At Idea Spring we've found three main issues common to most organizations:
Online marketing seems to hit almost all of those categories.
Today, it takes diverse skillets to launch, run, and manage effective marketing campaigns. And just as you've tuned your marketing strategy, and everything is humming along -- the rules suddenly change. What worked as a best practice yesterday, could tank your results tomorrow.
Since marketing and marketing automation are no longer just something the "big businesses" do... it is something that everyone needs. I'd even argue that is more true for the small businesses and solo-entrepreneurs. Marketing automation is vital for companies with limited time and resources.
Idea Spring has worked with a number of the leading platforms, and our consensus is that it's really a function of finding the right tool for the right job. However, none of the platforms are a good choice if you don't have a solid marketing and content strategy developed first.
The more integrated the platform, the less agile those systems are at dealing with both strategic and technological change. That's why our platform takes a modular approach to content management and automation. We look at the functionality of each component and wire them together to build the right solution based on budget and need. As the technology or rules change, we can then substitute for a different individual tool instead of the entire system.
As a result, our tip to anyone needing to maximize time and resources, and considering making the important move to marketing automation -- the best first investment you can make is to start with your marketing strategy and content strategy. Finally, when you know your game plan, you find the right platform.