CMSWire: The Dos and Don'ts of Marketing Automation #rdm12

By Dan Berthiaume

In a panel discussion at today’s Revenue-Driven Marketing Summit hosted by Aberdeen Group in Boston, MA, “Unlocking the Secrets of Marketing Automation Success,” four marketing executives with experience in successfully deploying marketing automation technology shared their experiences and offered some first-hand advice on what to do and not to do when introducing marketing automation to your organization. Brian Mullins, director of marketing communications for Imprivata, a provider of sign-in/authorization solutions for the healthcare industry, said sales alignment is crucial to the success of marketing automation, especially for a smaller company. “First the EVP of sales needs to say ‘I understand what this is and how it works,’ and then get that commitment throughout all the sales levels in your organization,” advised Mullins. As an example, he said Imprivata connects its marketing automation application to a Salesforce CRM tool, but without salespeople properly entering leads from the marketing automation tool so they can be tracked, the solution will not work.