Introduction

Competition and innovation among marketing automation providers have created an exceptional market for enterprise buyers. As feature lists for popular customer relationship marketing tools grow, even more vendors compete for their slice of the corporate IT budget. With so many quality CRM marketing systems to choose from, some sales managers can find themselves overwhelmed when selecting potential vendors, resellers, and other value added providers.

According to industry experts, company leaders should focus on five critical factors when evaluating marketing automation systems:

• Scope of Service
• Industry Specialization
• Ease of Use
• Price
• Support

Scope of Service: Setting Goals for Marketing Automation

Marketing automation consultants often advise new clients to imagine the ideal workflow in their organizations. Some company leaders envision a future where customer relationship marketing tools handle everything from processing leads to fulfilling orders. Other managers simply require the ability to automate routine customer interactions so top sellers can focus on closing big accounts. Prospective CRM marketing system purchasers should understand where their company fits on that continuum before initiating contact with marketing automation vendors.

Setting clear goals for each phase of a marketing automation project keeps team leaders focused and budgets balanced. Companies that try to adopt too many changes too quickly often report major problems with sales and customer satisfaction. Fortunately, most leading marketing automation tools offer modular implementation. By rolling out new features in stages, team leaders can ease their companies through a service shift while optimizing IT budgets.

Industry Specialization: Highlighting Customer Needs

Although most customer relationship marketing tools offer customizable features, many companies prefer to select marketing automation tools that address the specific needs of their industries. Working with a marketing automation vendor or reseller with critical industry insight often accelerates the process of rolling out CRM marketing tools to sales professionals.

Professions with highly specialized customer relationship marketing tools include:

• Real Estate Agents
• Health Care Professionals
• Financial Advisors
• Salon and Personal Care Specialists

Leveraging a marketing automation vendor?s experience often helps companies adopt the best practices of their competitors. For example, a CRM marketing module that automates appointment reminders across multiple communication channels can maximize staff time while reinforcing the value of a service. Companies that lack such a communication strategy prior to their marketing automation rollout often enjoy even more pronounced returns on investment.

Ease of Use: Implementing Marketing Automation

Many unsuccessful cases of marketing automation rollouts share a common trait: systems that appeared to address a company?s core needs but failed to engage key staff members. Without an enjoyable user experience, even the most advanced customer relationship marketing tools will not gain a foothold in an enterprise. Successful marketing automation rollouts usually include at least two of three important features:

• Integration with everyday tools, like Outlook, Palm, and BlackBerry
• Synchronization with existing address book and e-mail
• Ease of entering data and retrieving reminders

Selecting a marketing automation system with simple controls is as important as choosing tools that fit with an organization?s culture. For example, proponents of David Allen?s Getting Things Done task management strategies might not want to wrestle with marketing automation tools that favor a Steven Covey ?four quadrants? approach. Likewise, a laptop-based software solution might serve mobile professionals better than a web-based, ?always on? server platform. A survey of successful team members? tools and traits can identify the kinds of features that a productive marketing automation platform should contain.

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