Intelligent Demand Generation / eTrigue Corporation

How true! I thought when I read the following sentence in a recent article by Heinz Marketing: “One size does not fit every organization looking for a marketing automation solution.” It’s important to realize, that while the very decision to purchase a marketing automation system is a very smart decision indeed, that’s not where it ends. You will still need to determine which system is the best for you, and since different marketing automation systems are very different in terms of what they offer and how they are priced, what might suit one organization may not work for another.

The parameters mentioned in the article are all very relevant and worth considering. Definitely look into what the system actually offers, and make sure it has all the capabilities you are looking for, including prospect segmentation, lead nurturing, lead scoring, real-time lead alerts, and, of course, comprehensive marketing analytics and reporting.

I wholeheartedly agree that customer and product support by the vendor are crucial, and would like to add that the ideal marketing automation system is intuitive, easy to set up and to operate, because while you want product support to be available to you should you need it, you want to minimize the time you spend on learning the system and maximize the time you spend actually using it.

Obviously, size matters, and I’ll second the recommendation to find the platform with the right level of power that can be implemented as quickly (and I’ll add – as affordably) as possible. It makes no sense whatsoever to go for a big, expensive system with lots of bells and whistles that you end up not using because you have no need for them, can’t figure them out, or don’t have the resources to hire dedicated personnel to deal with a heavy, complex system.

When it comes to marketing automation, one size does not fit all. Before committing to a marketing automation vendor, do your research and learn as much as you can about each system you’re considering. The differences are significant, and they can have a huge impact on your level of satisfaction with this important purchase.

“Many of the top performers are now using their second marketing automation system because their first was too hard to use.”

I had to smile when I read this sentence, written by David Raab in a recent, excellent blog post.

I knew that companies were ditching complex, hard-to-use marketing automation systems and adopting user-friendly, intuitive ones, because eTrigue is one of the first marketing automation vendors companies approach when they look to simplify their marketing automation. When they come to us, they often tell me, “We bought this system that’s supposedly great, but once we did, we quickly realized that it was so complex, so non-intuitive and non-user-friendly, there was no way we were going to actually implement it. It simply required resources -in terms of staff, training, and continued investment – that we don’t have and can’t afford.”

So these expensive systems are gathering dust somewhere, while eTrigue is purchased, implemented and used in a matter of hours. How cool is that? It’s certainly one of the aspects of our product I’m most proud of – ours is a marketing automation system that companies find affordable, accessible, intuitive, and easy to use. As a result, they actually use it – and when they do, they start seeing results within a few months, because “easy” and “simple” does not mean it lacks power – on the contrary.

A simple marketing automation system can and should be very powerful. As evident by Raab’s blog post, marketing automation success is not measured by how many bells and whistles your system has. Rather, it is measured by the results it brings the marketing organization and the company as a whole – increased revenue, better leads, more leads, and improved marketing efficiency.

It is indeed interesting, as Raab points out, to see that experienced top performers are saying that training by itself can’t overcome a difficult system, while less-experienced companies tend to rely heavily on training – even though they may find, down the road, that it’s simply not enough.

It’s true that software – any software – is often non-user-friendly. A Technology Review article from 2002 said,”In an amazingly short time, software has become critical to almost every aspect of modern life. Yet all too often, code is bloated, ugly, inefficient and poorly designed; even when programs do function correctly, users find them too hard to understand. Groaning beneath the weight of bricklike manuals, bookstore shelves across the nation testify to the perduring dysfunctionality of software.”

Two years later, David Platt, in his brilliant book Why Software Sucks, added, “Every programmer thinks he knows exactly what users want. After all, he uses a computer all day every day, he ought to know. He says to himself, “If I design a user interface that I like, the users will love it.” WRONG! Unless he’s writing programs for the use of burned-out computer geeks, his user is not him.”

Back to marketing automation. Want marketing automation success? Don’t underestimate the importance of a user-friendly system, and don’t overestimate the value of training. After all, purchasing a marketing automation system is a long, complex process – I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be doing it again, a year from now, because the system you bought is impossible to use! Remember: easy is important, and simple, light, yet effective is the way to go.

I wasn’t exactly shocked to read that most companies are not fully leveraging their marketing automation systems.

With less than half of the respondents saying they are using lead nurturing effectively, and 55% saying they “somewhat” use nurturing, it seems like such a waste – investing is a complex, expensive, full-fledged marketing automation system, only to find out that deployment means hiring dedicated technical staff. Oops! Back to square one – using just the most basic features of the system, even though you paid for the whole thing.

“The report showed a skills and experience gap in utilizing more advanced functionalities like lead nurturing and lead scoring” – and this is exactly why we developed eTrigue DemandCenter – Affordable Marketing Automation for the Rest of Us. The idea is to allows marketing organizations of all sizes and expertise levels to quickly develop and execute demand generation programs.

eTrigue DemandCenter was created with the goal of simplifying marketing automation. In fact, we wanted to make it so simple that anyone could fully deploy it – no special training or technical skills required. We knew that companies are still very careful with their budgets these days and are not in a position to hire more staff or pay for special training.

So we developed a user-friendly interface that allows anyone to run successful marketing campaigns in less time with limited training. This includes creating and executing lead nurturing programs, lead scoring and real-time alerts, email marketing and visitor tracking. Unlike the more elaborate marketing automation systems, eTrigue DemandCenter enables full use of every single one of its features, right from the start, with no extra investment in training or hiring dedicated staff.

I’m very glad that marketing automation has become mainstream. I think it’s great that more and more companies are realizing that marketing automation is a necessity rather than a luxury. But I also think companies need to do more research before picking a specific marketing automation system. Some marketing automation vendors could probably be a little more transparent about what it really takes to make full use of their systems.