Is Implementing Marketing Automation Always A Major Overhaul?

Video

Morag Cuddeford-Jones asks Nick Hill, CRM Manager at TalkTalk Business, and Andrew Freeman, CEO of CRM Technologies, whether or not you can implement marketing automation without requiring a large overhaul of the organisation.

This clip is from our webcast "TalkTalk Business: Lead Management Challenges Licked" in association with CRM Technologies. Click here to watch the full webcast on-demand.

[Morag Cuddeford-Jones:] You mentioned earlier on in the presentation that it's very important to get executive buy in for this sort of thing. Also, you mentioned the nervousness of integrating this into legacy systems, particularly with larger companies. Is marketing automation in general a major overhaul, or are there potentials for this to be bolted on, added in, tested and learned upon, before there's a big wholesale change, so that perhaps it can be made more acceptable at an executive level?

[Andrew Freeman:] There's certainly a phased approach you can take, yes, and a lot of companies, when they adopt marketing automation, will adopt it in a particular channel or a particular country even before it's rolled out to a wider extent. Different companies do it in different ways. I think the main messages, certainly in TalkTalk's case, the main messages that Nick talked about that were presented to the executive board stand fast anyway in terms of justifying how marketing needs to change, it doesn't necessarily justify marketing automation per se, but I think what it does is open the eyes of the executive board as to why marketing needs to change and why marketing plays a greater role, I would say, in that interim process.

I think the big thing at board level, and correct me if I'm wrong Nick, is about measurement. The board have been very used to measuring sales, and sales have been very good at forecasting and measuring their output. I think, to a lesser extent, that's been the case for marketing, and I think that's the enabling that marketing automation allows you to do, to be as scientific, as it were,about the process as sales have been for sometime.

[Nick Hill:] Yeah, and I think as much as understanding, what it also helps you do is allow you to understand what isn't working, and to stop those things, which sometimes is just as a big a win. You can really focus on areas that you know are driving leads and that are performing and try and optimise those, and work on how the tactics for how you get people through that process. It's better to do a few things really well rather than more things averagely. I find that really helps us a business.