Best Practices For Setting Up A B2b Marketing Automation System

By Author: martin well
Total Articles: 364
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In B2B marketing, demand generation is increasingly complex and requires precise measurements to fine-tune and scale your marketing processes. You can operate manually on a very small scale, but any lead generation campaign spread over time involving a large number of prospects and multiple touch points will require a reliable marketing automation solution.

Before you select and implement a marketing automation solution, make sure you have completed the following items.

1. A documented process for the entire sales cycle that includes the sales organization is required. This includes how leads flow back and forth between sales and marketing and how loops will be closed. Formalize an agreement with sales about the metrics you’ll collect and use to measure success. Also, an agreement with sales about what constitutes an MQL, an SQL, and an SAL will be required.

2. Agreements with sales about scoring algorithms for each of those three funnel states, including how you’ll determine prospect intent based on website visits and other touch points needs to be devised. An understanding about when and how you want ...
... to nurture leads will ensure a very clear picture of your marketing automation requirements, which in turn will help you to choose the best solution.

3. Most companies will be replacing or supplementing existing computerized tools. (Many will likely be spreadsheets.) You may, for example, need to integrate with a CRM system or a web log file analysis tool. You’ll need to create target system architecture as well. So, get help from your vendors (existing and future) as well as from knowledgeable people in your company. The latter category will likely be systems-savvy marketing folks or marketing-savvy IT folks (if that organization exists in your company).

4. You need to determine what kind of help you’ll need and who will fill those roles. This will likely be a combination of internal and external resources. The latter category may include vendors, consultants and short-term contract expertise. You’ll need technical assistance as well as process and data experts. If you can find that combination in a single person, that’s optimal. If not, assemble an appropriate team and make accountabilities clear. A project manager is a single person who needs to be accountable for planning and executing the implementation.

5. Inventory Your Digital Assets - These questions need positive answers before you start:
• Is your website ready?
• Has it been optimized for search engines (SEO)?
• Do you have appropriate CTAs in the correct locations?
• Is your marketing content ready? Do you have enough of it? Is the quality good?

A robust marketing automation system can add the desired number of leads to your marketing funnel. A good lead scoring modelcan be added to score leads tracked through this system.

Read more on –
Lead Management,
Lead Nurturing