A business case on Marketing Automation

MARKETING
AUTOMATION
How to Craft a Compelling Case
the Executive Team Will Approve
THE BUSINESS CASE FOR
Copyright © 2016 | Act-On Software www.Act-On.com

“Bottom line, you can’t realize the benefits of
nurture marketing the way top performers do
unless you incorporate a technology platform
that can preconfigure business rules to manage
timely engagement and escalate prioritized
leads to sales via integration with CRM.
No amount of hired resources could manually
reach out and touch prospects at just the
right time with just the right message.
Marketing automation forms the backbone
for configuring nurture marketing campaigns
across channels and managing communications
based on prospect engagement. It’s also one
of the only ways marketers can actually start
to attribute marketing spend to closed sales.
— GLEANSTER,
March 2013
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The Business Case for Marketing Automation | IIIwww.Act-On.com
Table of Contents
1. The Basics of
Marketing Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. How to Make a Business Case
for Marketing Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3. What the Executive Suite
Needs to Know. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4. Closing Thoughts
and Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

www.Act-On.com The Business Case for Marketing Automation | IV
You’re Convinced Marketing Automation Will
Help Your Company Leap Forward...
THE SCALES HAVE SHIFTED.
Technology, digital channels, and non-stop
connectivity continue to empower today’s buyers
with at-the-ready information and increased choice,
fueling unprecedented global competition.
As a result, marketers must shoulder more
responsibility for contributing – measurably – to
sales and revenue goals, an expanded role that’s
less “persuasion” and more “buyer education.”
Success hinges on finding the right mix of
inbound and outbound strategies, and the right
integrated data that connects the dots.
MARKETING AUTOMATION STRIKES
THIS BALANCE.
It’s a proven method for managing and optimizing
the entire customer experience, measuring
what matters, increasing revenue, and tying that
revenue to your marketing team’s efforts.
This eBook will help you create a compelling
business case that can convince executive
management to adopt marketing automation.
In it, you’ll find the basics of what marketing
automation is and what it can do, data and stats
to bolster your case, and recommendations
that will help you sell marketing automation
to key members of your executive team.
...if you can convince executive management to adopt the technology.
The buyer has evolved. Which means you must, too.

www.Act-On.com The Business Case for Marketing Automation | 1
1. The Basics of
Marketing Automation
www.Act-On.com
+ What is marketing automation?
+ What’s the value of marketing automation?
+ What’s included in marketing automation?
+ What do businesses use marketing
automation for?
+ Marketing automation vs. CRM
The Business Case for Marketing Automation | 1

Performance in Action
Companies that have adopted marketing automation
are out-performing those that haven’t.
A SCENARIO:
of top-performing
companies (defined as
those where marketing
contributes more
than half of the sales
pipeline) have adopted
marketing automation.
Best-in-Class
companies are 67%
more likely to use a
marketing automation
platform.
Better together: Among
organizations that
use both marketing
automation and CRM
as part of an integrated
technology stack,
77% met or beat their
revenue goals.
(Aberdeen Group, Sep 2014)
(Aberdeen Group, “State of
Marketing Automation 2014:
Processes that Produce,”) (Ascend2, 2015)
87%
67% 77%

What is Marketing Automation?
1. THE BASICS OF MARKETING AUTOMATION
It depends on who you ask. Here’s how others define it:
Marketing
automation focuses
on the definition,
scheduling,
segmentation, and
tracking of marketing
campaigns. The
use of marketing
automation makes
processes that
would otherwise be
performed manually
much more efficient,
and makes new
processes possible.
- MARKETING
AUTOMATION
TIMES
A strategic
marketing approach
focused on creating
and distributing
valuable, relevant,
and consistent
content to attract
and retain a clearly
defined audience –
and ultimately drive
profitable customer
action.
- CONTENT
MARKETING
INSTITUTE
Marketing
automation is the
use of technology
to generate,
nurture, score and
qualify leads, and
drive sales using
customized, multi-
touch marketing
communications that
are tailored for each
contact’s profile,
level of interest,
behavior, or place in
the buying process.
- SALES LEAD
INSIGHTS
Lead-to-Revenue
Management (L2RM)
Forrester Research prefers
the term “lead-to-revenue
management automation
solutions” and notes that
such systems were developed
to “bridge a gap between
lead generation activities
(e.g., trade shows, direct
mail, telemarketing, and
email campaigns) and selling
activities (e.g., closing the
deal) that were managed
by a customer relationship
management (CRM) system.”
The opportunity to calibrate
marketing spend to revenue
generation was a significant
driver of L2RM adoption.
The Business Case for Marketing Automation | 3www.Act-On.com

Marketing automation creates a digital infrastructure that allows
marketing and sales to learn about, understand, and interact
with buyers throughout the entire lifecycle – from attraction to
conversion to retention – in a well-timed, personalized way.
Consider these facts:
• 80% of marketing automation adopters saw their number of leads increase,
and 77% saw the number of conversions increase. (VentureBeat Insight,
“Marketing Automation, How to Make the Right Buying Decision,” 2015)
• Among organizations that use both marketing automation and CRM
as part of an integrated technology stack, 74% reported aligned sales
and marketing teams. (DemandGen Benchmark Study, 2015)
• Marketers say that the biggest benefits of automation are saving time (74%), increased
customer engagement (68%), more timely communications (58%), and increased
opportunities, including up-selling (58%). (Adestra, “Marketer vs Machine,” 2015)
• 63% of survey respondents indicate that the ability to set measurable objectives for each
of their campaigns is the biggest value driver of marketing automation. (Gleanster, 2013)
• Two-thirds of companies (65%) say marketing automation is “very important” to the overall
success of their marketing program. Another 33% consider it “somewhat important”
and only 2% claim it is “not important” to marketing success. (Ascend2, 2015)
• B2B marketers who have implemented marketing automation contribute 10%
more of the sales pipeline via marketing programs than do marketers who have not
implemented markteing automation (44% versus 34%). (Forrester Research, Jan 2014)
It’s a compelling value proposition.
Marketing
Automation
Benefits:
Done well, marketing
automation can:
INCREASE
overall sales, both for new
and repeat customers
SHORTEN
the sales cycle by 50% or more
INCREASE
deal sizes
INCREASE
sales quota achievement rates
LOWER
the cost per lead
LOWER
overall sales and marketing
costs across the company
INCREASE
alignment of sales and
marketing teams
What’s the Value of Marketing Automation?

• Email message and campaign creation
• Automated email campaign deployment and
measurement (e.g., drip and nurture campaigns)
• Triggered emails
• Lead management and routing
• Automated lead nurturing
• Automated lead scoring
• Creation and hosting of landing pages and forms
• Website visitor tracking
• Social media marketing and sharing, including blog integration
• Inbound marketing, including some SEO
capability and account-based marketing
• Database with segmentation capabilities
• CRM integration and automatic data synchronization
• Web events/webinar integration, registration, and management
• Tracking, reports, and analytics
• Third-party app integration
• Data capture of demographic, firmographic, and
behavioral information for leads and customers
• Alerts that notify sales and/or marketing when a specific
person or company visits a specific page on the website
The Hallmarks of a Marketing
Automation Platform
• Data integration, data analytics, list
creation, dynamic list-building
• Automated workflows for the development and
execution of outbound and inbound marketing
• Ability to create email messages,
landing pages, and online forms
• Lead management features for lead scoring,
lead distribution, and lead nurturing
• Visibility and access for sales into marketing
campaign efforts and individual prospects
• CRM integration (either native or non-native)
• Unique activity reports for each contact
(e.g., prospect, lead, customer) showing
website behaviors, email clickthroughs,
content views, form completions, etc.
• Reporting, analytics, and
customizable dashboards
(Adapted from SiriusView: Marketing Automation report)
What’s Included in Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation systems
offer most or all of the following:

What Do Businesses Use
Marketing Automation For?
Virtually everyone who uses marketing automation begins by employing it for
email marketing, then scales it in different directions, depending on need.
Here are 20 possibilities:
1 Create and manage email marketing
campaigns with less time and effort.
2 Eliminate cold calling through lead
intelligence that lets sales prioritize
who to call and what to discuss.
3 Segment the database to support
targeted, personalized campaigns.
4 Nurture leads with relevant content that’s timed
to help them progress through the sales funnel.
5 See and understand lead behavior
as prospective buyers move along
or drop out of the sales funnel.
6 Score leads to indicate sales-readiness.
7 Synchronize leads to the CRM
system as they qualify.
8 Help sales engage more effectively
with buyers by using intelligence
gathered at multiple touch points.
9 Lower costs by reducing and/or
integrating disparate point tools.
10 Optimize resources to improve
operational and time efficiencies.
11 Handle increased workloads without additional
staff or specialized technical skills.
12 Improve sales response times
through information sharing
between marketing and sales.
13 Respond 24/7 with no downtime, no overtime,
and no need for training or retraining.
14 Create set-it-and-forget-it drip
and nurturing campaigns.
15 Publish to multiple social
accounts with one action.
16 Eliminate manual data entry for
webinar and event registrations.
17 Manage all communications around webinars and
events, from initial promotions to final follow-up.
18 Get a comprehensive understanding of
each lead and customer by integrating
marketing automation and CRM systems.
19 Build complex campaigns that coordinate
multiple channels and messages automatically.
20 Demonstrate marketing’s contribution to deal
quantity, deal size, and overall revenue.
For many customers,
size matters. As a small
marketing team, I’ve
experienced first-hand
how potential clients
will quickly reject your
company if it appears
too small based on
company profile or
perceived project
capabilities.
Our company suddenly
appeared bigger
because we were
(and are) doing the
work of a much larger
marketing team. That’s
the power of marketing
automation.
- BEN JACKSON
VP of Sales,
voices.com

Marketing Automation vs. CRM
A common question:
“If I have a CRM solution in place, do I really need marketing automation?”
The only thing CRM systems do
is organize your information.
They keep track of your sales
and they capture your sales
process, but they don’t keep
track of your sales or execute
your efforts.
A good marketing automation
system proactively helps
you. If set up and managed
well, you can sit back and the
system will drop interested
prospects in your lap … I don’t
actually recommend someone
choose one or the other. World-
class sales and marketing
organizations need both to
succeed and scale.
- MATT HEINZ
President
Heinz Marketing Inc.
With modern CRM systems, you
typically have some ability to
broadcast emails to your client
list, and the ability to capture
leads from websites. But when
the customer needs more
sophisticated capabilities, that’s
when we look to marketing
automation.
- CHRISTIAN WETTRE
President
W-Systems.
The Takeaway
While marketing automation
and CRM have different
capabilites, the two systems
are complementary.
When integrated, they
form a powerful sales and
marketing toolset that’s rich
in features and capabilities.
Strategic businesses
should invest in both
CRM and marketing
automation.

The Tale of Two Use Cases
A global company sells high-end products that typically
require a long sales cycle. The company has thousands of
sales reps who use a CRM tool to improve sales productivity,
including managing the contact database and tracking
interactions with prospects, leads, and customers.
The CRM tool does not support the marketing
department’s productivity, including lead generation,
nurturing, and scoring. This hinders marketing’s
ability to deliver timely and relevant messages and
campaigns, and to pass qualified leads to sales.
The company implemented a marketing automation
platform that was integrated with its CRM tool. The
result: Both departments benefited. Marketing was
able to create, execute, and measure the full range of
marketing programs (including automated lead nurturing
and scoring), deliver the right message at the right time,
and pass more qualified leads to sales. Sales was able to
prioritize hot opportunities, reduce cold calling, and close
more sales. Both had visibility of the entire lead lifecycle
and access to new, real-time customer intelligence.
A LARGE COMPANY A SMALL COMPANY
A local company has two brick-and-mortar locations and
20 sales reps; some use a CRM tool and some don’t. The
company also has two marketers who wear multiple hats,
including manually collecting, scoring, and transferring leads.
The company is adding more products and expanding
into more sales regions. Lead quantity and diversity are
increasing, and the marketing team is struggling to
keep up with new demand. Team efficiency, campaign
effectiveness, and the ability to pass qualified leads to sales
are being adversely impacted.
By implementing a marketing automation platform,
the two-person marketing department was able to create
multiple campaigns for each buyer type – including
engagement tracking and lead scoring – and set them
up to run automatically. The result: consistent delivery of
relevant messages based on each prospect’s demonstrated
behaviors and interests, more and more-qualified
leads for sales, and more time and budget to focus on
marketing strategies and new business opportunities,
rather than on manual campaign management.
SITUATIONCHALLENGESOLUTION


2. How to Make a
Business Case for
www.Act-On.com
+ Why invest in marketing automation?
+ Specific marketing challenges and how
marketing automation helps solve them:
- Lead generation and management
- Campaign optimization
- Sales enablement
- Resource optimization
- Data and analytics

1. REVENUE
Marketing automation positively impacts both the top and bottom
lines, with many results seen quickly after implementation:
Top line. Improving the experience and engagement of prospects and
customers drives more demand for products and services, generates more
high quality leads, and helps close more first-time and repeat sales.
Bottom line. Improving process and operational efficiencies decreases costs
(e.g., resources, capital equipment, outsourcing) while increasing profitability.
2. ACHIEVE ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS
Marketing automation helps businesses realize core strategic goals, including:
Brand relevance. Marketers can more easily, quickly, and effectively deliver
the right message to the right person at the right time via the right channel.
This dramatically increases your brand’s relevance in customers’ eyes.
Increased efficiency. Launch campaigns in hours or days, with little or no IT
support needed and no special coding skills. Automating common tasks allows
you to build relationships – at scale – with fewer resources while increasing
personalization. Sales can use lead intelligence to shorten the sales cycle.
Data intelligence. Visibility into the performance of campaigns,
personas, and buying stages allows organizations to optimize marketing
efforts, improve results, increase sales quotas, and measure ROI.
Marketers who have adopted
marketing automation
suggest that the biggest
benefits are:
(36%)
Taking repetitive tasks out of
marketers hands, so they can
work on other projects
(30%)
Better targeting their prospects
and existing customers
(10%)
Improving customer experience
(9%)
Better email marketing
(8%)
Reduction of human error
(4%)
Lead management
(3%)
Multichannel marketing
(Lenskold and Pedowitz, 2013)
Why Invest in Marketing Automation?
2. HOW TO MAKE A BUSINESS CASE FOR MARKETING AUTOMATION
Every organization experiencing success with marketing
automation has a different answer to this question.
Here are the three that surface most often:

3. IMPROVE INTERNAL COOPERATION
Marketing automation systems provide the infrastructure
for sales and marketing to work together.
Sales and marketing cooperation. Many aspects of marketing programs
must be calibrated to the sales team’s needs. When the teams align, their
mutual decisions are implemented via the marketing automation system. This
alignment results in nurturing, scoring, and handoff processes tuned to sales
requirements, leading to intradepartmental trust and more effective follow-up.
Sales intelligence. The real-time intelligence about a lead’s fitness, concerns,
and behaviors lets the sales rep begin a warm, targeted conversation and
build a relationship more quickly. It also reduces the need for cold calls.
Minimize
Investment Risks:
To minimize investment risk, consider
a vendor that offers pricing tied
to the number of active contacts
you plan to email each month. That
way, you’re not charged for the
size of your database – only the
contacts you actively email to.
By starting small and testing
the waters, you can learn what
works and expand as needs and
benefits become more apparent.
Marketing automation’s reporting
capabilities will help you validate
the system’s worth and document
your return on investment.
Why Invest in Marketing Automation? (continued)
B2B organizations with
tightly aligned sales
and marketing achieved
24% faster revenue
growth and 27% faster
profit growth over a
three year period.
(SiriusDecisions,2014)
Companies with
aligned sales and
marketing departments
are 20% more likely
to use marketing
automation than non-
aligned companies.
(Ascend2, 2015)

We’ve organized marketing’s most common hurdles into five categories.
We hope this will help you create a strategic plan to show how marketing
automation can answer your own organization’s biggest challenges.
1. LEAD GENERATION AND MANAGEMENT
2. CAMPAIGN OPTIMIZATION
3. SALES ENABLEMENT
4. RESOURCE OPTIMIZATION
5. DATA AND ANALYTICS
TRY THIS:
USE CASE STUDIES
Show your executives that other
companies in your industry or other
companies of your size are achieving
success with marketing automation.
Look for case studies that make
one of those points, or look for a
study that spotlights how someone
used marketing automation to
solve a problem your own company
recognizes as a pain point worth
solving. Your goal is to show parity
of some kind and reinforce the
idea that companies like yours
are seeing a return on investment
with marketing automation.
Be sure to research whether one
or more of your competitors is
using marketing automation.
Specific Challenges and How
Marketing Automation Helps Solve Them
Marketing automation platforms provide sophisticated, highly
choreographed, interoperable technologies that power and
support an extensive range of digital marketing opportunities.
By design, the benefits are far-reaching and interrelated, woven
through multiple teams for multiple uses at multiple times.

1. INBOUND AND OUTBOUND
FROM ONE PLATFORM
Automation platforms enable marketers to pull
prospects “in” (e.g., search engine optimization,
social marketing, landing pages, and integration
with pay-per-click systems such as Google
AdWords) and communicate “out” (e.g.,
email, online webinars, and virtual events).
2. LEAD CAPTURING
Marketing automation offers several mechanisms
for capturing the contact information of
prospects who have responded to offers
or messages, thereby facilitating moving
them into the funnel. Key tactics include:
• Landing pages and forms, which can be quickly
created in automation platforms and tied directly
to the contact/customer database of record.
• Webinars and online events, which can effectively
expand brand visibility, and create awareness
of – and demand for – products and services.
Automation platforms offer integrated capabilities
that allow marketers to plan and launch web-
based events, engage attendees before and
during the event, and follow up afterwards.
Did You Know?
According to Aberdeen Group,
60% of marketing leads are
generated via outbound
marketing channels and 40% via
inbound marketing channels.
BUT...
Top Rank Marketing found leads
gained through organic searches
(which is inbound marketing)
have a 14.6% rate of close, while
outbound marketing leads have
a close rate of only 1.7%!
Among B2B
marketers,
the #1 benefit
of marketing
automation is
generating more
and better leads.
(Pepper Global,
2013 & 2014)
Lead Generation and Management

3. LEAD SCORING
Lead-scoring allows marketers to qualify
leads by assigning pre-determined
values to their behaviors and profile
characteristics. When a buyer-ready lead
score threshold is passed, a notification
is triggered, allowing marketers to
quickly pass the lead to sales. Automated
lead scoring benefits marketers by:
• Providing timely information
on a lead’s progress through
the funnel/buyer’s journey.
• Taking the guesswork out of a
lead’s status with automated lead
classification based on scores
(e.g., Marketing-Qualified, Sales-
Accepted, Sales-Qualified).
• Uncovering the content and interactions
that drive the highest response.
• Delivering more and better-qualified
leads to sales with less time and effort.
Nurtured leads
produce, on
average, a 20%
increase in sales
opportunities
versus non-
nurtured leads.
(DemandGen Report, 2014)
Lead Generation and Management (continued)
4. LEAD NURTURING
With automation, you can implement
and manage nurture programs (e.g.,
multi-touch drip campaigns) that:
• Keep new leads in the funnel – especially
important for complex, lengthy,
and/or high-value sales cycles.
• Help leads move through the funnel
via a mix of educational and other
materials sent in a timed cadence.
• Are personalized and customized to
the lead’s specific areas of interest,
which strengthens relationships with
potential and existing customers.
5. LEAD SEGMENTATION
Dynamically segment leads that come from
any type of campaign or channel, such as
social media, email campaigns, form-fills,
or paid campaigns. By segmenting leads
based on sources, marketers can use the
appropriate medium and channel to send
out relevant messages and craft effective
campaigns. Leads can also be segmented
by industry, company size, products already
purchased, or any other factor that helps
you create more targeted campaigns.
40% of marketing,
sales, and business
professionals
admit that a lack
of an effective
strategy is the
most challenging
obstacle to
lead generation
success.
(Ascend2, 2015)

5. LEAD SEGMENTATION
Dynamically segment leads that
come from any type of campaign
or channel, such as social media,
email campaigns, form-fills, or
paid campaigns. By segmenting
leads based on sources, marketers
can use the appropriate medium
and channel to send out relevant
messages and craft effective
campaigns. Leads can also be
segmented by industry, company
size, products already purchased,
or any other factor that helps you
create more targeted campaigns.
Lead Generation and Management (continued)
TRY THIS:
USE DATA
Gather your baseline data. Know
how many leads are generated
and conversion rates at each
step, including what percentage
of marketing-generated leads
become closed deals in contrast
to leads generated in other ways.
Understand whether your sales
team is losing deals to competitors
or to no-decision. Review your
email statistics, including sends,
opens, and clickthroughs; know
which campaigns are delivering
qualified leads and which are not.
Know at what point leads fall out of
the funnel. You will use this data to
understand how an improvement
at any step could affect revenue.
If your current systems don’t allow
you to measure these factors, then
gaining the capability to understand
how your marketing is performing
becomes a solid business reason
for implementing automation.
6. TARGETING: SENDING
THE RIGHT MESSAGE
TO THE RIGHT PERSON
From nurturing leads to re-
capturing lost sales to managing
loyalty programs, automation lets
marketers set up targeted messages
based on any number of attributes
(e.g., age, gender, title, geography,
engagement behaviors, etc.).
This allows marketers to:
• Send the right message
at the right time.
• Have visibility into who their
most profitable customers are,
where they came from, and
how to find more like them.
• Cross-sell and upsell
to segments.

1. REDUCE LEAD TIME
Marketing automation efficiently facilitates the quick
coordination, scheduling, launching, and measuring
of marketing campaigns from simple to complex,
across single or multiple channels. What used to
take weeks can be implemented in hours or days.
2. TEST & OPTIMIZE CAMPAIGN EFFECTIVENESS
Begin by using A/B testing for campaign elements –
e.g., email subject lines, calls to action, landing page
and form design, colors, messages, etc. – to increase
the odds of success before official launch. The winning
version can then be rolled out in the larger campaign.
Then, through tracking and monitoring (often in real time),
marketers can identify what works and what doesn’t,
and often change it on the fly. The new knowledge is
assessed to find fresh ways of appealing to customers.
3. PERSONALIZE YOUR INTERACTIONS
Personalization is a proven technique to increase
conversion. Automation allows marketers to tie behaviors
to individuals, thereby opening new doors for dynamically
personalizing emails, custom landing pages, and offers.
4. REACH A WIDER AUDIENCE
Combining the full complement of data collection
and profiling with outbound and inbound tactics,
marketers can significantly expand their visibility and
reach, grow their database, and increase lead flow.
5. OPTIMIZE FOR SEARCH ENGINES
According to a study by Conductor, organic search
drives the most traffic of all channels; it’s responsible
for nearly half of all website visits (47%). Marketing
automation platforms can streamline SEO tasks
with on-page evaluation tools to ensure web
pages, blogs, and other content are optimized for
search engines and aligned with best practices.
6. GO SOCIAL
Automation helps marketers track and manage social
publishing and listening across a wide range of
popular social media channels. This includes sending
notifications when it’s time to respond, which allows
marketers to learn what’s being said and participate
in conversations. Some platforms offer sentiment
analysis, competitive analysis, and prospecting.
Campaign Optimization

7. UNDERSTAND YOUR WEB VISITORS
Website visitor tracking can show precisely which products and
services each visitor is interested in, helping marketers further target
campaigns and promotions to meet their interests. It can also help
you identify anonymous visitors and uncover their contact information.
8. SCHEDULE SET-IT-AND-FORGET-IT EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
Marketing automation helps marketers take full advantage of
email marketing, including nurture programs and trigger email
programs. Pre-determined content, offers, and messages are
automatically sent to the right recipients at the right time, working
to keep them engaged and progressing through the funnel.
9. CREATE AND EVALUATE LANDING PAGES
How well are your landing pages performing? Do they follow SEO
best practices? Do you know the right metrics to watch? Which
designs are more effective? Automation software provides the
tools to answer those – and many more – questions. Some also
have one-click landing page creation from an email message.
Campaign Optimization (continued)
TRY THIS:
Be Ready to
Answer Questions About
Time and Resources
Evaluate everything your team does now
and how much time it takes. Estimate
conservatively how much time you might
save on frequent key tasks, such as email
campaign setup and management. Talk
to partners and advocates who have
implemented marketing automation; ask
them to share information with you.
Think about headcount. Consider whether
you already have the right resources
on your team or whether you’ll need
to add staff. Some marketing systems
require training before you can use
them; others are easier to use.
Evaluate how you currently work with,
and share information with, sales.
Consider how marketing automation will
affect what you already do, and whether
any processes will need to change.

10. CREATE AND EVALUATE BLOG POSTS
Marketing automation platforms can be integrated
with popular blog platforms such as WordPress
or Drupal. Marketers benefit by creating and
measuring blog performance from a single platform,
as well as optimizing each post for SEO.
11. INTEGRATE WITH PAID SEARCH MARKETING
If you use pay-per-click advertising, ensure that your
chosen marketing automation platform can integrate
with your PPC service. Many of them can’t. (Act-
On offers easy integration with Google AdWords,
allowing marketers to see how PPC campaigns
are performing and the search terms that are
bringing impressions, clicks, and conversions.)
12. INCREASE WEB EVENT EFFECTIVENESS
Web events – webinars, webcasts, virtual conferences,
demos – offer a multitude of tactics and benefits
including lead generation, nurturing, thought leadership,
training/education, and brand building. Marketing
automation software integrates with popular web event
platforms such as WebEx and GoToWebinar, and can
dramatically reduce the time spent on organizing the
events, while increasing engagement and lead quality.
Marketing automation can even handle registration,
which means registrants can go straight into
your database as segmented leads.
Campaign Optimization (continued)

Marketing Automation in Action
Let’s say you build a promotional campaign comprised of
PPC, targeted email and landing pages, social media sharing,
and two pieces of content: an eBook and a video.
A SCENARIO:
With marketing automation, the
launch of your campaign elements
can be pre-scheduled and precisely
calibrated. For example:
• Display ads are in place on Day 1.
• Social media ads on Day 2.
• Emails launch on Day 3, targeted
to specific database segments.
• When prospects begin to
respond by visiting the landing
page, the automation system
does the work by assessing their
actions and then channeling
prospects into the campaign
track (including messages,
cadence, and scoring) that best
corresponds with their interests.
• If a prospect fills out a form and
downloads the eBook or video,
the system will send a triggered
thank-you note targeted to
whatever action was taken, and
personalized to whatever degree
possible (e.g., first name).
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3
DISPLAY
ADS
SOCIAL MEDIA
ADS
LAUNCH
EMAIL
LANDING PAGE
Assess Actions

1. GET MORE – AND BETTER –
SALES-QUALIFIED LEADS
Marketing automation changes lead generation
180 degrees by supporting lead capture and
lead scoring, which enables sales reps to:
• Optimize their time by using lead scoring to
identify and prioritize sales-ready buyers.
• Focus on getting in front of leads that are ready to buy.
• Build trust-based customer relationships by delivering
relevant information at the right time.
2. ACCESS IN-DEPTH, UNIFIED INSIGHTS FOR
SMARTER SALES CALLS
Automation technology streamlines and aggregates data
from multiple channels and sources so it’s easy to access
and understand. The result is that a lead’s interests and
status in the sales cycle are clear, which helps
sales reps effectively frame their conversations
and communications to a prospective buyer’s
pain points and needs in minimal time.
3. INTEGRATE WITH EXISTING CRM
Sales reps can remain in their CRM system
while still accessing all the information and
intelligence the automation platform provides; no
switching back-and-forth between systems.
This allows reps to have more effective and productive
engagements with potential and current buyers.
4. ELIMINATE COLD CALLING
With customer intelligence from lead-tracking data,
profile information, engagement history, and CRM
integration, sales reps are armed with the essentials
before picking up the phone or sending an email.
5. MAKE THE MOST OF EMAIL
Marketing automation systems let sales reps automatically
personalize messages for a particular customer or
industry and send them at the optimal times. Trigger
emails can be customized to inbound actions so buyers
receive personalized communications in response. All
email communications — automated or otherwise —
are captured in your activity history for each lead.
Sales Enablement

6. IDENTIFY THE BEST LEADS WITH
REAL-TIME ALERTS
Sales reps can set up alerts that notify them in real time of
important activities and milestones. Examples include when
particular leads visit pre-determined web pages or engage with
content, when a lead-score threshold has been met, or when a
qualified lead has been assigned.
7. SHORTEN THE SALES CYCLE
From inbound and outbound marketing, lead scoring,
data collection, and CRM integration, the customized
capabilities of marketing automation allow sales reps
to convert leads faster and at higher rates.
8. CLOSE BIGGER SALES
According to a 2013 Pedowitz Group study, 28% of
marketing teams using marketing automation reported
an increase in the average deal size from a marketing-
qualified lead that was passed to sales. Given that such
leads have been educated and nurtured, and that sales can
have a richer, deeper conversation with them, greater deal
size is a predictable outcome of relationship building.
Sales Enablement (continued)
TRY THIS:
Get Sales Involved
From the Beginning
Know what percentage of leads are
ignored by sales and what percentage
of leads return to marketing for further
nurturing. Talk to sales and see what
they think of having complete account
histories at their fingertips; ask if prioritized
hot-prospect lists would be helpful.
Because sales is so profoundly
impacted by a marketing automation
system, it’s a good idea to make them
your ally from the beginning.
Companies with mature lead
generation and management
practices have a 9.3% higher
sales quota achievement rate.
(CSO Insights, 2015)

1. SAVE TIME BY AUTOMATING MANUAL TASKS
Marketing automation saves time, whether you’re
deploying email campaigns on a staggered schedule,
setting up drip campaigns that run by themselves,
tallying website visits by visitor, or publishing across
multiple social channels with a single click. Many
marketers use that time to add new programs or do
more analysis; many also enjoy the benefit of increased
efficiency without an increase in headcount.
2. REDUCE MARKETING COSTS THROUGH
BETTER-TARGETED CAMPAIGNS
Marketing automation plays an important role in
reducing the costs of marketing campaigns. The
ease of audience segmentation, personalization,
and data-driven optimization leads to more
targeted and tailored campaigns that can be
launched faster and generally perform better.
3. INTEGRATE WITH EXISTING SYSTEMS AND TOOLS
Most marketing automation systems can be integrated
with a wide range of systems and tools, often
accomplished with minimal clicks. This saves time by
allowing teams to keep the tools they’re used to, and
reduces costs by more efficiently supporting marketing
campaigns and communications. Examples include:
• CRM platforms
• Web event management systems
• Blogging platforms
• AdWords
4. IMPLEMENT WITH MINIMAL (OR NO) IT SUPPORT
Many marketing automation systems are designed for
ease of use, including intuitive user interfaces that facilitate
all phases of implementation and campaign development.
This dramatically reduces reliance on IT resources and
allows marketers to more fully manage their own activities.
Resource Optimization
Marketers say that the biggest benefits of
Automation are Saving time (74%), Increased
customer engagement (68%), More timely
communications (58%) and Increased
opportunities including up-selling (58%)
(Adestra, Marketer vs. Machine, 2015)

5. DEPLOY CAMPAIGNS WITHOUT SPECIALIZED SKILLS
Most of today’s automation software gives marketers full freedom to
develop and deploy campaigns without needing specialized coding
skills or technical savvy. WYSIWYG editors and intuitive drag-and-
drop functionality significantly reduce the time and effort needed to
create professional-looking campaigns and execute complex marketing
tasks. This also reduces costs associated with hiring specialists.
6. IMPROVE SALES AND MARKETING ALIGNMENT
Better cooperation and collaboration between sales and marketing
is a big win for businesses that implement marketing automation; by
design, the integrated platform tends to reduce (or eliminate) much
of the struggle between the two teams. The reason: Automation
improves lead quality, increases revenue, automates tedious tasks,
and delivers actionable intelligence. Sales has input into determining
lead quality, scoring, and timing, so they have increased trust in
the leads that marketing delivers, and are more likely to follow up.
Marketing learns what sales encounters on the front lines, and can
use the knowledge to create more relevant content and campaigns.
Resource Optimization (continued)
86% marketers
consider ‘ease of
use’ as the most
important criterion
when evaluating
automation tools.
(Regalix, “The State of Marketing
Automation,” 2014)
86%

1. GAIN FULL-SPECTRUM INSIGHTS
Marketing automation delivers real-
time results across channels and
campaigns, enabling marketers to
quickly gauge campaign performance,
optimize efforts, and allocate resources
to the most effective strategies.
2. CUSTOMIZE ESSENTIAL DATA VIEWS
Integrated dashboards aggregate data
from all digital channels and can be
customized to provide the information
deemed most important to each user. On-
demand, drillable views provide deeper
insights and inform strategic decisions.
3. TRACK CAMPAIGN ROI
Sales and marketing teams share
responsibility for driving revenues,
including concretely demonstrating
a return on investment. Marketing
automation make reporting an
integral part of every campaign
and activity, allowing sales reps and
marketers to stay in tune with short-
and long-term ROI numbers.
TRY THIS:
Understand Your
Current Analytics
As you build your case for
marketing automation,
review what your company
is already measuring, then
make recommendations
that will complement
those measurements and/
or bridge critical gaps.
Keep the total number small.
In most cases, it’s far better to
track a few key metrics than
to keep watch over many.
4. UNDERSTAND CUSTOMERS BETTER
Gut decisions can err on the side
of optimism rather than reality.
Applying metrics to various parts of
the marketing process can uncover
where you lose potential customers
and what attracts them most. The more
you know … the more you know.
5. VISIBILITY MEANS ACCOUNTABILITY
In many organizations, marketers are
seen as a collection of “creatives” who
aren’t anchored to sales goals or other
business metrics. Marketing automation
provides the reporting that clearly
shows how marketing is performing and
concretely ties its contributions to sales
goals and revenue. This accountability
helps marketing teams make decisions
that are in line with company goals and
receive credit for its accomplishments.
Data and Analytics


3. What the Executive
Suite Needs to Know
www.Act-On.com
+ Selling marketing automation to
your decision makers
+ The CEO
+ The CMO
+ The CFO
+ The CIO
+ The VP of Sales
+ Checklist: What your business case
should include

Marketing automation allows you to give prospective buyers what
they want, when they want it, and how they want it so you can gain,
retain, and increase your competitive advantage.
BUT...
Convincing decision makers to adopt marketing
automation relies in large part on how well your plan meets
management’s – and your company’s – best interests.
To be successful, you need to understand what’s important to
each – whether it’s a small executive team or an enterprise-
level C-suite. That means anticipating their questions
and objections, and directly addressing them.
This section highlights key issues executives care about, and
offers suggestions and tips for creating a focused reply that
resonates. Data points are included to support your case.
Getting approval from your executive team
is where the rubber meets the road.
Selling Marketing Automation to
Your Decision Makers
3. WHAT THE EXECUTIVE SUITE NEEDS TO KNOW
If I’m anyone in the
C-suite evaluating an
investment, unless you tell
me otherwise, it feels like
money out of my pocket. So
help me understand how
you’re helping me spend
money to make money.
- MATT HEINZ
President
Heinz Marketing
Need Help Crafting Your Strategic Plan?
We can help you build a proposal that meets the specific needs
of your business and executive team. Contact us today

RESPONSIBLE FOR:
• Fully understanding all disciplines
including sales, marketing,
finance, operations, and
product/technical aspects
• Developing a complete vision for the
company, both near- and long-term
• Setting the company’s values and
ethics, and leading by example
CONCERNED ABOUT:
• The entire revenue cycle – top-
line growth and profitability
• Customer satisfaction and loyalty
• The competition
The CEO
WHAT YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON:
1. Having Sales on Board:
Your CEO will likely ask stakeholders for their opinion, in particular
the sales team. The chance of your proposal getting accepted
will increase significantly when the sales team is behind it.
• TIP: Get buy-in from sales first, before you sell to the CEO.
• DATA POINT: 80% of marketing automation users saw their number of leads
increase, and 77% saw the number of conversions increase. (Venture Beat Insight,
“Marketing Automation: How to Make the Right Buying Decision (the First Time))
2. Selling Demand Generation, Not Features
CEOs don’t care about a system’s features; they care about measurable
business results – customers and revenue. Be sure to clearly articulate
how marketing automation will help generate more demand for your
company’s products and services which, by extension, will drive more sales.
• TIP: Include an explanation of lead management. Your CEO will know what
lead generation is, but may be unfamiliar with how leads are actually managed.
Demand-generation processes such as targeted content marketing, lead
scoring, and lead nurturing are key strengths of marketing automation. They’re
essential for increasing qualified leads, new and repeat sales, and revenue.
• DATA POINT: 80% of CEOs at top-performing companies indicate that their
most compelling reason for implementing marketing automation is to increase
revenue, and 76% say to get higher quality leads. (Gleanster, Aug 2013)

The CEO (continued)
- DAVID RAAB
Marketing Technology Consultant
Raab Associates
Marketing
automation replaces
separate systems
for email, web
visitor tracking,
lead scoring,
nurture campaigns,
campaign
management,
and reporting
with one solution
that streamlines
marketing processes
and shares data with
sales.
3. Metrics that Demonstrate Results:
Illustrate marketing automation’s value by tying it directly to the metrics
your CEO cares about. Emphasize that the CEO can check up-to-
the-minute reports and have on-demand access to dashboards that
show campaign effectiveness in real time and across time.
• TIP: Keep the metrics high-level but tied to revenue and profitability. Some ideas
include lead-to-opportunity conversion ratios, sales quota attainment rates,
percentages of marketing-sourced sales opportunities, and database growth.
• DATA POINT: Marketing automation high performers have an average of 60%
higher lead-to-sale conversion rating. These high performers rate cost of customer
acquisition (COCA) 1.4x stronger. (The 2014 Marketing Score Report)
• DATA POINT: Businesses that have automated significant portions of
their marketing processes see revenue from marketing-generated leads
increase by an average of 34%. (MathMarketing, Nov 2013)
• DATA POINT: B2B marketers who have implemented marketing automation contribute
10% more of the sales pipeline via marketing programs than do marketers who have not
implemented marketing automation (44% versus 34%). (Forrester Research, Jan 2014)

RESPONSIBLE FOR:
• Influencing and implementing a
diversity of business-critical objectives
including corporate strategy, content
strategy, product innovations,
pricing, and brand creative
• Leading the way to deliver customer
value and company revenue against
the backdrop of drastically changing
consumer behavior and needs
• Collaborating with every department
to optimize customer experiences,
leverage new technology, and push
the boundaries of creativity
CONCERNED ABOUT:
• Driving customer engagement,
retention, loyalty, and advocacy
• Broadening their expertise
beyond traditional marketing to
encompass new technologies,
online and offline engagement
channels, and big data analytics
• Demonstrating marketing’s
contribution and effectiveness,
particularly to revenue
The CMO
1. Reaching the Right Prospects in Relevant and Effective Ways:
A great benefit of marketing automation is its function as a central
repository for profile information; the system can track, aggregate
and manage the demographics, behaviors and interests of every
prospect, lead, and customer. This opens up endless opportunities for
synchronizing the full spectrum of online and offline marketing channels
– email, websites, social media, advertising, trade shows, sales calls,
call centers, etc. – to increase demand, engagement, and sales.
• TIP: Articulate the core capabilities that allow marketers to identify
the right prospects for their campaigns and send messages that
optimize engagement throughout the buyer’s journey. Examples include
automated list segmentation, targeting and personalization, lead
nurturing and scoring, and trigger campaigns, all of which leverage the
power of profiling to deliver value and shorten the sales cycle.
• DATA POINT: When comparing the winning vendor to the rest of
the considered vendors, 61% of buyers agreed that the winning
vendor delivered a better mix of content appropriate for each
stage of the purchasing process. (DemandGen, Jan 2014)
• DATA POINT: 67% of B2B marketers say lead nurturing increases sales
opportunities throughout the funnel by at least 10%, with 15% seeing
opportunities increase by 30% or more. (DemandGen, Oct 2014)

The CMO (continued)
- DEAN CRUTCHFIELD
Brand Advisor
Forbes
The CMO role has
evolved significantly.
No longer is it just
about marketing;
now more than ever
the role requires
being myopic about
the consumer,
fanatical about
innovation, and a
leader in the C-suite.
2. Building Buyer Relationships at Scale:
CMOs are tasked with increasing market share and customers while staying within
the confines of limited resources and budgets. So it’s important to emphasize
that automation manages a majority of the iterative and labor-intensive processes
involved in campaign and lead management. This significantly reduces the
number of manual touches needed to engage a prospect, letting marketing build,
nurture, and manage relationships at huge scale without increasing resources.
• TIP: Use a real-world example from your business to show how marketers can employ
automated programs such as segmentation, lead nurturing, and scoring to engage prospects
through all stages of the funnel. Diagrams work well to illustrate how leads are automatically
channeled into the correct nurture streams – no matter if there’s one lead or thousands.
• DATA POINT: Businesses that have implemented marketing automation
reduce customer churn by an average of 43% over businesses
that do not automate. (MathMarketing, Nov 2013)
3. Demonstrating Marketing’s Impact to Revenue Goals:
Today’s CMOs must be rainmakers – they are expected to grow the
sales pipeline and increase conversion rates of deals in the pipeline.
Emphasize how marketing automation gives CMOs the ability to
concretely tie marketing efforts to revenue contribution.
• TIP: Don’t get too detailed here. Focus on the success metrics your CMO
cares about, and then show how they can see comprehensive, comparative,
integrated views of performance and attribute it directly to revenue.
• DATA POINT: Marketers have to juggle a growing portfolio of channels
and touchpoints with relevant, targeted marketing content. However, only
38% of marketers have a single view of customer interactions across
digital touchpoints and interaction history. (Forrester, Dec 2013)
• DATA POINT: Only 21% of B2B marketers say they are successful at
tracking ROI. (CMI and MarketingProfs, Sep 2014)
Did You Know?
The average tenure of today’s CMOs is 45
months, nearly double what it was in 2006.
According to executive recruiting firm Spencer
Stuart, the improvement is due in part to a
new breed of marketing executives that are
more sophisticated about technology.
Still, CMO tenure pales in comparison to
CEO tenure, which averages 7 years.

RESPONSIBLE FOR:
• Implementing and supervising
internal controls, including
management of cash flow and
overhead expenses, vendor payment
terms, and company liabilities
• Developing the annual
budget; analyzing capital
investment requirements
• Cultivating good working
relationships with outside
financing sources
CONCERNED ABOUT:
• Controlling costs
• Identifying strategies that
will increase profits
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Reducing risks
The CFO
1. Total Cost of Ownership:
Your CFO will expect to see all costs associated with the implementation
and management of a marketing automation system, so do the
math on the platform, the people, and the content. It’s essential to
be upfront about real-world costs, as well as show the benefits of
making such an investment. Both underscore your credibility and
evoke more confidence from those who control the purse strings.
• TIP: Create a table that shows the specific line items and costs broken
down by month, quarter, and annually. Be sure to include contract
terms, setup fees, and usage/subscription costs per user or list size.
• TIP: Think about the expertise that will be needed (e.g., a demand-
generation manager, content creators, etc.) and run a thorough analysis
to ensure the benefits outweigh the costs. For example, although
it will cost money to implement a marketing automation platform and
potentially add some number of resources, the benefits – e.g., increased
opportunity, increased conversion yield, optimized use of sales reps’ time,
elimination of repetitive tasks, and increased productivity per headcount
– should trump the costs. Additionally, they’re easy to do the math on.

The CFO (continued)
2. Metrics that Inform Strategic Allocation of Funds:
The depth and breadth of real-time data collection and customized
reporting available from a marketing automation system enables you to not
only measure campaign results, but also quantify the cost-effectiveness of
marketing channels, both standalone and in relation to the buyer’s journey.
• TIP: Emphasize how automated reports and on-demand, customizable
dashboards make it easy to gain complete visibility of what’s working
and what’s not. This helps your CFO make informed decisions about where
to spend budget in order to reap the biggest financial gains.
3. Tying Marketing Automation to ROI:
Today’s CMOs must be rainmakers – they are expected to grow the
sales pipeline and increase conversion rates of deals in the pipeline.
Emphasize how marketing automation gives CMOs the ability to
concretely tie marketing efforts to revenue contribution.
• TIP: Demand-generation processes are among the easiest to tie to ROI. Start by
thinking through the sales and marketing processes: demand generation, lead generation,
nurturing, conversion, repeat sales. Assess the headcount and time necessary for each
activity and translate those into costs. Spotlight how marketing automation will enable
the company to do more with the same headcount/hours it is already paying for.
• DATA POINT: 78% of successful marketers say marketing automation systems
are most responsible for improving revenue contribution. (The Lenskold
Group 2013 Lead-Generation Marketing Effectiveness Study, (2013))
ROI Outcomes
Assumptions are a common
method for demonstrating
projected results and
getting agreement.
Make “worst case,” “expected
case,” and “best case”
assumptions to show the range
of possible ROI outcomes.
- CATHERINE HOWARD
Head of UK Marketing
Atos
If the CFO can support
you in decisions and
understands how
the marketing spend
delivers value for the
organization, then it
is much easier for the
rest of the executive
[team] to understand.

RESPONSIBLE FOR:
• Driving the strategic analysis and
(re)engineering of business
processes, including initiatives,
responsibilities, and timing
• Implementing technologies essential
to strategic and operational goals
• Defining and overseeing the
processes and practices that support
information accessibility and flow
CONCERNED ABOUT:
• Balancing the competing demands of
technology, business needs,
and risk
• Analytics and business intelligence
• Service availability
• Data and system security
The CIO
1. How the Solution Works:
Your CIO understands the technology-based systems and solutions.
Your role is to help define the hard questions for assessing if – and
how – they fit into the business infrastructure. Generalities don’t
work here. It’s important to deliver a comprehensive description of
the automation platform in a way that enables your CIO to evaluate
both the business need and the effort needed to execute.
• TIP: Be prepared to provide very specific design and architectural
components needed to integrate the solution. Examples include how it’s
hosted, what business capabilities it replaces or adds, how data is stored and
secured, what type of ongoing support the vendor offers, and what effort
and support will be needed from the IT team in the short- and long-term.
2. Integrating Disparate Tools:
Tying together disconnected tools offers big benefits to the IT
department: It streamlines the overall infrastructure and processes, saves
resource time and effort, and reduces errors, all of which (added bonus)
lower costs. Built-in analytics tools can consolidate multiple reporting
mechanisms into a single view, helping IT quickly assess system health.
• TIP: If sales uses a CRM tool, spotlight how most automation platforms
integrate with CRM, which is a game-changer for optimizing resources,
improving sales-funnel velocity, and increasing sales. Other integration
points include web services, blog and webinar platforms, and pay-per-click
campaigns. Uncover where your company could best integrate with the
platform, so you can articulate those areas – including benefits – to the CIO.

The CIO (continued)
3. Improving Data Integrity:
The ability to easily integrate with a wide variety of business-critical tools
and systems delivers an additional and essential benefit: data accuracy.
Marketing automation platforms effectively map, exchange, and synchronize
data between all touchpoints, which reduces errors and duplication.
• TIP: Technology leaders focus on providing services in advance of business
needs and initiatives. When engaging your CIO, show how marketing
automation can help support business growth (even high-speed and
high scale) without a loss of data control, accuracy, or integrity.
• DATA POINT: 60% of IT decision makers cite “managing data quality”
as their biggest challenge. (Forrester Research, Jan 2014)
Be Sure To...
Introduce the CIO to the
marketing automation vendor
as early as possible to facilitate
a smooth implementation.
Cost-Savings
Many marketing
automation systems
require little-to-no IT
resources to implement,
set up and manage, and
cloud-based systems
require no hardware.
In addition, most
automation systems
don’t require technical
savvy to use. These all
contribute to significant
cost savings.

RESPONSIBLE FOR:
• Increasing company revenue
• Managing sales teams to
deliver profitable growth
• Collaborating with marketing
functions to establish successful lead
generation and conversion
CONCERNED ABOUT:
• Quotas
• Lead quality and quantity
• Increasing sales conversion
The VP of Sales
1. Increasing Lead Quality and Quantity:
Your VP of Sales must be convinced that a new system will
generate more leads and result in more sales. Making the case
is relatively easy to do because marketing automation is a lead-
management machine. To get the sales executive on your side,
you must connect the dots: from lead-management processes
to more qualified leads to increased sales conversions.
• TIP: Begin by working with sales reps to understand their current
processes, including the tools used, the time it takes, and the average
results. Then itemize how marketing automation can optimize each. For
example, lead scoring prioritizes leads based on interest and engagement,
giving sales definitive knowledge on who to call, when, and what to discuss.
Segmentation allows reps to refine and target their communications more
effectively. Lead nurturing campaigns and related tactics such as drip and
trigger marketing keep leads engaged and moving along the buyer’s journey.
• DATA POINT: Best-in-Class firms are more than 2X more likely to use lead
nurturing with a MAP than Laggard firms (68% vs. 27%). (Aberdeen Group
“State of Marketing Automation 2014: Processes that Produce,” 2014)
• DATA POINT: Best-in-Class firms are more than 4X more likely to use
database segmentation and targeting with a Marketing Automation
Provider than Laggard firms. A difference of 78% vs. 23%. (Aberdeen Group
“State of Marketing Automation 2014: Processes that Produce,” 2014)
• DATA POINT: Best-in-Class companies reduced close cycle time by an average
of 49%, compared with a 30% improvement by all other companies. (Aberdeen
Group “State of Marketing Automation 2014: Processes that Produce” (2014))
• DATA POINT: 88% of top-performing companies are effective in routing
“hot” leads to Sales vs. 57% of All Others. (Aberdeen Group “State
of Marketing Automation 2014: Processes that Produce,” 2014)

The VP of Sales (continued)
2. Meeting and Exceeding Quotas:
Similarly to the CFO, your VP of Sales is all about the numbers – phone calls,
emails, campaign touches, qualified leads, closed deals. Meeting quota is
critical to company revenue, which means getting highly qualified leads to the
sales team is crucial. It’s essential to clearly show how marketing automation
increases the sales team’s ability to strike when the iron is hot; that is, to
quickly connect with leads, continue conversations, and close sales.
• TIP: Focus on the built-in capabilities that directly impact sales’ ability to meet its
quotas. For example, automated lead scoring allows reps to identify and prioritize
sales-ready leads based on points scored. Integration with CRM keeps all contact
information and histories in one place, allowing reps to increase efficiency
while using the sales tool they’re most familiar with. If Act-On is your platform
of choice, it includes website prospecting and real-time alerts, giving sales teams
immediate intelligence about who is visiting the website and what they’re viewing.
• TIP: Quantify the benefits by creating a side-by-side comparison of current
sales metrics versus projected sales metrics after implementing marketing
automation. The math is easy to do and the data pack a powerful punch.
• DATA POINT: 80% of marketing automation users saw their number of leads
increase, and 77% saw the number of conversions increase. (Venture Beat Insight,
“Marketing Automation: How to Make the Right Buying Decision (the First Time))
• DATA POINT: Marketing automation high performers have an average of 60%
higher lead-to-sale conversion rating. (The 2014 Marketing Score Report)
Doing the Math...
Find out what your sales team’s current
rates are, and then run the numbers
based on the averages your marketing
automation vendor sees from its
customers. Here’s an example of what
Act-On customers see:
increase in monthly lead flow
(RME360)
increase in lead-to-opportunity
conversion (LEGO® Education)
increase in qualified leads
(NuGrowth Solutions)
increase in revenue
(To the Point Marketing)
49%
192%
29%
68%

The VP of Sales (continued)
3. Aligning Sales and Marketing:
Cooperation between sales and marketing is essential to achieving
revenue targets because both departments are responsible for top-line
growth: marketing generates leads and passes them to sales, and sales
closes deals. It’s important to specifically highlight marketing automation
as a proven mechanism for bridging the sales-marketing divide.
• TIP: Emphasize how marketing automation makes the customer lifecycle visible
and measurable in multiple ways. This allows both teams to see and share real-time
intelligence, craft aligned campaigns, and meet their respective quotas. For example,
lead scoring helps marketing deliver more qualified leads to sales. Segmentation, search
history, and visitor tracking allow sales to triangulate on the hottest opportunities.
• DATA POINT: After implementing a marketing automation platform the increased
collaboration between sales and marketing leads to:
• 17% advantage in capturing insight from prospects and customers
• A 13% advantage executing and defining field programs
• A 12% advantage in managing leads and lead pipelines
(Forrester Research “The Forrester Wave: Lead-To-Revenue
Management Platform Vendors” (Q1 2014))
• DATA POINT: Companies that use marketing automation are more likely
than companies without automation to capture intelligence for the sales
team, 35% vs. 19%. (The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups, Nov 2013)
The Benefits of
Alignment
Hugh MacFarlane, founder
and CEO of MathMarketing,
conducted an alignment
benchmarking study by
surveying 1,400 professionals in
84 countries. The study found
that the businesses with the
greatest degree of alignment:
Grow 5.4% faster
than their less-aligned
counterparts when
compared with businesses in
the same industry
Close 38%
more proposals
than non-aligned businesses
Lose 36%
fewer customers
to competitors

What Your Business Case Should Include
To improve your chances for getting executive management’s buy-in, below
is a list of key items to address as you craft your business case:
Clear objectives for implementing
Specific benefits of marketing
automation adoption and how they
map to company objectives.
Technological components and benefits.
For example, are you recommending
email, website visitor tracking, social
integration? If so, why? What about
CRM integration? SEO auditing?
Data sources, including integrations with
your CRM systems, other prospect and
customer data, and campaign data.
Budget and milestones – i.e., the
real-world schedule and costs for
implementation. This includes
phases, technologies, and reasonable
times/milestones for learning,
evolving, and refining to the point
where ROI can be achieved.
Analytics and reporting.
Be wary of offering
generic benefits like
“increased marketing
ROI” or “shorter selling
cycles.” Those benefits
may be legitimate
possibilities, but they
carry less weight when
they could apply to any
organization. Instead,
identify the most
pressing sales and
marketing challenges
at your company, and
speak to those specific
issues.
- HOWARD SEWELL
President
Spear Marketing Group
ROI projections, including:
Outline the volume of activity
required to meet lead, quota, and
revenue goals. Base this on historic
data in your target market.
Calculate what sales and marketing
activities cost now (without
marketing automation).
Calculate potential improvement in
costs and results after implementing
Calculate current and projected
profit improvements.
Define the results of sales and
marketing alignment in terms of
lead generation, qualification,
and enhanced cooperation.
Risk management, include risks
associated with adopting and not
adopting marketing automation.
Timelines and target dates.


4. Closing Thoughts
& Resources

Make Your Case
4. CLOSING THOUGHTS AND RESOURCES
The business value of marketing automation varies according
to how an organization applies the technology.
• For the small marketing team, it might be time savings.
• For the marketer with lead generation quotas, it might be the ability to
customize and coordinate cross-channel marketing campaigns.
• For the marketer focused on sales enablement, it could be the ability to
use automated programs such as lead nurturing and lead scoring.
• For the sales team, it might be more and better-qualified leads, nuanced intelligence
about a lead’s needs, a shorter sales cycle, or a real-time list of hot prospects.
Much of buying and selling – and most of the buyer’s journey – is conducted
online. Marketing automation gives organizations the infrastructure and tools
to take full advantage of cross-channel digital marketing, and do it at scale
to match changes in business growth, budgets, resources, and skillsets.
Taken as a whole, marketing automation offers impressive upside that’s hard to match:
The simplicity of a single platform, extensive cross-funnel capabilities, native and
non-native integrations with many business-critical tools, low/no need for IT
resources or technical skills, quick implementation, and cloud-based economics.
The benefits are numerous, including the ability to understand your
prospects and customers, have well-timed and personal interactions
with them, and empirically tie marketing efforts to revenue.
If your organization hasn’t yet embraced marketing automation, we hope this
eBook provides a compelling argument to get the conversation started.

TRY THIS:
Know Your Goals
BEFORE YOU SEEK
EXECUTIVE SUPPORT:
• Know which business
goals are worth pursuing
and also attainable with
• Know the company
objectives marketing
automation can support.
• Know what internal support
you have. Is the marketing
staff willing? Does sales
see this as an avenue
for more/better leads
and a more collaborative
working relationship?
• Know how you plan to
measure success.

Making Your Marketing Life Easier
and More Effective
4. CLOSING THOUGHTS AND RESOURCES
CASE STUDIES
• Manufacturing company’s web traffic has
doubled, sales revenue has climbed 15%,
and sales leads have grown year-over-year
by 33 percent with marketing automation
implementation. Learn how
• IT company automates sophisticated nurture
programs and streamline the collaboration
between marketing and sales – reducing
frustration and saving hundreds of hours of work
in the process. Learn how
• Marketing agency uses marketing automation
to extends the overall lifetime value (LTV) of its
customer relationships to nearly twice the length
of the typical agency-client relationship. They
tripled one client’s audience, saw an average
email click-through rate of 16%, and a boost in
landing page click-through rates as high as 80%.
Learn how
• University can now see and manage the lead
flow throughout the funnel seeing how leads
“convert”, or apply for programs. This insight
from marketing automation has improved
the recruitment process and management of
resources. Learn how
Read more case studies
REVIEWS, REPORTS,
& BLOGS
• Customer Experience Matrix
Analyst David Raab’s blog
• Gleanster Research
• Forrester Research (no subscription
needed to read blog posts)
• Software Advice (no subscription
needed to read blog posts)
• B2B Marketing Automation
Platforms 2014: A Buyer’s Guide
• Marketing Action Blog
TOOLS
• The Buyer’s Checklist for
• See how marketing automation can
improve your business with Act-On’s
free, interactive ROI Calculator
• Use our free A/B Test tool to identify
the webpage that converts best
• Get a free SEO Assessment of your
website’s home page
• More information about marketing
automation is available in the
Act-On Center of Excellence

Act-On Software is a marketing automation company delivering innovation that empowers marketers to do the best
work of their careers. Act-On is the only integrated workspace to address the needs of the customer experience, from
brand awareness and demand generation, to retention and loyalty. With Act-On, marketers can drive better business
outcomes and see higher customer lifetime value. The Act-On platform provides marketers with power they can
actually use, without the need for a dedicated IT resource.
About Act-On Software
Connect with us to learn more
www.act-on.com | @ActOnSoftware | #ActOnSW
See all of Act-On’s
awards & accolades...
Acclaim for Act-On
2013, 2014, 2015
Act-On Software is a marketing automation company delivering innovation that empowers marketers to do the best
work of their careers. Act-On is the only integrated workspace to address the needs of the customer experience, from
brand awareness and demand generation, to retention and loyalty. With Act-On, marketers can drive better business
outcomes and see higher customer lifetime value. The Act-On platform provides marketers with power they can
actually use, without the need for a dedicated IT resource.
About Act-On Software
Connect with us to learn more
www.act-on.com | @ActOnSoftware | #ActOnSW

A business case on Marketing Automation

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