Why Marketing Automation Is A Must Have (For Every B2B VP of Sales & Marketer)

This post is sponsored by the Manticore Technology, a marketing automation provider.

Manticore Technology released an eGuide, The Quintessential Marketing Automation Guide, that features a tremendous amount of insight and how-to advice from some of today’s most respected marketing and sales thought leaders, including Ardath Albee, Craig Rosenberg, and Jill Konrath.

The purpose of the guide is to help educate B2B marketers and sales leadership professionals on the importance and power of marketing automation in B2B. It’s an extensive 10 part guide covering a range of marketing topics from automation to lead scoring to demand generation.

I reviewed all of the sections. In this sponsored post, I’ll share my thoughts on Section 7, Why Marketing Automation Is A Must Have For Every B2B VP of Sales written by Robert Walmsley, President & CEO of Tailwind Strategies.

Highlights and Key Learnings

• B2B buyers no longer follow a linear purchasing process and therefore using a single sales discovery process with all prospects may frustrate buyers and can create an immediate disconnect in the buyer-seller relationship. Both sales and marketing need to 1. understand that B2B buyers can enter the buying cycle at any stage in the funnel and 2. the buyers are entering the buying cycle armed with as much (and sometimes more) information than the sales person. You need a way to identify what the buyers know and what stage of the process they may be entering (or coming out of).

• Gone are the days of solely relying on lead capture forms to gain the information you need to be competitive in today’s marketplace. B2B buyers expect immediate, relevant information unique to their situation. Today’s sales teams need to understand much more than the profile of the people they are working with. You need a way to understand and communicate to the sales team the online behavior of the B2B buyers that are coming to your web site.

• For all the features and benefits of marketing automation software systems (lead scoring, lead nurturing, campaign management, time savings and on and on), the single most important metric to measure its performance is in *driving tangible revenue improvement.* Don’t miss the forest through the trees.

Something That Made Me Stop And Think

• “Search now means more than getting found. It is becoming a factor at the top, middle, and even the bottom of the funnel. Buyers are using more expansive terms [and phrases] as their research narrows on a set of solutions during the evaluation and consideration stages.” You need a way to identify these latter stage terms and close the loop on the link between the keyword phrase(s) and closed deals and closed deal sizes.

Who Should Read It And Why

I’d suggest ignoring the title of this section and offer that not only will a VP of Sales benefit from downloading and reading this section of The Quintessential Marketing Automation Guide, but so too will CMOs and VPs of marketing. While some sales side angles are included, a marketer reading them will gain valuable context that will only benefit the collaborative relationship that must be formed between sales and marketing for the successful implementation of a marketing automation system.

Recap

1. You need a way to identify what the buyers know and what stage of the process they may be entering (or coming out of).
   • Implement Lead Scoring
2. You need a way to understand and communicate to the sales team the online behavior of the B2B buyers that are coming to your web site.
   • Quick and efficient routing of leads to sales or into a lead nurturing program
3. The single most important metric to measure the performance of a marketing automation system is driving tangible revenue improvement.
   • Put the focus on marketing’s contribution to revenue
4. Search now means more than getting found, it is being used during all stages of the buying process. Identify these latter stage terms and work to understand the link between keyword phrase(s) and closed deals and closed deal sizes.

We can all agree that B2B buying and selling are evolving (rapidly). It’s hard to envision a future where marketing automation software has not become the norm for every B2B marketing and sales organization, isn’t it?. Read Why Marketing Automation Is A Must Have For Every B2B VP of Sales and you might just feel the same way.

Author: Jeremy Victor | Website | Twitter

Jeremy's the founder of Make Good Media and Editor In Chief of B2Bbloggers.com. B2Bbloggers.com is a B2B Marketing online magazine discussing the evolution of B2B marketing. Topics include content marketing, B2B social media, demand generation, marketing automation, and more. Sign up. Get all the articles via email.