You’re on the hunt for a marketing automation tool?
Great! Not only have you made a fantastic decision for your business, but you’ve come to the right place for guidance through the process.
There are a number of options for automating the repetitive tasks that are involved in developing marketing campaigns and carrying out sales activities to both increase revenue and maximize efficiency, but it can be challenging to choose the marketing automation tools that are right for your business.
Marketing automation tools, such as Marketo, Eloqua, HubSpot, Pardot, and Act-On, are all powerful support systems, but ultimately, choosing an automation tool comes down to what are the must-have elements for your business goals? Integration with a CRM? Native social media management? What else?
We encourage you to utilize platforms like G2 Crowd, TrustRadius, Capterra, and/or Software Insider to see what others are saying and compare the various features by doing product comparisons—but once you’re at the decision-making stage, you need to do more in-depth Q&A.
Make sure you’re asking each vendor the same questions so you can later come back with an apples-to-apples comparison of all of the automation tools—take a look at our suggestions below before you invest in a brand-new marketing technology:
Unless your sales team and your marketing teams like operating in silos, the last thing you want is two sets of databases that do not integrate with one another.
If you use Salesforce or another CRM platform, you’ll want your marketing automation tool to seamlessly integrate with that platform, so be sure to ask about the specific CRM features available to determine if they will be right for your business.
Integrations don’t stop with CRM. You’ll want to know how else these marketing automation platforms can integrate with other areas of your business.
For example, do you use GoToWebinar, SurveyMonkey, Shopify, WordPress, Zapier? Ask if these integrations are available and be prepared to decide what tools absolutely must integrate and what tools you can live without.
Programs integrating is completely meaningless if you can’t get a holistic picture of your combined data to inform decision-making.
For example, you’ll want to be able to combine data from systems dedicated to CRM, SEO, CMS, and ERP in an easily accessible way via application program interfaces (APIs) or scheduled exports in common formats (such as .xls).
Believe it or not, weak reporting is still the Achilles heel of many otherwise great platforms—and being able to drill down data and export custom reports may be difficult to do.
Get into the nitty-gritty of just how far you can parcel data to get the reports that you need.
If your middle name isn’t Tracking, Reporting, or ROI, it should be because these are the measures of success for any—and we many any—marketing campaign. Your marketing automation tool should absolutely, without a doubt, be able to track, report, and measure your return on investment (ROI).
The days of measuring success by increased or decreased revenue are long gone. You’ll need to dig deeper. Perhaps revenue has increased—but which parameter of your marketing efforts had the biggest effect, and which had the least?
Effective marketing automation tools will have flexible, customizable dashboards and reports that will easily give you this information. Ask about what metrics they measure and be prepared with a list of what metrics you need and what you can live without.
If you already have a marketing automation platform and are simply looking to upgrade, make sure to ask the new vendor about their migration plan and whether or not they have done a migration from your current system before.
You’ll want to have a clear understanding of what resources will be required (and at what additional cost) to ensure a successful migration. Also, pay attention to how many questions they ask about your specific setup. The right vendor will ask a lot of questions to ensure a successful migration.
Helpful Hint: Make sure to include your IT department, sales operations, and marketing department in this conversation. Their input will ensure you find the right platform to meet departmental goals.
It’s easy for any vendor to throw out a price: $4,000 a year or $350 a month. But what about the hidden costs? These can include costs associated with overages, training, and implementation.
Be sure to get the full picture when vetting multiple vendors.
It may seem like common sense that a new marketing automation provider would automatically include support with their services, but that’s not always the case. The last thing you want is a generic email address or 1-800 number to call if you run into problems. Be clear on what type of support the vendor provides. Ask specifically about telephone support—what hours they are available and any additional cost for utilizing those services.
While we've gone a little in-depth on the highlights to ask as you're vetting multiple vendors, here are some others to put on your list to dive a little deeper as you've narrowed your choices: