5 steps to choosing and implementing a marketing automation platform

To choose and implement a marketing automation platform successfully, organizations should follow a few key steps. The following is an excerpt from our recently published “Field Guide to Marketing Automation Platforms.”

1. Define your goals and tie them to business objectives

“That should be the starting point,” said Kelsey Voss, principal analyst at EMARKETER. “What are your goals? What do your customers need and how can you help them?”

• Goals will vary from organization to organization (from boosting engagement to adding a new channel to automate), but it’s important that they ladder up to larger organizational outcomes.
• “Choosing an automation platform has to be process, use-case driven,” said Milt Hwang, principal, strategic marketing consultant at Mission MarTech. “Otherwise you’re just automating for automation’s sake.”

2. Evaluate technology and talent

“You need to understand the current capabilities of your team and how they currently go about what you’re trying to automate,” said Hwang. “Because you need to be able to actually tell if the platform is actually working.”

It’s also important to understand how a new platform will integrate with an organization’s existing platforms and tools.

“A major make-or-break factor for automation platforms is whether they can link up with an organization’s CRM or other customer data systems,” said Hwang. “Otherwise it’s creating just another silo where marketing tactics aren’t connected to sales.”

3. Consider customization and integration needs

While some platforms offer out-of-the-box solutions, perfect for small teams with less technical expertise, others are fully customizable, requiring more work on the back end. When it comes to the latter, it’s important that platforms offer a robust customer support service, said Voss.

Organizations should also consider what kind of integrations are important—now and in the future.

“Some platforms will tell you up front all of the platforms they integrate with, which can be helpful in the decision-making process, Said Voss.”

4. Assemble a cross-functional team to select and test platforms

Though primarily a tool for the marketing department, choosing a marketing automation platform usually requires sign-off from other stakeholders.

• “Because these platforms can be very large purchases, you want to involve the CFO or someone from finance,” said Voss. “You’ll want representatives from sales, product, customer success, IT—they should all be in on the vetting process.”
• Voss recommended focusing on platforms that offer a trial period so organizations can get a feel for how the platform functions.
• “Evaluate how easy it is to use, scale, and whether or not it actually saves time,” she said. “This is especially important for…mid-sized businesses who are relying on the platform to make up for a smaller marketing team.”

5. Start small and measure immediately

“Don’t try to do everything all at once,” said Voss. “Start with a few campaigns, make sure your data is right and your integrations are working.”

But that shouldn’t get in the way of measuring success.

“You want to see the return on investment immediately,” said Voss. “You want to be able to say to leadership, ‘We sent out these very targeted emails to this select group, and we got their response rate, and we got them to take X action or we were able to send this off to sales quickly’ or whatever your overarching goal is with the platform.”

Get the full Field Guide.

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