Martech stream

Making MA successful

Marketing automation has its benefits when done right. According Annuitas Group, MA can deliver a 451% increase in qualified leads, which delivers 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.However, as Katie Jameson, director of marketing EMEA at Act-On said, many marketers don't feel they've implemented MA to the standard that they want it to be at. Areas of improvement include systems integrations (60%), execution (65%), campaign optimisation (59%), analytics (53%) and strategy (56%). At Ignite, she provided tips to getting started.

Katie's 7 key steps to marketing automationsuccess:

Build the business case
Get buy-in from stakeholders
Understand the customer journey
Change the culture
Choose your platform
Develop your capabilities and skill sets
Improve your data capabilities.

The 3 martech mindsets

Lee Hackett, CEO at Bluprint, said there's three potential martech mindsets you can choose from, but only one will bring you success – SMart unity

Traditional: Tech is an essential investment; your competitors use it and it does good things. However this approach is to buy stuff, force it in the company, switch it on and let it work. This will waste spend and minimise adoption.

Misguided: Tech is a saviour; the more the better. You'll focus on a great website, engagement levels, clicks and awards. This will drive vanity metrics and a veneer of success Beneath this, revenue and growth impact will be little.

SMart unity: Focus starts with the team first, tech second concentrating on an effort to impact ratio. 80% of success comes from people and alignment to sales. Tech has a clear purpose. Sales and marketing work to a single goal.