If you have made the decision to purchase a marketing automation system, there are a few things to consider first.  When it comes to marketing automation, taking some time before hand to understand what you need to plan for and expect from the implementation of your new system may save you pain down the road.  There are some questions worth considering when choosing a marketing automation system.  What do you want your system to achieve for you?  What platforms or tools do you wish to integrate with your new system?  What level of vendor support will you need to get up and running?  And for how long?  Gillian Wildfire at Act-On has written an article about the four steps you should take when considering marketing automation solutions.  Taking these four steps first will provide you with the information you need in order to ensure success with your new system.

Any growing business or organization that wants to have long-term success in today's digital world must learn to take advantage of digital content.  While there is still value in physical business collateral such as books, brochures, magazines, informational pamphlets and the like, what's becoming a standard for practically every professional industry is for businesses to produce online content for a digital audience.  If you're wondering how to best approach digital content for your business to ensure that it's helping rather than hindering your goals, here are 5 important rules when writing digital content:

Content marketing is the creation and distribution of relevant, valuable content to attract a specific audience in order to drive engagement.  The main objective of content marketing is to generate leads, and as a marketing strategy it can be quite effective.  Demand Metric Chief Analyst Jerry Rackley and our own CMO Suzanne Carawan discuss how organizations are successfully using content marketing as a lead gen tool.  In addition, they discuss:

Digital marketing is a cost effective way to promote and grow your organization.  With so many consumers online these days, it's important to have a strong presence there.  The infographic below is a simple guide for successful online marketing.

We have been hearing a lot about marketing automation these days.  But there are quite a few misconceptions still floating around.  One of the most common is the mistaken belief that marketing automation is too complex a tool for smaller marketing teams to be able to set up and maintain effectively.  Actually nothing could be further from the truth.  Marketing automation is an ideal solution for smaller teams who have limited time and resources.  This is because a major benefit of marketing automation is to allow marketers to do more in less time.  We have found an article, written by Molly Hoffmeister over at Salesforce, that dispels four common myths and shows us instead how marketing automation can help grow organizations both large and small.

When is "good enough" really not good enough after all?  Quite often it seems.  If  your organization is looking for ways to boost productivity, marketing automation may be the solution you're looking for.  However, there are many marketing automation solutions available, so choose wisely.  Settling for a "good enough" solution may actually hinder your productivity.  Selecting the right solution for your organization's needs is critical for your success.  We have found a good article you should check out, written by Neha Shah, at Marketo.  The article explains in more detail why not settling for a less than ideal marketing automation solution is crucial and how to distinguish between a "good enough" solution and a truly good solution.