5 Critical factors to consider when identifying a Marketing Automation Platform:
- 1. How flexible do you need the MAP vendor to be? Can they help make adjustments to your needs quickly? A smaller company may be able to do so but an Oracle-Eloqua or an IBM-Unica may not (unless you are big enough.)
- 2. How quickly can you go from brainstorm to dashboard? Do you need an analytics team or a BI implementation to run your reports or can the platform enable a marketing manager to manage the process?
- 3. Does the platform architecture meet with your requirements? For instance, some platforms will allow one campaign to be executed across multiple channels whereas in other platforms, you may need an individual campaign per channel. How does that affect your tracking/reporting needs?
- 4. Given your long-term needs, how scalable do you need the platform to be? Does the platform have a robust API to integrate into 3rd party applications like a BI tool or a Social Media Monitoring tool?
- 5. Last but not the least, how is their customer service rated in the industry? A MAP is a fairly complex technology and integration into 3rd Party applications is crucial to its success. If you do run into a road block, how quickly can they get you going?
Just my $0.02, feel free to add to the list….
–parin
With over two decades of experience, Parin leads an expert demand-generation agency, StratMg, that helps industrial manufacturing clients achieve unambiguous and quantified organic sales growth across the US, EMEA & APAC.
Parin has built & positioned StratMg to be a value-added marketing services provider that strives to create a culture of quantified sales-driven marketing initiatives leading to sustained business growth through channel management, diversification, new customer acquisition and retention strategies and tactical execution.
