Most assume that marketing automation is a big investment…I mean BIG. There are technology costs, resource costs, implementation and set up costs, major time spent, and more. We need to talk about this. It’s half true, but not completely true. Here’s why.
In General, Marketing Is Expensive
Marketing is expensive, and it is more expensive than ever. Gartner predicts by 2017, the CMO is going to have the biggest budget in the organization. Today, there are over 70 different marketing channels. You need over 5,000 ad impressions everyday to reach one person. This is a very high digital noise environment, which means it’s going to cost us more to engage in the future.
Find The Right Marketing Automation For You
The first step to getting started with marketing automation is determining what you need as a company. That will help you decide if this is going to be expensive or not.
A complete marketing automation solution ranges from $5 to $700 a month, all the way up to multiple thousands a month. It really depends on how deep you need to get with the automation.
The reality is there are two types of marketing automation. I like to call it marketing automation with a capital “A” and a lowercase “a.”
Marketing Automation with a capital “A” is the big solution, which will encompass all aspects of complete marketing automation. Though it can do everything a business would need, not all businesses are ready for this, or have a need for it. Some businesses simply need one or two things to be automated at their current stage.
Marketing automation with a lowercase “a” is a single tool, which can be strung together to accomplish specific tasks. For example, with the combination of tools such as Unbounce for landing pages, and Mail Chimp for email, you can accomplish many marketing automation goals without a full enterprise marketing automation solution.
Look at what you really need, and you might find that marketing automation with a lowercase “a” will work for you. Starting with single point solutions will help you understand the full value of a true marketing automation platform, should you move in that direction.
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This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: Is Marketing Automation A Big Investment?
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