What does outsourcing marketing automation mean?
You put the building and upkeep of your automations with a team that works in them every day. That team connects your website, your ads and your CRM, so a lead is no longer retyped by hand and nobody has to guess who picks it up.
Marketing automation is often confused with email marketing. Email is one of the outcomes. The core is that your systems act on what a company does: views a page, fills in a form, opens a message.
What makes marketing automation in B2B different from a webshop:
- There are few leads and they are worth a lot, so each lead deserves its own route rather than a mass flow.
- Several people from the same company show interest, and they belong together in the CRM.
- Sales has to follow up the lead, so the automation ends with a person, not with an email.
That is why we build automations around the sales process. It fits the way we work, from buying signal to sales meeting, where marketing and sales share one system.
Leads come in and vanish into a spreadsheet
Companies rarely call us because they lack a tool. HubSpot is there, the licence runs, and still an enquiry arrives as an email with one colleague who is out that week.
In our projects we see the same causes. The tool was set up by the vendor, not around the company's own sales process. Nobody wrote down when a lead may go to sales. And the feedback is missing, so marketing never learns which leads became a meeting.
How we handle outsourced marketing automation
We work in four steps.
The monthly report shows per lead where it came from, who picked it up and what happened. In our projects the gain from marketing automation is rarely more emails and almost always the route from lead to the right account manager.
We mostly work in HubSpot, but build just as well in the CRM you already have. Which companies show interest before they fill in a form, we pick up with sales intelligence and connect to the same route.
Lead comes in
Every source, from form to LinkedIn response to website visit, lands in one place in your CRM.
Enrich with company data
We add company name, size, sector and the pages visited, so sales knows who is calling before they call.
Route to sales
Based on rules you agree with sales, the lead goes to the right account manager, with a task and a deadline.
Follow up and report back
Whoever is not ready yet gets email at the right moment. Whoever is ready gets called. And every outcome goes back to marketing.
sales sees which companies visit the site, linked to the CRM
Who outsourcing marketing automation works for, and who it does not
It works when leads already come in and there is a sales team that wants to pick them up.
- You have several sources of leads and several people following them up.
- Your buying journey is long enough for follow-up at the right moment to matter.
- Sales wants to take part in the agreements on when a lead is theirs.
It does not work in every situation, and we would rather say so up front.
- No leads come in yet. Then you build demand first; automating nothing produces nothing.
- You mainly want a tool to send newsletters.
- Sales does not want rules on follow-up. Then the system routes to an empty chair.
How we work together
The person you speak to also builds the automations; there is no junior in between. Once a month we go through with marketing and sales which leads came in, where they landed and what changes the month after.
From you we need access to your CRM and your website, and a sales team willing to shape the follow-up rules. The CRM stays yours, with all the data in it.
Frequently asked questions
What is an example of marketing automation?
An example of marketing automation in B2B: a buyer views your pricing page three times, the system recognises the company, enriches it with sector and size, and sets a task for the account manager of that region. They call the same day. Without automation that visit would never have been noticed.
What are marketing automations?
Marketing automations are rules that make your systems act on what someone does: filling in a form, viewing a page, opening an email. The action can be an email, but also a task for sales, a change in the CRM or a message in a chat channel. In B2B the most valuable automations sit between marketing and sales.
What does outsourcing marketing automation cost?
Outsourcing marketing automation costs the licence of your tool plus the work to set it up and maintain it. What is sensible depends on the number of sources, the number of people in sales and the state of your CRM today. We work it out together in a first meeting.