http://www.marqui.com/blog/top-10-marketing-automation-must-haves-part1.aspx and http://www.marqui.com/blog/top-10-marketing-automation-must-haves-part-2.aspx

In reviewing these articles, I am prompted to tweet and discuss them. I spend a lot of my time furthering my knowledge around automation. Not necessarily because I am an advocate, but because I believe in its principles and find the leaders in the space creating the content around best practices.

Automation leaders today are saying that they can help you manage your revenue performance (RPM). I do believe a company needs the basics of automation, or at least its best practices, to run well these days. You have to profile your prospects and segment your approach in order to hit prospects with effective messaging. You have to lead score in order to drive lead management success. Digital intelligence improves your approach around both sales and marketing nurturing and conversions. You also have to have intelligence around your investments. For instance, if you are spending $20,000 to run a tradeshow, you have to be able to view your return on investment.

I still won’t say automation can turn your revenue around. Reason being, with any software, you will need to work at driving it. But the good leaders also help you drive it. This is the reason to go with a good leader- to have the hand holding of their training and customer success management. If you truly can’t invest, then again, my main point is to drive at its best practices.

Shannon