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April 26, 2011
B2B Marketers Must Better Prepare
For Marketing Automationby Jeff Ernstfor CMO & Marketing Leadership Professionals
Making Leaders Successful Every DayFor CMO & Marketing Leadership Professionals
April 26, 2011
B2B Marketers Must Better Prepare For Marketing Automationby Jeff Ernstwith David M. Cooperstein, Andre Pino, Sophia I. Vargas, and Matthew Dernoga
Executive SummaryChanging buyer behaviors require business-to-business (B2B) marketers to communicate with prospects and customers in new ways, by delivering content that is personalized to their needs, role, level of interest, and stage of problem-solving. This has made marketing automation a mission-critical system for B2B marketers, but too many marketing leaders head down the automation path without fully realizing what they are getting into. They need to prepare for the use of the technology by having 1) a lead-to-revenue process model to automate; 2) content to support the message and responses; and 3) a marketing organization that is ready to support the technology.
table of Contents NOTES & RESOURCES2 Marketing Automation Has Become Mission- Forrester interviewed vendor, user, and Critical For B2B Firms implementation companies, including Aprimo, But Marketers Aren't Always Ready To EFI, Eloqua, EMC, eTrigue, Foodland Super Experience The Full Benefits Market, Genius, HubSpot, Jamcracker, Jigsaw, 3 The Marketing Automation Motto: Be Kana, LeadFormix, LeadLife Solutions, LexJet, Prepared LoopFuse, Marketo, Neolane, Oracle, Pardot, PrimePay, QlikTech, Radian6, SAP, SalesFusion, Prepare To Develop An Integrated Lead-To- Silverpop, Team Thor Marketing, TechSmith, The Revenue Process Model Annuitas Group, TreeHouse Interactive, and Prepare For Being A Content Marketer Unica.Prepare The Organization For Database Marketing Related Research Documents"Lead-To-Revenue Management Transforms Tech recommendations8 Don't Put Technology Ahead Of Marketing"Organizational Readiness December 22, 2010 "B2B CMOs: Make Marketing Automation A Catalyst For Alignment With Sales"October 7, 2010
© 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Forrester, Forrester Wave, RoleView, Technographics, TechRankings, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Reproduction or sharing of this content in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. To purchase reprints of this document, please email clientsupport@forrester.com. For additional reproduction and usage information, see Forrester's Citation Policy located at www.forrester.com. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.2 B2B Marketers Must Better Prepare For Marketing Automation For CMO & Marketing Leadership Professionals
marketing automation has become mission-critical for b2b firmsB2B marketing leaders are under tremendous pressure to increase their marketing team's contribution to generating revenue. For companies serving buyers that make high-consideration purchases, from medical equipment to advertising services, marketers need to communicate with potential buyers at every stage of their problem-solving cycle, providing them with information that is targeted to their needs, role, intent, and interest level. To manage this depth of engagement at scale requires marketing automation. Forrester defines B2B marketing automation as:
Tooling and process that help generate new business opportunities, improve potential buyers' propensity to purchase, manage customer loyalty, and increase alignment between marketing activity and revenue.
Several changes in customer buying behaviors are making marketing automation mission-critical:
· Buyers do more research on their own. Business buyers have increased the time they spend talking to peers and colleagues about business problems and investigate solutions on their own before engaging with vendor sales reps. This requires marketers to use automation to monitor which offers or messages buyers respond to and what information buyers consume and then to use that data to deliver additional information that helps buyers move to the next stage of the problem-solving cycle.
· There are fewer active buying cycles. While buying cycles are getting longer, a smaller percentage of people in the... [download for more]
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