Avoid the most common mistakes when implementing Marketing Automation

The implementation of Marketing Automation is an important professionalization step for each marketing department. With Marketing Automation you are able to use a data-driven marketing approach. This is not only important for a personal approach that is expected of companies nowadays, but it also helps you to comply with the GDPR legislation.

The implementation of Marketing Automation is a process that needs to be well prepared and supervised. This prevents a lot of frustration and waste of time. In this article, I share five tips that are essential for the successful implementation of Marketing Automation.

Tip 1: Ensure short lines of communication with stakeholders

Before you start implementing Marketing Automation, map out which stakeholders are involved. Make sure they know what you expect from them and communicate this in a timely manner. The most important stakeholders in the implementation are:

• Hosting provider
• Webmaster
• Implementation partner of Marketing Automation tool
  
• Marketing department
  
• Sales department

The first two stakeholders are important at the technical installation. That includes sending mailings and connecting the Marketing Automation to your website. Use the implementation partner to plan and monitor the process and make use of their knowledge and experience. The own marketing department and sales department are important in determining the goals and implementation of the campaigns. With them, you need to develop a good online strategy that serves as a basis for the marketing approach.

Tip 2: Work with templates for communications

By working with templates from the start, you save yourself and your department a lot of time and money. Don’t keep reinventing the wheel, but make sure there are templates for landing pages and different mailings. This way, campaigns can be set up quickly and it’s just a matter of filling in instead of redeveloping a whole set of statements.

Tip 3: Use integrations to important tools

Make sure you have a clear picture of which programs are used for marketing purposes. For example, do you have a CRM that is leading for sales? Do you use WordPress? Which social media channels do you use and which ones do you want to add in the future? Is call tracking software important in your organization? When you have an answer to the questions above, you can take stock of whether and how the link with Marketing Automation is made.

Many tools can be connected to each other, but it is possible that you are using a tool that does not have a standard link with a Marketing Automation platform. You want to know this in advance because it can influence the choice of a Marketing Automation platform. Custom made links are very labour intensive and always take more time than you want.

Tip 4: Follow sufficient training

Most Marketing Automation programs are not plug and play packages. The basics are often still understandable, but if you really want to experience the added value of Marketing Automation it is useful to follow a few training courses. Important topics that should definitely be covered in these trainings are:

• GDPR: how does your Marketing Automation platform comply with legislation?
• Segmentation: how do you classify your database? Which information is relevant for whom?
• Content strategy: which content do you offer and how do you guide leads through their buyer journey?
• The tool: how do you set up campaigns and how does the tool work exactly?

Tip 5: Create support for this marketing approach

When you choose Marketing Automation, you go for quality over quantity. It is a sustainable way of marketing. The content and landing pages you create now can still generate leads years later. This is very different from an advertisement that you see passing by once. It’s worth investing in. You do need to create support for this approach. If you have sales professionals asking where the leads are after just two weeks, then something went wrong around expectation management. And if the director asks you to send the same mail to your entire address database, then something went wrong here as well. So take them along with you in this process and make sure your noses are in the same direction.

Bonus tip: Marketo Engage is recently named as Leader for CRM Lead Management software. They were also positioned highest for Ability to Execute and the Completeness of Vision. This shows that they are at the forefront in terms of functionalities and more important to achieve results.