Marketing Automation Platforms: Which Tier is Right for You?

Since the peak of its hype a few years ago, marketing automation remains an ever-present, highly effective method for nurturing and converting leads.

With features like personalisation, lead scoring and CRM integration, it becomes clearer every day that this is no longer just a nice-to-have for your marketing and sales teams. Much like the multiple gelatos I ate daily during a trip to Italy, it’s definitely a need-to-have.

Not sure? Then ask yourself:

• Do I need to create a positive and personalised customer experience so that my prospects choose me and also go on to become loyal and potentially brand advocating customers?
• Do I need all of my data to be in a centralised location so that the various teams across my organisation can easily access and understand the information in a wider context?
• Do I need greater insight for my marketing and sales teams to truly understand what my prospects need and how to provide it?
• Or even just, do I need to make sales?

Answered yes to all of these? Can’t say I’m surprised.

But before you commit to enterprise-level marketing automation software, let’s take a small step back, which I ultimately wish I’d done with the gelato… but that’s a-whole-nother blog post.

Once we have a better idea of your specific needs, we can determine what territory of marketing automation platforms your organisation should evaluate. This will give you a basic idea of where you’ll sit on a scale from MailChimp to Marketo.

Note: MailChimp is by no means on the opposite end of the scale to Marketo. They’ve released some mad features in the past year… *not sponsored* I just wanted the alliteration factor.

Before we start, just one more quick disclaimer: I’m not going to make the quiz result a mystery you can’t predict until the end. It’ll be pretty clear by question 5 where you sit, but let’s solidify it by going all the way to 10.

The idea is to self evaluate and visualise your current state, so you can discover the potential of your elevating your marketing automation opportunities with us.

Onward!

Marketing Automation Platforms: Which Tier is Right for your Organisation?

How big is your database?

a. 10,000+ contacts
b. 5,000 – 10,000 contacts
c. 5,000 contacts

How would you describe your product offering?

a. B2B, or high-value B2C
b. FMCG, retail, e-commerce
c. Neither A, nor B

How much of your marketing budget can you invest in automation?

a. $1,000 – $5,000 per month
b. $200 – $1000 per month
c. $10 – $200 per month

What CRM does your organisation use?

a. CRMs such as Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics and RightNow
b. CRMs such as SugarCRM and Zoho
c. An industry-specific CRM that integrates with little to no other software

What is the complexity of your sales process?

a. High involvement
b. Somewhere in the middle
c. Low involvement

Do members of your team need to be able to use the platform?

a. Some members of our team will be power users
b. A majority of our marketing team will become power users, with many of them being technically trained on the platform as well
c. We will have 2-3 staff members who know how to use the platform on behalf of the entire company

Do you intend to outsource the work associated with marketing automation?

a. Yes! I want my team to have a resource for more sophisticated campaigns
b. I would consider it if it gets too difficult for my team
c. No, I want to keep it all in-house

What is your team’s key goal for marketing automation?

a. Create a holistic customer journey, mapping out touchpoints, nurturing prospects and handling objections
b. Send out database communications and create behavioural triggers to further engage customers and leads
c. Send out newsletters, promotions and other communications

Have you broken down key roles within your business to understand how each unit would use marketing automation on a daily basis?

a. Yes the benefits and use cases of marketing automation are clearly outlined for each user
b. We have a few key people who want to use marketing automation
c. We think marketing automation would be beneficial but we don’t know how it would fit

How much experience does your team have with marketing automation and email marketing platforms?

a. Heaps! We’ve used a couple of platforms now and are ready for something more complex
b. We’ve had some experience and are still evaluating our options and what would work best for us
c. Little to no experience. We’re new to the concept and are ready to learn more!

Mostly As

Congratulations! Your organisation sits in the realm of platforms such as Marketo, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Pardot, Hubspot, ClickDimensions and Eloqua. You want all of the intricate functionality and you want it now! Find out which enterprise marketing automation software suits you best.

Mostly Bs

Congratulations! Your organisation sits in the realm of platforms such as Campaign Monitor, and Sharpspring. You need just the essentials plus some extras, so you can learn, prepare and justify more sophisticated technology in future.

Mostly Cs

Congratulations! Your organisation sits in the realm of platforms such as MailChimp, Infusionsoft and ConstantContact. You need just the necessities to send out emails and monitor performance over the course of your campaigns.

Want to find out more about choosing the right marketing automation platform for your business? Get in touch today and one of our specialists can talk you through the options that will help you achieve the highest possible ROI.