According to an article in MarketingProfs, by Ayaz Nanji, entitled 2014 Marketing Automation Benchmarks and Trends, nearly 45% of global marketers report that lacking an effective strategy hampered their marketing efforts ...and these are people who already have marketing automation. This statistic is astounding to me!Isn't the job of global marketing to create and implement an effective strategy to gain online leads for sales? A marketing automation tool is the engine that facilitates the execution of the strategy. Not the strategy itself. This leads me to believe that these companies either A.) thought that the tool would do all of the work for them, or B.) they have insufficient training in the tool's functionality to use it effectively ...or both.
Coombs Marketing is a HubSpot Partner. HubSpot has an amazingly effective certification program that covers everything from product features and functionality to best practices and strategies for success. Not only do they provide training on their tools, they also work one-on-one with their customers at all levels to help ensure their success with HubSpot. This incredible level of service is extended, not only to their partners but to their direct customers, as well. They will help you develop a winning strategy, or give you feedback on your own. (This blog isn't meant to be a sales pitch for HubSpot, but they do give unbelieveable support to both their clients and partners alike!)
44% of marketers cited budget limitations
The second trend (obstacle) to successful marketing automation was budget limitations (note: the same people were part of the previous statistic). My takeaway from this goes directly to my first point, You cannot show a return on investment without having an effective strategy. If you can't show ROI, then the likelihood of being given a decent marketing budget is very low. It's a "catch 22" situation that all hinges on your strategy.
40% claimed lack of skilled staff
The third obstacle cited was lack of skilled staff. This could mean a couple of things. First, if your marketing staff is comprised of traditional marketing people and they have not educated themselves in the Inbound Marketing Methodology, then marketing automation platforms probably won't help them at the level that they should. Second, there are thousands of Inbound Marketers out there with the know-how to create an effective marketing strategy and who have the experience, tools, and training to execute on it. Whether you hire one of these people to work with your staff, or outsource that part of your marketing to an agency, your company has options.
The remaining obstacles, insufficient data quality, lack of management buy-in, difficult user interface, ineffective metrics, and not enough leads, all are affected by this inherant lack of an effective strategy.
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