Marketing professionals like me who began their careers well before the Dot-Not Bust have seen a steady evolution with growing demands on what marketing should deliver – along with growing disappointment.

Long gone are the days where a marketing VP or marketing communications director would focus exclusively on agency management to develop meaningless and expensive ego-driven advertising  (i.e. Dot-Not “New Economy” ads) libraries of salesware and brochureware, and tons of tradeshows.  Also gone are the days of relying on the voodoo of junk mail agencies to scatter thousands upon thousands of mail pieces per month (and random email spam) in order to generate a stellar 1.00017% response.

Vast empires of marketing coordinators, traffic coordinators, event managers, inhouse designers, marketing communications directors and others were considered successful if they generated XX-thousands leads per year, depending on what the definition of a lead was at that given moment in time.  During annual business reviews marketing statistics were always tweaked to show a growth in “lead” generation over previous years.  Strangely, revenue would remain flat or decrease.  Finger pointing ensued.  (Hopefully this is familiar to many of you in a past-tense and not currently!!!)

Smarter, Faster, Stronger with Marketing Automation

This is one of the most exciting times for organizations to build strong customer relationships thanks to the rapid innovations in web technologies and social media channels and with marketing automation which ties everything together.

Successful marketing executives will have integral input, relationships and credibility with their peer executives and will help set the strategic direction of an organization.  One of the key resources that rebuilds credibility is a marketing automation system.  Marketing automation systems have numerous benefits that will strengthen the overall strategic focus of both marketing and the firm as a whole.  Some of the most important advantages and measurable benefits are:

Doing WAY more with less. Empire building is over with massive and random headcount.  Organizations with marketing automation can deliver and maintain more high quality customer connections with fewer people and less budget.  (I can sense the twitches and gasps from my marketing friends…it’s time to evolve folks!)  I am personally familiar with a firm that in the 1990′s and early 2000′s had a marketing department of 30 with a heavy focus on classic marketing communications and a massive annual spend with agencies and headcount.  That same firm now has a marketing department of less than 10 and uses a marketing automation called Eloqua to manage and measure ther annual marketing programs.  The quality of their customer connections are higher.  They capture better information to help make strategic product decisions.  The relationship between sales and marketing is strong.  This would not be possible without a strong marketing automation system.  With this company, marketing now has a seat at the table with the executive leadership.

Focus. Scatter gun direct mail with the “standard “1.4% response” is dead.  Marketing execs need tools that help them connect with the right prospects and customers with the right content at the right time.  No more pure guesswork.  A marketing automation system provides the focus to deliver a campaign strategy for a company year after year.

Content is King. Help Customers Find You. Customers are in control for when and how they want to be contacted.  They want information to help them with their buying decision.  Develop and provide a range of high value engaging and entertaining content.  Measure which content is best received and find ways to duplicate your success.

Measure. Measure the right data to help the organization make strategic decisions to identify market opportunites and respond to threats.  The executives must agree on the metrics at the beginning of a reporting quarter, or year.  Measure what works.  Identify what doesn’t.  Hold the entire organization accountable for the information reported.  Don’t just focus on generating more “leads” year over year.

As the economy heals from the economic bruising from the last three years more organizations will re-invest in marketing.  However, expectations are high, as they should be.  The old way of marketing is dead.  Marketing automation systems help organizations be smarter, deliver better results, spend wisely, and establish strong customer connections.