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.

Marketing is becoming more technology driven and marketers are becoming more sophisticated and tech savvy than ever before.  The use of programmatic advertising among marketers has dramatically increased in the last few years.  The rise in usage of marketing automation software has now made it possible to tailor your message to the right people, at the right time and place for optimal results.  In-depth insights into this tech explosion in marketing are presented in AdRoll's State Of The Industry 2016 report.  1050 marketers, across numerous industries, were surveyed on their perspective of the changing advertising and marketing landscape.  Take a look at the report and see where marketers are in the adoption of these new marketing technologies.

If your organization is accumulating a growing list of leads with email addresses, it's probably time to take a look at marketing tools that will ensure effective digital interactions with those leads.  There are many options available for marketing software tools.  Before you start looking at vendors and software platforms, you might want to begin with a basic question.  What is the difference between email marketing and marketing automation?  Yes, they are two different things.  Both email marketing and marketing automation use email as the primary channel to communicate and engage with your audience.  However, email software only tracks the actions taken by recipients of your email.  Marketing automation software moniters every digital interaction a lead has with your organization.  Aleksandr Peterson at Act-On has written an article in which he breaks down the differences between these two types of software systems in much greater detail.  This article is a good resource to help you decide which system will best meet your needs.

HighRoad completed their Marketing Automation Workshop and the buzz in the room seemed to be people noticing how different an email marketing platform and a marketing automation platform really are…

If you’re planning on joining us in person or virtually for our Marketing Automation Workshop tomorrow, here are a couple of things to consider while Adam and I share our insights:

As marketers our goal is to generate a steady stream of high quality leads which will in turn produce greater revenue.  The infographic below shows how marketing automation can help us achieve this.