{"id":2821,"date":"2016-02-17T03:19:04","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T03:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devbloglavaprotocols.nityo.in\/selecting-the-right-marketing-automation-tool-for-your-business\/"},"modified":"2016-02-17T03:19:04","modified_gmt":"2016-02-17T03:19:04","slug":"selecting-the-right-marketing-automation-tool-for-your-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavaprotocols.com\/the-cloud-blog\/selecting-the-right-marketing-automation-tool-for-your-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Selecting The Right Marketing Automation Tool For Your Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p><strong><em>By Molly Hoffmeister, former Content Manager, AppExchange Content &#038; Community, Salesforce<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s all about picking the right vendor for your needs.<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Choosing the right\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lavaprotocols.com\/2016\/02\/17\/marketing-automation-marketing-tool\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">marketing automation solution<\/a> is largely about understanding your own goals to pick the solution that will best align with them, and there are a lot of questions that go into evaluating options:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Does it have all the features I need?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Will I see enough returns on my investment?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Will I have the resources I need to use it effectively?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But there\u2019s one aspect of vendor evaluation that many companies fail to take into account \u2013 <\/span><b><i>the future<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. No, not just next month, post-implementation, or even a year down the line, but three or even five years from now. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s important to keep in mind that you aren\u2019t just buying a marketing tool; you\u2019re investing in a platform that will tie together all of your <a href=\"https:\/\/lavaprotocols.com\/2017\/05\/19\/marketing-automation-increases-sales-infographic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">marketing and sales processes<\/a> \u2014 and essentially change the way you do business.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/> <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/> <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So if you\u2019re considering an investment in marketing automation, save yourself the headache of having to switch solutions two years down the road (hey, who wants to overhaul all of their marketing processes more than once and risk data loss?) and take into account the considerations below. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>Ask yourself these questions, ask the vendor, and make sure you\u2019re securing a partner that will help you take your business where you want to go.<br \/> <b><\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>QUESTION 1: WILL THE PLATFORM GROW AND SCALE WITH MY BUSINESS?<\/b><\/span><br \/> <i><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">B2B organisations with tightly aligned sales and marketing operations achieved 24% faster growth and 27% faster profit growth over a three-year period. (SiriusDecisions)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sure, the solution fits your core needs right now, but the entire point of marketing automation is that it helps you to grow and scale your marketing in order enable the growth of your business. How will your solution adjust if you succeed? Other departments are an important consideration here; after all, it isn\u2019t just your marketing department that\u2019s growing, but your organization as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>If your sales team is using a CRM, a seamless integration between these two tools becomes increasingly important as your two teams grow and communication becomes more and more challenging.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>QUESTION 2: WILL I BE ABLE TO QUICKLY TRAIN AND RAMP UP OTHER USERS?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Ease of use is a critical consideration when it comes to choosing a marketing automation platform that will scale with your business. After all, as your business and your marketing efforts grow, so will your team. If your marketing automation platform is so complex that it takes new users months \u2014 even years \u2014 to be fully functional in the platform, it\u2019s going to slow you down.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>QUESTION 3: DOES THE VENDOR WORK WITH OTHER BUSINESSES SIMILAR TO MINE?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If a vendor works predominantly with businesses like yours, their future focus is going to be on meeting the needs and pain points of (you guessed it) businesses like yours. Conversely, the more varied a vendor\u2019s customer base, the more diluted their focus will be on the needs of businesses like yours, and the less research and development dollars will go towards advancing the product to meet your business\u2019 specific needs. Furthermore, choosing a vendor with a like-minded customer base creates potential for a user community \u2014 allowing you to discuss pain points with similar users, network with industry leaders, and compare best practices for your platform.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>QUESTION 4: WHAT INNOVATIONS DOES THE VENDOR PLAN TO FOCUS ON IN THE FUTURE?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There\u2019s no question about it: the field of marketing technology has evolved rapidly in the past few years, and it will undoubtedly continue to do so. It\u2019s important to feel confident that your solution will be at the forefront of this innovation and to maintain a focus on staying ahead of your competition. Don\u2019t be afraid to ask vendors about the larger vision for their product and company, and make sure your dollars are going back into innovations that will help grow your business. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the end of the day, marketing automation is about building a framework for the future success of your sales and marketing teams \u2014 so it\u2019s important to be forward-thinking in your decision-making process. You\u2019re choosing much more than a tool; you\u2019re choosing a company that you\u2019d like to work with as you shape the marketing and sales processes that will help your business succeed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pardot.com\/blog\/how-to-make-a-forward-looking-decision-when-investing-in-marketing-automation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Article<\/a> first appeared on the Salesforce Pardot blog.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lava is an <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/lavaprotocols.com\/crm\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">authorised Salesforce Partner <\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in Malaysia and has more than a decade of experience in cloud solutions which includes marketing automation, CRM implementation, change management, and consultation. We pride ourselves in not just being a CRM partner but in also understanding the needs of our customers and taking their business to the next level.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"et_bloom_bottom_trigger\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Choosing a marketing automation solutions is largely about understanding your own goals to pick the solution that will best align with them, and there are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.lavaprotocols.com\/the-cloud-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/people-coffee-tea-meeting-large-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavaprotocols.com\/the-cloud-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavaprotocols.com\/the-cloud-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavaprotocols.com\/the-cloud-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavaprotocols.com\/the-cloud-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavaprotocols.com\/the-cloud-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavaprotocols.com\/the-cloud-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavaprotocols.com\/the-cloud-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavaprotocols.com\/the-cloud-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavaprotocols.com\/the-cloud-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavaprotocols.com\/the-cloud-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}