Wednesday, February 10, 2016

12 questions for software vendors to automate marketing – Computerworld

Marketo. Eloqua. HubSpot. Pardot. Act-On are just some of the many platforms and services automate marketing processes available on the market today. How to check which ones best suit your company’s needs?

The basic principle is, of course, seek relevant information, particularly the comments of other users, and the results generated by the comparison of products on websites such as G2 Crowd, TrustRadius, Capterra or Software Insider.

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Useful turn out as recommendations from other industry marketing. A great idea is to create a list of needs and objectives and tools necessary for the job.

First of all it is worth to focus on the exact history among various software vendors to automate marketing processes to be able to compare their offerings on an equal footing.

Here are 12 questions based on interviews with specialists of marketing, which will allow for early preparation of the relevant questions of trade and create a solid foundation for the evaluation of tenders each provider of technology marketing.

1. The software is integrated with the CRM system? Is the flow of information is two-sided?

The ideal solution is the integration platform for the automation of marketing processes with CRM systems such as Salesforce even. Adam Bockler, head of communications at Float, advises to ask about the specific functions of CRM on the same platform in order to determine whether it guarantees the right solutions. – Not everyone needs a Salesforce, especially smaller companies focusing more on selling their products and monitoring of agreements sales than creating incredibly detailed reports – explains Adam Bockler.

– Full and seamless integration between the CRM platform, which uses sales and solutions for the automation of marketing processes is crucial – the more, the larger the team, and the more difficult it becomes communication – says Billy Crip, Director. marketing Officer, Field Nation.

2. The software is integrated with other, additional solutions?

In addition to integration with CRM platforms, it is worth asking about the other tools and services and the individual platforms to automate marketing processes, bearing in mind the list of services that are absolutely necessary in the company. For example, HubSpot software is integrated with solutions such as GoToWebinar, SurveyMonkey, Shopify, WordPress and Zappier. Ask yourself whether you really need access to them.

– It is absolutely necessary to prepare a list of tools for which we ask the software vendor. If you just do not have it in their offer, it is worth asking whether it is planned to implement them in the near future – Adam advises Bockler.

3. As data is provided to the automation system and marketing it taken?

Most likely it will be necessary to combine the data collected on the platform for the automation of marketing processes with data from with other systems, such as CRM & lt; SEO, CMS, or ERP. The aim is to create “a comprehensive picture and streamline decision-making process.” – Data should be readily available through the API or planned exports in popular formats – advises Tom Berger, Vice President. Digital marketing firm Progress.

4. How flexible they are reporting? Is it possible to export their own reports?

A faulty reporting capabilities are still the Achilles heel of many, in their own way great platform, he said Micky Long, vice president and executive director. generate sales leads at Arketi Group. It is therefore important that organizations carefully overripe available tools for reporting functions.

5. How is measured the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns?

– For a long time slogans such as monitoring, reporting and ROI does not have much meaning for marketing activities – says Lauren Littlefield, president of the company Field Public Relations. – You could just run a campaign radio or billboard, hoping for a better result confirmed the final financial results of the company at the end of the year. Today, through technology specialists and marketing managers of companies equally analyze the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of their marketing efforts – explains Lauren Littlefield.

In her view, high-quality platform for the automation of marketing processes are flexible, customizable user panels and reporting capabilities allow to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns on a number of different, often very detailed levels. Organizations should ask software vendors to automate the marketing of a way to measure the effectiveness of actions and make sure that there are indicators that are most important to them.


 
 
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