Marketing automation’s new blended family

When nascent internet marketers first married a mailing list to email technology, a cheap and powerful marketing tactic was born. That tactic paved the way for modern marketing automation.

Before there was Google, before data became 'big data,” email marketing was targeting potential customers based on their behavior and basic demographics and keeping track of that information for future use.

Today, marketers integrate and distribute content on many channels and platforms. As each new channel or platform was born, businesses acquired the skills they needed and adapted - but execution was clunky. Managing marketing technology became a priority and, of course, where there's a need, a technology solution can't be far behind.

Thus, marketing automation ecosystems were born.

Extended Family

If email marketing was the mother of modern digital marketing, marketing automation is the blended family that resulted. Instead of having separate systems for creative work, building websites and landing pages, creating and sending emails, managing your social media posts or paid ads, marketing automation software was created to integrate many of these functions.

Rather than jumping from platform to platform, trying to integrate strategies in disparate systems, these multi-platform environments were created to allow businesses to execute on multiple tactics within one software environment.

Many of these integrations require partnerships with other marketing technology companies. For example, Hubspot, one of the biggest names in marketing automation software, just launched a tool that allows its Google Adwords and LinkedIn customers to create, measure and optimize paid search and social ads without ever having to leave the Hubspot software.

Talks with other social networks are ongoing.

It's Complicated

The knock on marketing automation systems is that they are too complicated. Well, they are complicated. That's because marketing is complicated - way more complicated than it was even five years ago.

Keep in mind that pay-per-click campaigns aren't any easier - or cheaper - just because you are running them out of a marketing automation platform. Email marketing has the same rules and best practices whether you are using Mail Chimp or Marketo.

And data analytics won't do you a darn bit of good if you don't know how to extract actionable insights from the scads of information at your fingertips.

Marketing automation software is just the framework for success. Just as opening up a spreadsheet won't make you an accountant, purchasing marketing automation programs won't make you a digital marketer. You need skills and experience to use it or a partner that has the expertise you need.

Leadership Matters

Marketing automation can be a huge time saver and help you maximize your marketing dollar, if you know how to use it.

However, wrapping your company's sales and marketing psyche around the idea that all your marketing functions should be coordinated around the same platform can be tough. It's not just that there are silos within organizations, there also are skills gaps and operational systems in place that can be difficult to overcome.

Using marketing automation systems can help organize your inbound marketing efforts. However, using it requires commitment to long-term strategies, lots of project management and a way to analyze digital marketing results that maximizes your marketing investment.

In other words, businesses will need a few more digital tools such as project management tools and database management in their arsenal to get this right.

' Regina Gilloon-Meyer is a content marketing specialist for Fusionfarm, a division of The Gazette Company, (319) 368-8530, regina@fusionfarm.com, @Regiimary