One of the initiatives I run with our clients at Convince & Convert is the selection of a marketing automation provider. Based on our experience in the field, here's the process we use to choose the best marketing automation platform for your business.
This is the first in a three-part series that dives into the CRM + Marketing Automation Implementation and Selection Process.
Let's start with the basics and define what marketing automation and CRM are.
What is CRM?
Customer relationship management (CRM) typically refers to a database of records about leads and/or customers. They come in many varieties and specialized versions, so we use the term generically.
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation (MA) refers to a set of tools and capabilities that enable automated, triggered events including email, text messages, transforms, lead scoring, conditional logic rules, communication procedures, etc. These two sets of capabilities, (CRM + MA) can reside in a comprehensive platform or two (or more) two-way data exchange systems. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. That's part of the challenge in choosing the best system(s) for your specific needs.
The combination of a CRM system or a record database and automation of marketing messages allows you to communicate based on individual attributes, reactions, engagement, and channel preferences. core. It's a long-winded way of saying, "Talk to individuals as individuals in ways that work best for each of them."
There is one key principle that everyone in the decision-making process needs to be aware of. It is similar to the four pillars that hold the roof for the entire Marketing Automation + CRM process. It looks like this:
Leadership must be clear and committed to all four pillars for success.
The Four Pillars of Nurturing Success
The Four Pillars of Nurturing Success
Take a close look at that. If you remove, or even briefly change any one of those pillars, the entire marketing automation process will lead to suboptimal results. This will become the lifeblood of most organizations' sales and revenue funnels. This is not the place to cut corners. Management must be clear and committed to all four pillars to achieve success.
I could write entire posts based on data alone, and that's super important. I will continue that for the second part of this series.
The most important thing to remember when performing a CRM + MA upgrade is probably the one thing not to do.
How to Unify and Improve the Entire CRM and Marketing Automation Process
For those who have several types of systems and tools put together, where does one begin to consolidate and improve the entire process?
Let's first agree that we're talking about improving the whole process for everybody: potential customers/recipients, marketers, tacticians and management. When done right, everyone wins.
Probably the most important thing to remember when doing a CRM + MA upgrade do not do it . DO NOT go out and start looking for demos of different systems. They all have shiny demos, wiz-bangs, and colorful charts and seem to just drag and drop GUIs, but that's a misnomer. In fact, list of 130 Trusted Radius of Individual Marketing Automation platforms ! No one has time to demo a meaningful amount of them.
The Best Way to Demo Marketing Automation Solutions
The correct way to demo marketing automation platforms – the way most likely to deliver results – is to do this:
- Record your current abilities, outstanding points, shortcomings and limitations (this is your current state)
- Record the features and functionality you want in the future (future state). Can stretch a bit here; You may not achieve everything you can dream of, but still look forward to the next few years.
This list of future state possibilities should be comprehensive, but not necessarily exhaustive. More on that in a moment.
How to evaluate marketing automation solutions
Step 1: Add to the list of Feature and Functional Requirement interview questions, including:
- Number of reviews and cumulative rating points ( G2 , Trust radius , Capterra )
- Company size, number of employees and how many people in customer service
- Capitalization structure (VC funding, latest round, private help, public transaction, etc.)
- Execution time
- Process boarding: does it include data migration?
- Basic database product (Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, Salesforce or monopoly?)
- Are there specialized products for your particular industry? (e.g. higher education, home building, nonprofit and fundraising, etc.)
- And don't worry about the price at this stage. Don't even bring it up. (More on that below)
Step 2: Next, filter through the list of candidate CRM + MA packages and develop a short list of no more than 10.
Step 3: With 10 candidates, start the sales process with each, by:
- Schedule a call with their sales rep to confirm if it's a candidate for your particular business.
- Submit your list of functional requirements asking them to tick the boxes and fill in any notes or explanations.
- Schedule your first two demos, 90 m inutes (can't get the proper work done in less time, and a second demo will be needed when you're down your last two or three steps).
Step 4: Internally evaluate solutions for a minimum of 3-4 weeks
Now, this will take some time. In our experience, it takes a minimum of two weeks to go through dialogs, checklists, schedule demonstrations, follow-up questions, etc. And you may not get 6 – 10 done in the frame. two-week period if you and your team already have the day's work. Honestly, plan for a minimum of 3-4 weeks.
Once you get to this stage of analysis, we've got some good processes in place that streamline things. We've developed a set of features and functionality criteria and applied it to each candidate platform. Contact us and I'd be happy to share those; It just doesn't help you read well here.
How to choose your marketing automation solution
Once you get the shortlist down to 1 or 2 candidates, then what?
If it's down to a list, your job is really simple. Anything more than one, and you'll have to dig a little deeper and find the differences. Perhaps there are people who don't start at this stage, or they won't be on the final list. This is the place to talk to customers for reference and negotiate prices. And the price models vary greatly. You should be prepared for multiple licenses, user fees include admin, marketer, secretary or whatever they name their seat license and access level and some even have may be a fixed level.
We always ask for an inclusive fee structure every year for the first three years. The first year is always the most expensive because migration and fulfillment services are usually aggregated during that first year. So three years gives a better look at the annual cost of ownership. And it is a bargaining point. That's the best reason to have at least two on your final list of candidates.
Second part of this series: How to collect the right data to drive your marketing
We delve deeper into the importance of data, the four types of data and how this will make you rethink your CTAs and web forms!
Part three of this series: How to implement marketing automation
The implementation journey is about to begin. But you not yet ready. There are a lot of things that can and should be done before anyone starts uploading software to a server! (or, in the cloud)
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