Business development and sales teams at small-to-midsized technology companies are stretched thinner than ever, if they even exist at all. Marketing automation systems (also known as demand generation systems) can keep prospects warm by reaching out to them in all phases of the sales cycle. Web-hosted systems automate email campaigns and lead followup; some even allow creation of direct postal mail campaigns to support the email campaign. Systems also provide the ability to add landing pages to your website and include analytics data on clickthroughs, web site visits, repeat visits and more. Systems include a contact management feature or integrate with popular CRM applications such as Salesforce.
Higher end systems such as Eloqua or eTrigue start around $2,500 per month. Simpler systems are $199-$299 per month. Higher end systems work most effectively if you company has an in-house marketing department or can afford an detailed review of Infusionsoft if you want all the details.
Before jumping in with one of these systems, make sure you have content for at least 3 email campaigns and the related web landing pages. Otherwise, you will be paying the monthly fee before you have the content necessary to use the system effectively. You should also think through the process of buying through the eyes of your prospects. For example, if a prospect downloads a whitepaper on electronic medical records, should you send information on your upcoming EMR webinar or your latest case study?. It helps to sequentially map out how your customers go through the decision process and test your theories by actually asking them.
Your campaigns should contain valuable content such as technical whitepapers, case studies, new product announcements, webinar invitations and breaking news in your industry.
