Six Mistakes to Avoid In Selecting a Marketing Automation System – Savvy B2B Marketing.

We’re pleased to present this guest post byDavid Raab, who specializes in marketing technology and analysis. Read on for insights into the right way to choose a marketing automation system.

Marketing automation systems have reached that magical moment when people start to want one without knowing exactly how they’lluse it. That’s largely a good thing: most marketing departments can indeed benefit from the broader capabilities, higher productivity, and more precise measurement that marketing automation provides. But it also means that many buyers are moving toward a purchase decision with little concrete guidance. Here are some errors to avoid along the way.

1. Buying Because Everyone Else Is. As your mother said at some point: You wouldn’t jump off a bridge just because everyone else did, so why should you buy a marketing automation system just because they do? (Ok, maybe not in those exact words.) But Mom was right: the reason to buy a marketing automation system is because you know you need it. This means you must define how you’ll use it, what benefits you’ll get, and what financial value those benefits provide. Some possibilities include :

• Generate more leads by allocating your budget to more productive channels
• Identify the companies of anonymous Web site visitors and reach out to likely contactsS
• Save Web production costs by creating your own landing pages and surveys
• Send better-qualified leads to sales by using nurture campaigns to prebuild relationships and lead scoring to decide who is ready for sales contact

Continues @http://www.savvyb2bmarketing.com