How can a marketer ensure buy-in from stakeholders for a marketing automation platform, especially from sales?
The best means of ensuring buy-in from stakeholders for a marketing automation platform is to focus on the well-documented benefits of marketing automation. For marketing stakeholders, Gartner Research has shown that 15% in productivity is gained in creative services. Just think of how an organization could use this savings – maybe ad a channel for the creative distribution? Also, from a sales standpoint, according to Gartner Research, companies that automate lead management see a 10% or greater increase in revenue in 6-9 months! These two facts alone should help the marketer understand the benefits of automation. The selling of this initiative to sales is a bit more straightforward, as sales is more interested in how quickly can they get beyond the 6-9 month waiting period to realized that increased revenue.
At the end of the day, it is important for the marketer to base his or her premise on facts from reliable sources. From there, a true assessment needs to be made as to the readiness of the organization for marketing automation, which is perceived as progress by some and too much change too soon by others. Regardless of the push back, the research shows that it is the right way to go. By not investigating this as an option, your organization is potentially leaving 15% creative productivity and 10% revenue on the table.
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