Do You Need Marketing Automation Sales Enablement or Both

Determining whether or not you need marketing automation, sales enablement—or all of the aboveTrying to figure out if you need marketing automation, sales enablement—or perhaps both can be quite challenging. There are many factors to take into consideration to determine what will best meet your current needs. For example, if obtaining leads is not an issue—but conversions have room for improvement, then a sales enablement platform may be the best investment. However, if you are short on leads but good at conversions—then marketing automation may be the best investment.
The 2 examples above are fairly general, and your circumstances may be far more complex—which may require both marketing automation and sales enablement to increase your efficiency.
4 Key Indicators
Before you make your final decision, there are 4 key indicators that you must take into consideration—to ensure that you are investing both your time and money wisely. These indicators are:
Foundational Structure
Before making any technology investments, you must ensure that you have the foundational structure required to ensure success. There are many factors within your foundational structure that will determine if you are ready. Your team must be knowledgeable in the technology you are investing in—or eager and ready to learn. In fact, they should be excited about the advanced technology you are investing in. You will also see the most success if you have a system in place to integrate your sales and marketing functions into a complementary process.
Size Of Your Organization
The fact of the matter is, the more feature-rich your automation system is—the more manpower will be required to get it up and running, and manage it on a daily and weekly basis. Eloqua is an excellent example of a marketing automation system which requires increased manpower. For smaller organizations who are in need of improved technology— RO|Enablement is an ideal solution which requires both less bandwidth and manpower.
Financial Investment
While your goal in purchasing marketing automation or sales enablement technology is among many things to increase conversions—you must ensure that the solution you select fits within your budget. Quality technology will undoubtedly require a substantial investment, if you are on a budget—look for a simple purpose-built solution that can grow with you as your needs (and budget) increase.
Capabilities
While the 3 indicators above are important, it is imperative that you understand what functions the technology you are investing have to offer—and that they meet your needs. Consider:
• Do you require a fully integrated software system that works with the technology you already have?
• Do you require fully customizable marketing and sales technology?
• Does it have all the bells and whistles you desire?
• Does it have too many bells and whistles—which can indicate you are paying for more than you need?
• What return on your investment do you expect?
Asking the questions above will get you heading in the right direction. If you are in need of hyper-targeted sales enablement—RO|Enablement will provide you with the increased capability you require, without excess.
The 4 key indicators above will help you to define your current needs, and whether you require both marketing automation and sales enablement—or just one of the two.