Don’t Forget the Marketing With Your Marketing Automation

B2B Marketing AutomationRecently, we came across a few prospects that have rolled out marketing automation solutions without dedicated B2B marketing resources to support it. The increased use of marketing automation is due to the affordable pricing and how user friendly it is. Examples of marketing automation tools that are frequently used include Pardot and especially Hubspot. This frequently resulted in a failed effort, with what could have been an excellent opportunity to drive business with a proper effort. The key that was missing was actually marketing help to manage and feed the inbound marketing engine. Whether it is a full-time employee or part-time employee, there needs to be someone focused on marketing to get the most out of your marketing automation.

The different activities needed to support a B2B marketing automation effort include:

Content Marketing

One of the most important components of marketing automation is content marketing. You need new content to drive visitors. This will also help turn visitors into leads. This content would typically consist of regular blogs as well as downloadable assets, like white papers. The marketing contact does not need to write all the content, but typically keeping the team on a schedule is helpful. Having the marketing contact post the content and optimize it for SEO is also an important task.

Managing Social Media

Having consistent social media as part of a great inbound marketing campaign is important. Most of the marketing automation tools allow for posting on social media. Having regular social posts on pre-determined topics is much easier with a dedicated resource.

Creating Landing pages and Email Marketing

Most marketing automation tools make it fairly easy to create landing pages and email templates. It is much harder when actually doing it, more than they would have you believe. Having a team member with the skills to create appealing and functional landing pages and emails in a time efficient manner is a huge benefit. It will lead to more campaigns and to the right tools being used as the sales team and leadership will know to engage the marketing resource to help with these tasks.

Review Results and Make Recommendations

Working with the leadership team, the marketing contact can also help to summarize the results and do deeper dives if needed. Working with the leadership team they can build on these successes and put plans in place for improvements. Creating goals on the activities that drive sales and then reviewing those leading indicators can pay big dividends down the road.

Don’t forget about the marketing as part of your marketing automation program. If you don’t have the resources in-house for the strategic plan or the tactical execution contact us and we can talk about how we can support your marketing. For more details check out our white paper on inbound marketing.

Don’t Forget the Marketing With Your Marketing Automation