How Does Marketing Automation Affect Your ROI?
Over the last 10 or so years, most business has evaluated almost every segment of their business to make sure they are squeezing every penny out of each segment of their cash flow and ROI. From trade show management, to accounting, to transportation and training, almost each aspect each operation has been finely tuned.
In the marketing department, there is one glaring hole that has been overlooked until recently. What is the value of a cold and/or warm prospect and how are you following up on each lead? How will marketing automation help my bottom line?
Companies are spending millions of dollars on marketing in order to build their customer base. The new client is at the heart of this base that the marketing dollar is trying to cultivate. Yet unfortunately, this may be one of the biggest drains on company resources. As an example, let’s look at some of the costs and ROI of an average trade show.
For a small company that is attending a trade show with a 10 x 10 booth, the costs are much higher than you may originally estimate. Not only are you paying for the space and all of the ancillary costs of getting your sales and marketing team to the booth but there are also the time that is spent cultivating the new business. While hard costs may be in the $10,000 range, let’s look at some of the soft costs:
Hours spent away from the selling process
Hours traveling
Follow Up
Let’s say you come back from a trade convention with 100 promising leads. How much did each lead cost? $100? $200? $500? The cost will of course be variable based on your particular business but the point is clear. Lead generation due to marketing activities may be on the largest costs to a company.
The reason I bring this to light is that there are now companies that are working to make sure this very important step of the sales process is not overlooked and that these very valuable leads are being nurtured correctly. Marketing automation tools are slowing becoming a best practices “must have” for successful business organizations.
Sharkbait is one of the most innovative companies that offer the sales and marketing team a multi-channeled approach to nurturing this step.
Whether its 3 PM or 11 PM companies like Sharkbait are managing your leads and helping you close more business.
