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I am a marketer. Everyday, I use a computer and a smart phone for both work and play. I primarily interact with our prospects and clients via email, social media, websites, and landing pages. It’s only occasionally that I attend events or have the pleasure of actually speaking with another human.
And I used to laugh when I heard others in my field refer to themselves as “digital marketers”. Is it possible to be anything but? In recent months, I’ve attended a couple different conferences aimed at this intersection of marketing and technology. (Props to Tech Media for its Internet and Digital Summit Series and the Triangle AMA for the High Five Conference.) Now the only thing I’m laughing at is myself for not recognizing the increasing gap between marketers and digital marketers. And we need both, for now, but it’s time to address the Digital Marketing Evolution to achieve a successful Digital Transformation.
Let’s take a quick look at where we’ve been, where we are, and where we just might be going. Marketing communication channels are expanding at an unprecedented pace.
Tired yet? Me too. That’s a lot to keep up with, and it’s a pretty high-level, non-specific view. So what can you do, right now, to take a step in the general direction of digital?
Still using a free platform, or none at all? You’re not alone. We hear from all kinds of businesses in this boat – some of them are even established and recognizable brands with thousands of employees, so please don’t think I’m picking on Mom ‘n Pop-type shops.
Now, as for which platform? Ideally, start with your CRM and go with something that integrates seamlessly with it. The following are just a few examples and are in no way meant as commercials: ClickDimensions and Microsoft Dynamics Marketing are great tools for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Salesforce and Pardot are an effective team, and Oracle users sure do love Eloqua. There are also stand alone MAPs such as Marketo and HubSpot that can also integrate with a variety of CRM platforms and therefore deserve an honorable mention.
You see, Digital Marketing isn’t just about reaching the prospect and customer – it’s about effectively engaging employees too. When Sales and Marketing are in sync, the whole business can benefit. Integrating MAPs with CRM allows sales to see exactly how prospects and customers have been interacted with, and provide value-added calls and emails instead of a generic, blanketed approach.
The reason I suggest enterprise marketing automation is because of more robust service offerings. For example, landing pages, forms, surveys, lead scoring, social media integration, event management are just a few items that can be built AND tracked. Most of the free MAPs on the market primarily focus on email campaigns, list management, and maybe a couple basic analytics. Wouldn’t it be great to know if a lead has visited a specific page on your site, responded to a survey, or attended a webinar? Wouldn’t you like to automatically trigger specific teams or team members to proactively reach out based on indicators such as clicks and website visits? Which leads me to…
The most-ignored part of MAPs is far and away that pesky A. It’s not just a Marketing Platform. It’s a Marketing AUTOMATION Platform and the right fit for your business can help you, the marketer, work smarter – not harder. Put that technology to work for you, and not the other way around.
Digital Marketing is a rather broad topic worthy of many more blogs. How can you best approach technology as a marketer to stay focused on lead and revenue generation without getting bogged down? One thing C5 Insight has done to make this digital transformation easier is offer a Digital Marketing Administration plan, which allows you to focus on marketing while we focus on the technology. Interested in learning more? Just click here to send us a quick message and we’ll get in touch to schedule a complimentary 20-minute Digital Marketing consultation.
The complementary paper includes over 12 years of research, recent survey results, and CRM turnaround success stories.
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