NAME: TANVIR AHMED

REG: 2006334037
YEAR/SEMESTER: 4/1
 Marketing Automation – An Industrial Solution
Marketing Automation, a concept for industrial marketing solution developed by INDUSTRIAL
ENGINEERS. It provides practical advice for designing a Marketing Automation strategy, aligning Sales &
Marketing processes, and implementing Marketing Automation solution and give information to
understand how to implement a Marketing Automation infrastructure that will provide a consistent
supply of qualified leads to your sales organization.

Marketing Automation solutions incorporate business strategies, marketing processes, and automation
technologies to generate, qualify, and develop leads along the entire sales cycle. Key Marketing
Automation concepts include: Lead Acquisition, Lead Scoring, Lead Nurturing, and Lead Assignment.

Following are definitions for each concept:

Lead Acquisition: leads are acquired when prospects inquire or respond to marketing campaigns such as
tradeshows, email marketing, direct mail, cold-calling, search engine marketing, online advertising, etc.
Lead Scoring: leads are scored for quality based on explicit profile criteria (job title, company size,
location, etc) and implicit behaviors.
Lead Nurturing: nurturing involves a steady flow of communications designed to educate the buyer and
align purchasing and sales cycles.
Lead Assignment: once leads reach a specified quality score, they are deemed sales-ready and are
assigned to sales representatives for immediate follow-up.

Top Marketing Challenges

According to the CMO Council’s Marketing Outlook 2008 study that polled over 820 senior marketing
professionals, some of the top challenges for marketing leaders in 2008 include:
1. Quantifying the Value of Marketing. 2. Increasing Credibility of the Marketing Function. 3. Improving
Marketing Department Efficiency. 4. Generating More Qualified Leads

In the past, marketers were using disparate systems for email marketing, website analytics, direct mail,
online advertising, etc, making it extremely difficult to accurately track the results of integrated
marketing efforts. New advances in Marketing Automation technology are providing mid-sized
enterprises with systems that can automate manual marketing processes and drive efficiency.

Marketing Automation Solution Benefits

Implementing an integrated Marketing Automation infrastructure composed of skilled INDUSTRIAL
ENGINEERS, automated processes, and integrated technology provides numerous benefits, including:
Alignment of Sales & Marketing: alignment occurs when sales and marketing can agree on the
definition of a qualified lead; systems are integrated to provide visibility into activities and results
Increased Win Rates: Leads that are scored and nurtured before being handed off to sales close at
higher win rates as purchasing & sales cycles are more aligned.
Reduced Cost per Lead: when key marketing processes are automated, less resource are required to
manage new opportunities.
Improved Accountability & Credibility: marketing leaders can provide accountability for their spending
once they are able to quantify the impact of their investments
Better Allocation of Resources: having detailed analytics on prospect behaviors and campaign ROI
provides marketers with the insight needed to optimize spending on the most profitable marketing
programs.
Marketing Automation System Components & Functionality

Marketing Automation & Lead Management: leads can be automatically scored based on profile
criteria and behaviors; leads can be added to nurturing campaigns to align purchasing & sales cycles;
automation rules can be configured to add/delete prospects from programs based on their activities.
Web Analytics & Search Engine Marketing: individual website visitor activity can be tracked and
provided to sales users.
Direct Marketing & Database Management: contact lists can be imported, stored, and de-duplicated;
email marketing campaigns can be executed with tracked URLs to determine click-through rates.
Lead Conversion, Landing Pages/Forms, & PURLs: web forms can be created by marketing without I/T
support; unique URLs can be used to track leads from advertising, direct mail, or other offline
campaigns.

Implementing a Marketing Automation Solution

Developing an integrated Marketing automation strategy that is highly automated and measures return
on investment is not reserved for Fortune 500 marketing organizations. In fact, there are many
affordable Marketing automation solutions that can be integrated and implemented very rapidly.

1. Learn Best Practices: attend webcasts such as Optimizing Lead Generation or High Performance
Demand Creation with industry thought-leaders.
2. Understand Strengths & Weaknesses: completing Marketing Automation Maturity Assessment to see
how your current processes & systems compare to best practices
3. Develop a Marketing automation Strategy: use Lead Generation Scorecard to set your strategic
objectives, initiatives, measures, and targets.
4. Benchmark Key Metrics: if you don’t have historical data, establish benchmarks for the following
metrics:

Cost per Lead = budget / total leads

Win Rate % = wins / closed opportunities
Acquisition Cost = cost per lead / win rate
Lead Conversion % = opportunities / leads
Lead Source % = leads / total leads
Return on Marketing = pipeline value / spend

5. Implement Marketing Automation System: import contact lists; add tracking code to your corporate
website; customize landing pages & forms for lead conversion for campaigns and “drip” programs.
6. Execute Integrated Multi-Channel Campaigns: leverage your websites new tracking capability to
measure prospect behavior and buying signals.

Marketing automation, a component of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), is a set of

processes (or platform) that use of software to automate Marketing and Demand Generation tasks.  The
use of a marketing automation platform streamlines sales and marketing organizations by replacing
high-touch, repetitive manual processes with automated solutions. As an INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER we
implement the marketing automation which cans Align of Sales & Marketing, Increased Win Rates, and
Reduced Cost per Lead, Improved Accountability & Credibility, and Better Allocation of Resources which
will be an INDUSTRIAL MARKETING solution.