Marketing Automation's Magic Bullet

History is jampacked with world-changing miracles, some of which you’ve probably used. Penicillin, for example, or airplanes or smartphones. As a patient or passenger, the purpose is clear – cure disease and get from point A to point B. The smartphone, though, has several “basic purposes” – from phone calls to film clips to photos plus everything from email to enterprise access.

Marketing automation is somewhat akin to the smartphone – you can do a great deal, but it’s all aligned with... what? Generating leads? Routing inquiries? Converting leads into sales? Retaining customers? Boosting revenue? Announcing new products...? It could be all of them but, on its own, it’s none.

No matter how many features and functions a marketing automation platform (MAP) may have, they’re useless if you don’t know what you want to achieve. Yet vendors will try to persuade you that, no matter what marketing problems you have, a MAP is your map to a solution. They’re wrong.

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