ViewPoint | The Truth About Lead Generation

...Certainly more high-level, meaningful conversations - real live dialogs - would be taking place. Many ready buyers and soon-to-be-ready buyers will never 'make it into the funnel' that autmation seeks to bring to the table, for any number of reasons. Certainly automation does have its place...but will never trump live dialogues, and an outreach using a multi-media, multi-touch, multi-cycle process.

I really like receiving information via marketing automation. However, in the end, once I have sifted through data from various companies and have my thoughts together about what I need and what questions I have, I want to use my own instincts and judgment about the company. For that, I find that only a live conversation or conversations really reveal which company I want to explore in more depth.

If there was no marketing automation I would probably be paid a lot less and I would probably still be planning sales meetings, editing powerpoints, and standing at tradeshow booths handing out flyers that people didn't want instead of working with a rock solid team of marketers creating new and innovative campaigns that reach our target market and drive revenue for my org.  
 
 
 
I guess I should explain a bit. Prior to CRM and marketing automation I was handling events, managing print campaigns, working on a website, etc. for an enterprise chemical company. I hated that I couldn't prove which programs made a difference, and couldn't convince my boss to change direction since I had no real data. Then I switched jobs and met Salesforce.com. It was love at first sight. I was finding things to do with Salesforce that I never even imaged- capturing search results, tracking PPC campaigns, sharing my programs with the sales team in a place they would actually look. Wow!  
 
 
 
But I was hungry for more. What if I could see results from programs farther than an initial conversion? What if I could tell which campaigns were working within days of their launch, and then model out their results going forward? What if I didn’t have to use 5 different systems and spend hours aggregating information? It seemed like I was going to have to go get my PHD to accomplish this, but then I found Marketo. Again, it was love. The reports I could send to my boss were amazing. Marketing was being celebrated by sales. I was presenting at the sales meetings not planning them. I deferred the useless tradeshows into powerful online campaigns. Powerpoints weren’t the job of marketing any more.  
 
 
 
I guess I cheered a little too loud, since Marketo (the leading marketing automation company) heard me and hired me on board. I could not imagine working without these tools every day.

WOW - that's quite a question as marketing automation has so many features and functions. I think first and foremost marketers would still be marketers in the traditional sense and not be able to show direct contribution to top line revenue growth. The ability to automatically respond appropriately to online behavior is the key benefit of a ma system. If you can see it and respond to it, then you can track it and attribute that behavior. This tool set has absolutely changed the role of marketing in influencing revenue and in taking over management of the top of the sales funnel. Without it, sales would have to go back to managing the top of the funnel - something that according to Jim Dickie's upcoming report highlights - no VP of sales wants. As a veteran VP of sales, I always wanted to fully leverage the skill set of my sales team and having marketing manage the top of the funnel to nurture leads until they are ready to have a conversation was extremely important. We are now in a world in which digital body language is the other half of the conversation that both marketing and sales need to be attuned to. Marketing for having a compelling digital discussion and sales to make better pursuit and opportunity decisions.

Since I work for a demand generation agency, I'll be everyone thinks I'm going to stand up and beat my chest for marketing automation. Well, I'm just going to give a real life example. I used it in my own business, Metz Consulting, until we became a part of my current company, The Pedowitz Group. Combining stuff I learned about "soft marketing" from Keith Ferazzi's "Never Eat Alone," I think I devised a pretty amazing system of reaching out to B2B buyers, in a way that counted. I really just made my own homegrown MFA, without using a piece of fancy MFA technology. Do I wish I had, in hindsight? Absolutely.

Marketing Automation makes it easier to get more prospects into the funnel, appropriately communicate with them and nurture them until they're sales ready. Without it we'd probably be doing much of the same things but those activities would be done manually and the sales funnel would probably be much smaller. 
 
The interactions with the prospects would be done one-on-one. How many prospects can you manage with a telephone, email and a calendar? My guess is perhaps a couple of hundred if you're organized. So we'd need a lot more people managing the top of the funnel. No doubt lots of leads that should have turned into sales would fall through the cracks. 
 
Bottom line - leads prospects, less leads, less sales and more headcount / expense.

What if marketing automation didn't exist you ask, Jim? This thought inspires a smile and a grimace, having lived the industry ups and downs since inception. For 25 years and five companies, my "techie" business partners and I have deftly (for the most part;-) applied technology to marketing and prospecting work flow--a.k.a. marketing automation. MA continues to provide tremendous competitive advantage for us and for our clients.  
 
BUT, and there's a big but here, MA's not a magic bullet by itself...as an MA supplier I wish that it were. Serving scores of customers and processing millions of prospects reveals a core truth about getting results. If there is a magic bullet, then its savvy marketers who KNOW precisely how their prospects tick, speak to them relevantly with EVERY touch, use the communication channel that accomplishes the mission while respecting prospect preferences, and who deliver ONLY qualified, "closeable" sales leads to hungry sales staff. Soooooo, can marketers actually get savvy and  
accomplish these outcomes without MA? Nope. BUT, remember, even the finest musical instruments lay silent without a conductor and gifted musicians who make the symphony happen. Sounds like the MA aficionados responding to this blog are living this career-enhancing truth. Kudos to them! 
 
p.s. MA's the new normal, so now keep an eye on how web collaboration suites and virtual labor and crowdsourcing will become mainstream in the marketing tool box.

Hi Maria: 
 
Your 3rd paragraph says it all. Look how far we have all come in just a few short years. What I see from your comments represents empowerment. You became empowered to market smarter and faster and your company knew the ROI and where to spend their money. I am sure you love working at Marketo.  
 

Now this is an interesting question - sort of seeking a reverse compliment! First of all, we have been recently blessed with significant advances in B2B marketing. Not only tools like marketing automation, but also new sources of data - now housed in the MA tool. 
 
 
 
Without MA we would not be able to measure results as well, be less productive and therefore less valuable to sales and the company overall. All good progressions for marketers who have always been second fiddle to sales. 
 
 
 
On the other hand, marketers might be in more contact with propects and customers without MA, as I have seen a increasing trend for the younger and/or newer marketers to stay in the office and in front of the computer screen way too much. In B2B one of the critical learnings comes from actually talking to someone - phone or face-to-face. Let's not be drawn into thinking MA subsitutes for the human interface. This is increasing true when the product/service being sold moves from commodity to complex. Spoken like an old sales person - which I am. 
 
 
 
A real DANGER of MA is too much reliance on impersonal and/or observed behavior and not enough actual interface with prospects and customers real time. A balance must be struck to achieve the best results over time!

I really enjoyed reading John's comment to this question. MA is not for every target on your list. In many cases the result of MA campaigns is getting lower quality leads into sales' hands less expensively and more quickly... Thanks for the great question James!

 
 
Yes John, CounterFactual Reflection causes people to primarily reflect on the “good” if something, in this case marketing automation, had not occurred. But you’re right John, there is another phenomenon that says anything trait taken to an extreme can become a negative, in other words there can be too much of a good thing. Just relying on marketing automation without human intervention can also be an issue. Nice comment John.  
 

Andy (Andy Brownell)  
 
I agree the sales funnel and results sales would be much smaller without marketing automation and the nurturing it provides. I think the number is 3X smaller for those who don't use marketing automation. Thanks for your thoughts.  
 

Hi Debbie: Yes, MA has changed the role and function of every marketing manager it has touched. Sales needs someone to manage the top of the funnel and MA does it.

Hi Laura: Nice to hear from you. Yes, MA is the new normal. The conductor analogy is right on. We need marketing manager’s who know how to direct t the orchestra. Can you elaborate on your thoughts about web collaboration suites, virtual labor and crowdsourcing?