actonAct-On Software, a company that delivers cloud-based integrated marketing automation software, points out in its whitepaper that marketing automation helps businesses to grow easily. With capabilities that span inbound and outbound marketing, CRM integration and robust measurement, marketing automation offers tremendous value to businesses, including improved operational efficiencies, reduced costs, marketing and sales alignment, qualified leads and increased revenues.

With Act-On Software, marketers can manage all their online marketing efforts from a single dashboard that can be seamlessly integrated with CRM, giving sales access into various marketing functions. Act-On’s fresh approach to marketing automation gives its users full functionality without the complexity many other systems impose, and makes campaign creation and program execution easier and faster.

In short, the company states: No amount of hired resources could manually reach out and touch prospects at just the right time with just the right message. Marketing automation forms the backbone for configuring nurture marketing campaigns across channels and managing communications based on prospect engagement. It’s also one of the only ways marketers can actually start to attribute marketing spend to closed sales.

This explains why Forrester Research prefers the term “lead-to-revenue management automation solutions” and notes that such systems were developed to “bridge a gap between lead generation activities (e.g., trade shows, direct mail, telemarketing, and email campaigns) and selling activities, that were managed by a customer relationship management (CRM) system (e.g., closing the deal).

The scales have shifted

Act-On Software highlights that digital channels, non-stop connectivity, expectations for personalized interactions, and unprecedented global competition have empowered today’s buyers with more knowledge and choices than ever before. The result is that marketers must shoulder much more responsibility for measurably contributing to sales and revenue goals. Here, success depends on finding the right mix of inbound and outbound strategies as well as the right data that effectively measures what matters most.

Marketing automation is simply a proven method for striking this balance and can significantly, measurably, and sustainably increase a company’s chances for continued success and the facts speak for themselves. Businesses that adopted marketing automation are out-performing those without it, Act-On Software shows:

  • 58% of top-performing companies (defined as those where marketing contributes more than half of the sales pipeline), have adopted marketing automation. (Forrester Research, Dec 2013)
  • 63% of companies that are outgrowing their competitors use marketing automation. (The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups, Nov 2013)
  • 79% of top-performing companies have been using marketing automation for more than two years. (Gleanster, Aug 2013)

Value and benefits of marketing automation

“The core strength of marketing automation is creating a digital infrastructure in which marketing and sales can understand, and interact with, buyers throughout the entire lifecycle – from acquisition to retention – in a well-timed, personalized way”, says Act-On Software in its whitepaper, further highlighting some interesting facts:

  • 78% of marketers cite marketing automation systems as most responsible for improving revenue contribution. (The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups, Nov 2013)
  • B2B marketers cite the #1 benefit of marketing automation as the ability to generate more and better leads. (Pepper Global, Sep 2013)
  • B2B marketers who have successfully deployed lead nurturing programs, average a 20% increase in sales opportunities from nurtured leads versus non-nurtured leads. (DemandGen, Aug 2013)
  • B2C marketers who take advantage of marketing automation have seen conversion rates as high as 50%. (eMarketer, Feb 2013)
  • 69% of top-performing companies cite “cooperation between marketing and sales” as the most critical value-driver for maximizing the marketing automation ROI. (Gleanster, Nov 2012)

Without doubt, all mentioned above provides compelling value propositions. However, marketing automation can last but not least particularly:

  • Increase overall sales, both for new and repeat customers;
  • Shorten the sales cycle by 50% or more;
  • Increase deal sizes;
  • Increase sales quota achievement rates;
  • Lower the cost per lead;
  • Lower overall sales and marketing costs across the company;
  • Increase alignment of the sales and marketing team.

As Act-On Software argues in its whitepaper, marketing automation provides the infrastructure and so creates the opportunity for marketers and salespeople to understand and interact with buyers throughout the entire lifecycle in a personalized way. Marketing automation enable them to market and sell more effectively with all its benefits it can bring.

So, if you are looking for solutions regarding data integration, data analytics, list creation, dynamic list-building, automated workflows for the development and execution of outbound and inbound marketing, lead management features for lead scoring, distribution or nurturing, an opportunity to give sales insights into marketing campaign efforts and individual prospects, or provide activity reports (showing website behavior, click-throughs, content views, etc for each lead and contact), it is definitely worth to check out Act-On Software.

By Daniela La Marca