage:

1. GETTING SALES EXCITED ABOUT CRM

You would be hard pressed to find a salesperson who doesnt get excited about havingqualified leads delivered to them on a silverplatter. Lead scoring and lead routing can beconfigured in a marketing automationsolution to stack-rank leads based on

behavior and engagement. When a leadscores to a certain level of interest, that leadcan then be immediately routed to theappropriate rep. Email alerts are generatedand sent to sales reps when leads meetcertain criteria. Reps get leads sent to theirinbox with information about how the leadcame to the website and what they didwhen they got there. A quick link allowsthe rep to open the lead in CRM directlyfrom the email. This simple functionalitygets sales excited about lead generation anddramatically reduces follow up time by thereps. Catching leads when they are

engaged and hot ensures betterconversion to qualified status in CRM.

2. ALIGNING MARKETING AND SALES

When implementing marketingautomation, theres a lot more than simplebulk email marketing involved. Marketing andSales will collaborate on processes for scoringinbound leads.This collaboration forcesmarketing and sales to work closely togetherand define better processes that will keep theCRM system clean. Process improvementsstemming from this collaboration will lead to

a better CRM deployment overall and tobetter aligned sales and marketing teams.

3. KEEPING YOUR CRM DATABASE

CLEAN AND EFFICIENT

Marketing automation solutions, likeSalesFUSION, will police lead flow trafficinto your CRM. The marketing database isoften used as a lead staging area whereMarketing-Ready Leads (MQL Marketing Qualified Leads) are marketedto and nurtured to a point at which theybecome Sales-Ready (SQL SalesQualified Lead). Only then does the

marketing automation platform move theSQL into CRM. This methodology andprocess keeps the CRM uncluttered withsuspects and ensures the sales team is onlyworking the highest value (i.e. SQL) leads.Your CRM database size is also reduced,which in a cloud-based CRM model, canreduce your costs substantially.

4. IMPROVING LEAD CONVERSION

Marketing automation will gather vitalinformation in the form of website visitactivity, campaign touches, campaign

responses and much more. The system(s)will then append this information to thelead and/or contact records in CRM. Thisinformation is at the fingertips of saleswhen they are tasked to follow-up with ahigh-value SQL. Sales then has the abilityto quickly view the contextual history inorder to gain clear visibility andtransparency into what the potentialprospect may be interested in based on thepages viewed on-site, emails opened, linksclicked, forms submitted, and generalresponses contained in the record history.This makes that first critical Sales Call

more effective and will greatly increase theprobability of lead conversion.

5. ROI ON MARKETING AND

LEAD GENERATION

Marketing automation connects theleads generated from campaigns, and thecost of acquiring those leads (i.e. CPL), tothe opportunities in CRM. This allows theC-suite members of any B2B company tostop throwing darts at a board with respectto marketing spend and pinpoint exactlyhow, where, and why they should most

efficiently spend valuable (and shrinking)marketing dollars.

The Top Five WaysIntegrating Marketing Automationto your CRM Can Save a Troubled

Deployment and Increase CRM Usage

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Why Marketing Automation is Critical to Driving Sustainable Growth