{"id":6825,"date":"2015-12-02T05:07:06","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T11:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vendasta.com\/blog\/?p=6825"},"modified":"2025-12-05T21:45:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T21:45:45","slug":"marketing-automation-to-drive-revenue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vendasta.com\/blog\/marketing-automation-to-drive-revenue\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing Automation to Drive Revenue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marketing automation is a hot buzzword right now. It is a technique that makes teams more efficient and effective, automating manual tasks that used to take lots of time. However, there are two words that come to me whenever I hear about a marketing automation system: email overload.<\/p>\n

I get too much email in a day, and guess what, you also get too much email in a day! So can email marketing bring as much benefit as it claims if its main component, the automated email blast, is filling up our inbox and causing us to go crazy? The answer is yes, of course it can!<\/p>\n

The problem is not with marketing automation but rather with \u201ctypical\u201d automation systems. Because most of these typical systems are typically bad, I\u2019m going to point out what typical email marketing gets wrong and how your team can fix it.<\/p>\n

You Need Purple Cows: Why Remarkable Content Still Wins<\/h2>\n

Seth Godin is the marketing prophet of the 21st century. I subscribe to his blog and read it daily. You can subscribe <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>, if you\u2019d like. One of his books, <\/span>Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable<\/span><\/a>, <\/span><\/i>speaks to making your business exceptionally memorable through marketing. His analogy is the purple cow: if you saw a purple cow in a field of regular cows, you\u2019d remember it.<\/span><\/p>\n

What do purple cows have to do with marketing automation? It all comes down to content. We\u2019ve all heard the saying that content is king, but in this era of email overload, we get bombarded with a ton of content. Your content and your marketing automation strategy needs to be a purple cow in order to stand out from the crowded inbox. Seth Godin gives everyone a simple five step process in <\/span>Purple Cow<\/span><\/i>:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Sell what people are buying<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Focus on the early adopters and sneezers<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Make it remarkable enough for them to pay attention<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Make it easy for them to spread<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Let it work its own way to the mass market<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Easier said than done I know, but this is the first step in creating a \u00a0campaign that works. If you want some more in-depth analysis of this Purple Cow concept, I recommend reading an old Fast Company article with an excerpt about <\/span>the 10 ways to raise a purple cow<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    It\u2019s Marketing Automation, Not Sales Automation<\/h2>\n

    This is something I always say with our partners that use our marketing automation system daily. No marketing automation system is ever going to make a sale<\/a>. A really good marketing automation system will notify your sales teams when individuals are ready to buy or interested in your product or service, but it still won\u2019t close the sale.<\/span><\/p>\n

    This is a good thing because the minute a tech company creates a sales automation platform over 13 million plus people will be out of work (<\/span>Salesloft<\/span><\/a>). In order for any marketing automation system to generate revenue the agency needs to have a sales team ready to act, based on the actions of your potential customers. Very straightforward but very true.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Complication Kills: The Biggest Problem With Typical Automation Tools<\/h2>\n

    For the sake of argument suppose you have first two things: you got gripping original content, and a kick ass sales team. This next problem is \u201ctypical\u201d marketing automation systems are complicated.<\/span><\/p>\n

    With a complicated system you spend too much time learning it and not enough time doing what you <\/span>need<\/span><\/i> to do. This problem is commonplace with digital media agencies across America. The stats are not painting a very good picture.<\/span><\/p>\n